Another sign we're growing up fast

Theo was begging for attention all day, so after dinner I sat down with him in the living room while he played. He stood up, ran over to me and started hugging my knees, pretty normal "I'm needy today" behavior. I thought I felt the beginning of a bite, so I pulled him away...

"Theo, no biting! Do you want to go to bed right now?"

Kid looks up at me and clear as day yells "YES!"

Ruth and I both blinked. "You heard that too? Well, OK then! Theo, if you want to go night-night, go to the stairs."

Quick as a flash, he's standing in front of the gate on the stairway. I took him upstairs and he practically put himself to sleep. Throw the books on the floor, can the songs, forget the milk, all he wanted was the crib.

Writing this down reminds me -- this wasn't even the first time he'd done this. During last month's road trip, probably the first or second night at my parents' house, he walked US through the bedtime routine. Out of the blue, long before we'd even considered bedtime, he grabbed Goodnight Moon and brought it over to Grandpa (who had pulled a lot of bedtime duty during his visit a couple weeks prior), then started pointing at the refrigerator door and yelling until I put it together -- he knows that's where his milk lives.

Never underestimate a toddler -- they know what they want, we just need to watch carefully and know the right questions to ask.

Life in my house

Ruth: "What are you nerding up to now?"

Me: "Thinking about a new blog post."

Ruth: "About what?"

Me: "I dunno. If I knew I'd be writing it."

Excitement?

A question I've been hearing a lot lately is "Are you excited about your new house?"

The answer, every time -- No. I'm not excited. Not even a little, and I'm not sure why.

It's a very nice house. It's in a gorgeous neighborhood. Our neighbors are friendly and generous with us. We're an easy walk or near-instant drive to everything we enjoy about Norfolk. There's very little it requires in the way of redecorating or repairs -- I painted a couple rooms and we're hanging curtain rods.

There's still plenty of boxes to empty and things to be organized and stored and hung on the walls, but when I'm not busy procrastinating, isn't all that part of the fun of a new place?

Yet, the only thing I've been even mildly excited about this week was our new refrigerator.

I definitely don't regret buying in the midst of the current financial climate. Before the real estate slowdown, this house would've easily sold for far more than we paid, so in that sense we got a "great deal." We have a solid, unspectacular loan with lots of money down from a local bank and my wife has an extremely secure, well-paid job in (sadly) a growth market. We also received some reminders during this move about the uncertainties and inconveniences of renting that left me happy we didn't go that route here.

Despite all our friends here, we did leave some friends and a comfortable routine behind in New England; I could just be missing our past lives, looking for something to replace them.

One possibility that has been sneaking into my head recently -- Ruth is weeks, or even just days, from getting on an airplane and heading to wherever her new ship will be meeting her. As we've learned from experience, approaching separations such as deployments cause all kinds of strange, almost random behavior when we know they're inevitable. This could be predeployment dread that I'm just directing at our new house.

Or, maybe I've finally truly internalized the nomadic lifestyle of the military family and it's left me hopelessly cynical about what should be a happy time. I know that if Ruth's plans come together then this house, however beautiful, is going to pass out of our lives in 4-5 years or less.

So...yeah. This little vent has cleared up nothing in my mind. It is a very nice house. Theo, Guinness and Aslan have settled in like they've lived here forever. I guess that's enough for me.

Our travels...

So today is the first time I've been on the Internet since Monday morning. As usual when I don't have easy access, the entire time my mind has been racing with funny and insightful blog posts that will never see pixels.

We've moved into the new house with no hiccups so far. The kitchen doesn't have as much storage as we'd first thought, but a trip to IKEA will solve that pretty quickly.

Theo and I left Norfolk Sept. 5 to meet Ruth in Newport. After enjoying a few last visits around town and seeing Ruth graduate from DH school, we went back to Norfolk for a few days. Monday afternoon found us back on the road driving to IL for visits to relatives.

I'm pretty much brain dead at this point. Might have more to say about the trip but maybe not.

Cubs Win!

It's been a long day.

Photo credit: Grandpa