Forgive the unoriginal title – time is so precious, I didn’t want to waste a second thinking more deeply about a better title!
It’s been a couple of weeks (and a couple of unsuccessful house offers) since I last touched base. I’ve been at my new job for three months. We’ve been back in NOLA for three months. We’re still in the apartment, half our stuff is still in storage. The boys love their $chool. I continue to be happy to have Alabama in the rearview, and I am enjoying NOLA but am frustrated with how NOLA seems determined to make it logistically impossible for anyone but the super rich to live here. This isn’t unique to NOLA, but the affordable housing squeeze and insane primary school nonsense situation just gives me ulcers.
My mind runs over it day and night – in my sleep I don’t even get a break, I dream about it – but there’s no use hashing it all out here and so let’s discuss instead various other items! As always happens when I’ve been away longer than a few days, my muse is “off” so, in the name of getting something down on “paper” and getting back in the groove, we’re going to do this thing low pressure, bullet point style:
- Craig is two years old, in all the ways. The stubbornness, the adorable baby phrasing, the volatility, the random violence (I come up and sneakily HIT my brother just because!) He is cute as a button and sleeping pretty well right now, after an unreasonably long transition period after our move from Alabama. He is all up in my business when I’m home, which drives me bonkers, but I miss him when we’re apart.
- Liam and Jack got to take a really amazing train trip that spanned the entire width of the country, from South Louisiana to Northernmost Indiana. They went with their dad to attend a family reunion of sorts on his side of the family, and Craig and I did not attend as I am chained to my job (*sob*) and could not spend 4 days traveling up and back, and the Prof just didn’t feel he could handle all three boys alone for basically 4 days on a train. So Craigsy stayed with me, and meanwhile the big boys had the absolute time of their lives. They got to sleep on the train and eat on the train and watched out the window of the observation car and sometimes watched movies on a portable DVD player. Then they arrived north and got to bask in the love of a lot of extended family, including much beloved cousins. They had a great Easter – the Easter bunny had Wal Mart ship some little baskets north, since our Easter baskets are YUP YOU GUESSED IT IN STORAGE. SO GLAD I PAINSTAKINGLY PUT ALL THOSE COLORED STICKY TABS ON EVERY ITEM IN MY HOUSE SO THE MOVERS COULD PATENTLY IGNORE THEM AND PACK THINGS IN ENTIRELY RANDOM FASHION.
- Meanwhile, Craig and I took a much shorter but still somewhat epic trip half the distance north, to Nashville. My sister had a bridal shower thrown for her that same weekend, and after determining I could not take any time off to go to Indiana, I was then invited to come to Nashville for that. I didn’t have to take time off – this badass big sis drove 3 hours north on Thursday after work, finished 6 hours on Friday, attended the shower Saturday, and then took on the whole drive home on Easter Sunday. Now while I did *actually take* the firm holiday on Good Friday, which is deeply frowned upon and apparently absolutely every other lawyer on the floor was in the office that day, it was more important than billing and so I did it. And no emergencies came up that forced me to pull over and try to edit docs on my iPhone, and for that small blessing I was thankful!
- As a result of all this driving and traveling and being apart, our Easter was uneventful. My mother did assure that the Easter bunny left me, my littlest baby, and my sisters some filled baskets, which we all enjoyed finding early Sunday morning. Then the family went to church and Craig and I hit the road home. We arrived home after 6pm and I bought some pizza slices from Whole Foods, then we went to bed! It was a long drive to do alone, and I can’t tell you how fun it is to have to take your two year old with you to the grotty gas station bathroom absolutely every time you stop.
- I’m only writing this now because Liam is home sick with a fever. I feel just wiped – after several late nights of work this week and the weekend whirlwind trip, I’m beat. I’m about to go cuddle with him and try to fend off the marauding toddler from molesting him too much as he tries to lay quietly and snooze, as we wait for Daddy to come home and make us dinner. Let’s hope we don’t have the terrible flu that has been taking out MILPs left and right!