So I'm going to continue with Alle-best, Alle-worst, and Alle-everything-in-between moments in our new home, which is in many ways just as Spanish as the home we just left. Our town's slogan is "The Spanish Village by the Sea," and all the street names are Spanish and all the roofs are red tile. Our house has a courtyard (straight from California architecture, which came from Mexican architecture, which came from Spanish architecture, which came from Moorish architecture, which came from ancient Roman architecture!), which makes us happy and nostalgic whenever we walk past it. The two middle kids are in a Spanish immersion school, so a few of us are still speaking, reading and writing Spanish daily. In that way it's been a nice transition.
Here are some moments that come to mind from the past four weeks since Christmast (in stream-of-consciousness order):
-I woke up a couple of days after Christmas at 3:30 am (took awhile to adjust to US time) to a mountain of boxes. I decided to unpack the kitchen, and at about 5:00 am I found myself completely overwhelmed by a tsunami of shock and sadness. The only upside of having my sister Courtney live so far away from me in Virginia is that occasionally the 3-hour time difference is a heaven-send. She was the only one awake at that time, and she talked me through my panic. When I hung up I was tear-free and my whole kitchen was unboxed.
-A couple of weeks later I had a similar conversation with my sister Lindsay. Bawling my eyes out at the beginning, calm and comforted at the end.
-Lindsay was tested for Math and was assigned to an appropriately challenging level (yay!), and was then assigned a buddy to take her through her first day of Middle School - from class to class and to her locker and to lunch. This friend has turned out to be a spunky, fun, thoughtful little angel. She goes to our church and is part of a huge group of friends that has taken Lindsay under their wing, including her in every activity and conversation. Lindsay has taken to our new life here like a fish to water... almost entirely because of those wonderful 6th-grade girls.
-Lucy LOVES dance!!! Loves it!!! One Ballet, one Jazz, and one Hip Hop per week, and stretching on the off days.
-When I signed Lucy and Sophie up for their school, I was greeted (and hugged. HUGGED!!) by the principal and vice-principal, and we were treated with such a warm welcome, I knew our family had landed in the right place. Both Lucy's and Sophie's teachers have been great, and their classmates - much like in Spain - treat them like celebrities, fighting over them at recess. Not many people join the school in the upper grades, because after Kindergarten they only accept Spanish-speakers. So they made quite a splash. Both are as happy as can be.
-I signed Stone up for a neighborhood preschool where many of the Church boys his age attend. I thought our highest priority would be for him to make friends, and I loved the idea of us riding our bikes down the street to school. He went in the first day so happy, but when I picked him up I got a report that he had been non-compliant in transitions, and so the teacher had put him in time-out. The second time I took him was the same situation but 10 times worse - Stone had had an all-out tantrum and had spent a long time in time-out, with the students covering their ears to block out the screaming. Standing there holding him afterward, listening to the teacher tell me how terribly it had gone, how the students had reacted to him, and how the teacher's only way of working with him was to put him in time-out (she had treated him patiently, and was telling me about it very respectfully and kindly, so worlds better than Spain, but still not what I needed for Stone), I tried to keep it together but by the end of the conversation I couldn't stop the tears and I just stood there crying while she kept talking. I found it weird that she ignored the fact that I had tears streaming down my face. I left with my spirited child wrapped around my body with his face in my neck, and I was missing Bing Nursery School and Palo Alto and my friends and our HOME so bad, my whole body ached. As I left I saw two women I'd met at church - one ignored me (probably because she didn't want me to be embarrassed that she saw me crying) and one said "OH!! Are you ok??" and I just said "thanks so much, just not a good time" and kept walking to the car. Oh I was so so so so sad. I had been holding my homesickness at bay for several days so it broke the dam and I cried for hours and hours. Will Stone ever have any friends again? Will I ever have any friends again? Will there be a school that understands my boy? Why did we leave? I miss the redwood trees. I miss the hippies. I miss brilliant minds everywhere. I miss different languages and cultures. I miss seeing people in turbans and saris and Asian umbrellas on sunny days and yarmulkahs on Friday evenings. I miss friends who are like my own family. I miss their children - even the ones that weren't my kids' ages. I miss their husbands' voices in my garage talking with Erik. I miss my brother and my sister-in-law and - the one that makes me cry every time I think of it - I miss my nephews. I miss my church. I miss walking into a room and knowing that people know me and know my husband and know my kids and know that I don't like olives and that I won't read Twilight and that my toes hurt when I wear certain shoes. I miss San Francisco and I miss San Jose and I miss every city in between, especially downton Palo Alto and every single street between Grant Road and Springer Road and the dots on a map of my friends' houses where I know they're living their lives every moment. All this from (yet another) hard day for Stone at school. Seriously, is he going to be ok in school? Anyway, I cried all day that day.
-When I found my phone that horrible preschool day, I saw that the lady who saw me crying had texted me to see if I was ok. That meant so much to me. And guess what - it's the mom of the girl who has been so sweet to Lindsay.
-Our house is empty, empty, empty. It's nice to not own anything but it makes me feel like we don't really live here. I love a beautiful home but I really dislike shopping (have I ever mentioned how much I loathe malls? Really truly I feel myself dying inside when I have to go to a mall), so we have a designer helping us figure out our rooms. It's part fun and part stressful. I know so many people who love that process, but I just don't. I want it done, and then on to just living in the rooms. So far he's doing an amazing job (but nothing has arrived yet! We sit on Erik's parents' folding chairs and I will be so happy when I can snuggle my kids on a couch).
-Every time I see Erik's parents I am so happy we live here. I adore them so so SO much. Elayne took Stone on a Grammy date with his cousin Cate - they were gone all day at a petting Zoo, and I was so happy we moved here if just for that.
-My sister-in-law Noelle watched my kids all day so I could unpack right after Christmas, and then I watched her kids yesterday for a few hours. The cousins play so well with my kids, and it makes me so happy to be getting to know them and forming new and beautiful family bonds.
-Fake blond hair, stick-thin bodies with huge fake boobs, makeup, perfect fashion, older women with all the same weird faces - tight skin, huge lips and cheekbones, too much makeup, driving white Mercedes. Yes, it's Orange County. But luckily just in certain cities, and not as much where we live. Thank GOODNESS not where we live. (Actually, why would I care? That's not me, but who cares if they live by me? I guess I notice it a lot because I'm not used to it, but I could get over it and just not let it affect me. To each her own, I guess. Although I don't want my girls growing up in that toxic environment). Anyway, there is a lot more veneer down here than up North, but in our town it's not bad.
-I definitely notice a different vibe here in our town (which does feel like a town and not a city): boys wear checked Vans and teal skinny jeans and big trendy nerd glasses and they are named "Beaux" and "Dax" and "Crew." Behind every open garage door I see multiple surf boards. Today we invited a family over for lunch after church and they arrived - the whole family, Dad, Mom, and kids - riding skateboards. They brought a cake with them - the husband was balancing it as he skateboarded down the sidewalk and up into our driveway. This, I love.
-The hills behind our house contain 19 miles of trails. The trailhead is a few steps from our front door, and after about 1 minute of walking you can see the ocean. A few more minutes and you can see snow-capped mountains, with green hills and mountains rolling in every direction. My spirit is peaceful there.
-I hate how much I am in my car. After all the walking in Europe I now feel like a tub of lazy American lard.
-I have had heart-balming conversations with each of my sisters and my parents and Christie. Thank goodness for them.
-Sometimes during the day I get texts or short phone calls from friends at home and it's like when you're wading through a cold river, every muscle tensed... and then you get a sudden current of warm water to walk in for a minute.
-Erik and I have continued to feel tightly, wonderfully bonded. He works at home and we're together all the time. That was hard when the kids were really little, but now it's awesome!!! And I still feel so close to my kids - that time in Spain when we had nothing but each other was a priceless treasure, and that special feeling of "it's just us together in this world" has continued.
-Dear friends have come to visit us - It was even more comforting than I could have imagined to have Hilary, Becca, Amber and Kristy and their families come to our house and infuse it with their love and support and a feeling of home.
-Tarah and Marc have bent over backwards over and over and over again to make us feel welcome and cared for. I am so grateful for Tarah's persistence in making me go to lunch with her and look at decorating stores. A few times I have just felt like staying home and playing Legos with my kids, but she picked me up and we drove along PCH to this fantastic little lunch place and it lifted my spirits so much.
-Erik's Uncle and Aunt and their kids (two teenage boys and a girl Lucy's age) came over for dinner, hot tub and "Just Dance 4," and again I thought I want to live here forever for these relationships. We have always loved those guys, and it felt so good to host them at our house, so nearby!! The thought of doing girls' nights and holidays and birthday parties and surfing lessons with Erik's fun, talented, beat-of-their-own-drum extended family makes me so happy.
-I worked out with Erik at Cross Fit on Friday. Stone came along and played with a Cross Fit guy's pet dog and read books in a kids' area while he waited. Part of our workout was to carry a big weight up a hill and back, so we left the gym briefly to do that exercise. Approaching the gym on our way back I heard screaming, and when I started running back toward the gym door, I realized it wasn't coming from the gym, it was coming from... the parking lot??... no wait... the trees by the sidewalk??... no wait... the ground?? And there I saw Stone in a four-foot hole in the ground, dirty and scraped up and sobbing in terror. He had run out to find the dog's owner because he thought the dog was sad, and when he saw some orange cones on a board on the grass, he decided to stomp on the board to see if it was strong. It was not. He was of course terrified, and I was too. Last time we all go to Cross Fit together!
-I love cooking dinner here for my family. Even though we eat at a card table and our voices echo through the empty, tile-floored house, I feel at home when my daughters and I have chopped and stirred together in the kitchen and then we all sit down and eat together. I love grocery stores here and it's nice to be in the mood to cook again.
-I was immediately assigned to teach the 10-year-olds in Sunday School, and I love them. After only four weeks I really, really love them!
-The beach is 15 minutes from our house! And 3 minutes from the kids' school. Non-Southern Californians, don't hate us because of these pictures, taken in January. Today it was 77 degrees.
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| Lucy and Tia |
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| Lindsay and Kaylee |
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| Sophie likes making kelp necklaces |
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| That's right - 10 kids between our two families. |
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| Stone and Vaughn |
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| Stone and I like to take walks in the hills above our house |
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| Lindsay filling out paper work on her first day of middle school |
