Homeowners, Take Two.

Raise your hand if you didn't realize that buying a house wasn't as simple as having the necessary money and making an offer and having that offer accepted. My hand is waaaay up there.

We lost that house. The one written about below, back like three weeks ago when I last updated this blog. I don't know what's up with my lack of writing, except that this house-searching and attempted purchasing, coupled with an even heavier-than-usual workload and a baby who does not stop moving has really made me reevaluate what I'm spending my time on. Writing in this blog has been so important to me, and the feedback I've gotten and readers I've amassed have been one of my favorite parts of this journey. It's just that recently our lives have felt a little off-balanced, a little up-in-the-air, and I've been spending every free moment I'm not working or taking care of Adelyn Belle stressing about our future home.

After we bought that house, we did the necessary inspection. Everything went great. I started downsizing our belongings, faced with a three-weeks-away move into a two-bedroom, one bathroom house that was noticeably smaller than our current apartment and with about a third of the storage space. We struggle now with fitting all of our (ahem, my) belongings into our mid-sized closets. So I gave away about half of my clothes, everything I haven't worn recently, things I've been holding on to thinking I might one day find a use for again. I came to terms with the idea of living with less; I even started to embrace the idea of streamlining our storage, our future purchases. I thought, you know, I don't even really want another child. So we will be just fine in this tiny space. Because, see, even though it was teeny, Jason and I had fallen in love with the idea of living within walking-distance to our town's historic downtown square and to living in such an adorable, charming, old house.

Then they did the appraisal. And it appraised for about $8,000 less than we had agreed on paying for it. And, guess what? They don't give you FHA loans for anything more than what the house appraised for. So we told the seller we'd buy it for what it was worth, $8,000 less. And she said no. She didn't have a choice. She was backwards on her mortgage. She couldn't sell it for a dollar less than what we had initially agreed on. The deal went bye-bye.

I kept telling myself that it was for the best, that it must have been somehow fated. This must not have been our house. But, oh, I was lying to myself just a little bit. I loved that house. I had already moved in in my mind. Addy and I were already walking to the downtown library and grabbing lunch on the patio of one of the locally-owned restaurants nearby.

To make a long story short, we spent the next few weeks house-hunting some more. We saw a few properties that were okay, but we couldn't get the nagging image of living in an old, charming house downtown out of our minds. But there was nothing for sale in our price range.

So our real estate agent sent out a postcard to every house in every neighborhood we liked, asking if they were considering selling. And, finally, we got a bite. A beautiful little house nearly next door to the 85-year-old elementary school that I attended and loved. The sellers were ready to let go of it, after their family had lived there since 1940 (the house was built in 1932, so it's only had two owners, ever).

We went to look at it and we fell in love and we made an offer and after some back-and-forths they accepted. Now we just have to wait for the appraisal. Knock on wood that this one is fated, because it is the first old, charming house I have ever seen that has a WALK IN CLOSET. And three bedrooms, just in case we ever change our mind about the second baby thing.

And what's even better, the seller told me that she is the second in three generations of people who lived there that attended and walked to Campus School. If we live there, Addy will get to carry on that tradition. I like to call that fate.

(Knock on wood.)

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Homeowners.

We bought a house.

It was a long-time coming, a few years of actively trying to improve our credit scores and our bank account, of trying to decide where we really wanted to live, wanted to plant ourselves. See, renting offers you a certain noncommittal sense--what's a year, in the grand scheme of things? Jason and I have lived in our current apartment for a year and three months now. That is longer than I've lived anywhere since my parents' house. From there, I went to the dorms at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, then to an apartment in Memphis with Jason, then back to my parents', then into an apartment with my friend Elise, then back to my parents', then practically (although not technically) into another apartment in Murfreesboro with Jason, then a three-month stay in New York with my sister, then into my friend Alex's house, then into an apartment in Nashville with Jason, and then into the apartment we have now.

It's been a lot of moving for the eight years since I've graduated high school.

(And on a side-note, I loathe moving more than pretty much anything else. When we moved into this apartment I was pregnant, and I barely had to do a thing. It was AMAZING. No such luck or excuse this time around.)

When we first started getting serious about the whole house thing, part of me couldn't really come to terms with it. It just seemed so permanent, so grown-up. Too grown-up. More-so than getting married and having a baby. This shuffling around from place to place and home to home each year has been annoying, yeah, but it gave a sort of pretend-freedom to our lives, that we could suddenly whisk our family off to Europe to be ex-Pats or end up in the Florida Keys as a traveling family band.

I've struggled to accept the fact that this is our home, maybe even forever. Jason and I joke all the time about packing up and moving here and there, and as fun as it sounds it's just not going to happen. Adelyn's family is here--I couldn't take her away from two sets of grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, an aunt, stability. I absolutely loved growing up in the South; I loved evolving in the same place. I want that for Addy.

And I want it to happen here, in Murfreesboro, where we're all comfortable and settled and at home.

It's a heavy thing, as a parent. This making decisions for someone else first, always first. And that's the whole gist of a good family, everyone making choices for each other first, themselves second. That's something I couldn't have really understood until Adelyn came along, just how heavy that could be.

Finding this house, though, has taken some of the scariness out of it. It just feels right and easy.. The house is tiny--the same size as our current apartment--two bedrooms, one bath (eek!). It has a beautiful, fenced in backyard, perfect for a swingset and hopefully keeping dog pee off the floor. It has a huge basement and a walk-in attic. All wood floors and charm pouring out of every corner. It was built in the 1930s, and sits right off of Murfreesboro's historic, walkable, adorable downtown square, filled with tons of locally-owned restaurants and shops.

And the mortgage will be cheaper than our rent. Score one for making a grown-up decision.

Better yet, it gets to be Addy's first home--somewhere we won't be leaving in a year, two, or three. A home-home.

We'll have time to be a traveling family band later.

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Me + Snow = Donezo.

I am so tired of winter. I'm ready to write off snow as a friend forever. I know, I know, I live in Tennessee and I have no right to complain about snow. But your holier-than-though snowiness can shove it, because I hate it and I'm done with it.

A month ago, I got yet another joyful colonoscopy and stricture dilation. I spent a Sunday guzzling salty water (the dreaded prep), not eating for more than 24 hours and stuck in the bathroom. Around 10 p.m., the snow started to fall hard, and every news channel was warning of the coming apocalypse. "The clinic might be closed tomorrow. You shouldn't drive to Nashville," my mom texted me. I had already finished my prep and was about to go to sleep for the procedure in the morning.

Luckily, the clinic wasn't closed. But it took us THREE hours to drive the 30 miles, watching everyone around us skid and overcorrect on the interstate covered with an inch of ice.

I did not care. I would have walked, or maybe made my five-pound poodle drag me on a sled. After doing that prep, Hell opening up would not stop me from getting to the doctor for my procedure as scheduled.

We're expecting a "blizzard" any hour here in Middle Tennessee. (This means two inches. Yeah.) Schools were let out early, the traffic on the way to pick up Adelyn was out. of. control. They were almost out of milk at the grocery store. My apartment is BURNING up upstairs and so, so cold downstairs. I am sick of battling a screaming baby every morning before we leave the house, struggling to put on her jacket, her socks, her shoes, warming up the car and inevitably forgetting something back in the house each and every time I manage to make it out to the car with my purse, Addy's diaper bag, all the documents and books I have to schlep to work, and, um, Adelyn.

I am ready to put on a breezy sundress, some sandals, to put Adelyn in an even cuter sundress and sandals, to walk casually out my door and take my time walking to the car because it's not -300 degrees outside. I want to enjoy being outside again.

Anyway. Adelyn's been really sick since Saturday. She woke up that morning with the highest fever she's ever had. Then it went away and she seemed fine. On Sunday, stuff started showing up in her diaper that I don't want to write about here. (No, I didn't taste it to see what it was.) Later that day a mysterious rash showed up on her stomach and back. On top of it all, her gums are more swollen than I've ever seen them.

I usually work from home on Mondays, but this one was spent working only after she fell asleep--spending the day trying to do whatever I could to stop her from crying. Tuesday, she still wasn't better, so I stayed home from work and again spent my day at war with the fussiness. I didn't leave the house for TWO days. I did not relish in this.

Today, I went to work. I got a text from Adelyn's babysitter about the explosion that erupted out of her diaper and all over their floor.

And now, we're home, Adelyn's asleep. The snow has started falling almost to the minute they predicted.

Maybe I'll just put on my sundress and walk around the house.

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One.

I would write a lengthy post about all the reasons Addy's first birthday party was awesome, but there's no need. These pictures, taken by the talented Lisa Connor over at stonehousephotos.com, does all the explaining for me. Lisa is a reader of this blog and a friend of my father's and the photos will be cherished by our family for years to come.

(And a big bonus: I didn't have to spend the party behind a lens.)

Adelyn and her Janu, Jason's mom.

Adelyn with her Uncle Neel (my sister's husband), my sister Rachel (both in from New York), and Jason's cousin Kelly on the left.

She wants out of the high chair even when she has an entire CAKE dedicated to her consumption waiting for her.

I love this "smash cake" tradition. I don't know why it doesn't transition into adulthood.

Adelyn and her wonderful grandmas, Janu and Yaya (my mom).

My beloved friends. Crystal, Jaclyn (also a mom to a one-year-old), my sister-in-law Erin, me, Jasmine, and Morgan (who lives in New York).

Janu and Pops.

My sister, my mom, and I.

I don't know if it's possible to smile any bigger than this.

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Love and Shots.

What is love? How do you know when you really love something? Not in the cheesy, Hallmark card, ME + U = 4EVER kind of a way but the earth-shattering, selfless, real way that so many mothers claim is inexplainable?

I'll tell you how you can explain it.

It's when you find a weird, unidentifiable, Grits-looking substance under your daughter's onesie in the morning, and after freaking out because OHMYGOD what is this stuff on my daughter's skin??? and after smelling it and feeling it and still being at a loss for its origin, you STICK OUT YOUR TONGUE and taste it. Just because you're worried. Just because you love that baby so much the thought of not knowing what might be wrong with them inspires you to put a sticky, white substance in your mouth to hopefully identify its content.

True story.

Let me preface this revolting explanation of love with this: On Wednesday, we took Adelyn to get her one-year shots. There were four of them, one in each leg, one in each arm. Adelyn has had several shots before, all in her legs. And they were no fun, awful, bad days in my parenting life. But it was a few seconds of crying and then a cuddly baby, and all was well with the world.

I sort of ride the line between being anti-immunizations and anti-people who think immunizations are the devil. I understand their necessity and their relationship to my daughter's future health. I think people often make too big of a deal about things which we cannot fully understand. I think I trust scientists more than Baby Center. But I also don't trust mandates without elucidation; I also do thorough, borderline-obsessive research on everything related to my daughter. So I'm not all gung-ho, YAY! immunizations, but I'm also not quite ready to forego them and join the health-department-is-out-to-get-us camp.

I'm already a little weary about these shots, though. Let's just say that.

When they put the first shot into Adelyn's arm, it was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was worse than labor. She did not just cry or whine, she FREAKED OUT. She stopped crying and started hyperventilating. She was shaking her little head "no" so ferociously that I felt my heart fall out into my hands and shatter into a million pieces. She was screaming so hard that no noise came out. I had to ask her nurse to stop before she did the next one so that I could pick her up and console her. (It didn't work.)

We got all four done. But let me just say this--if Jason had not been able to leave work early and come with me, I probably would have punched that nurse in the face just on Adelyn's behalf.

Once we got her into the car she was fine, her old self. At home she was happy, playful. There was no sign of any reaction. She went to bed without incident, smiling and babbling in her crib.

But then she woke up in the morning, and as I was making her bottle (Jason was upstairs changing her first diaper), I heard him yelling my name at the top of his lungs.

When I got upstairs, Adelyn was lying, cheerful, on her changing table. What looked like grits was covering her stomach, coming out of her diaper.

The crazy-woman part of me immediately thought it might be some rare reaction to those evil shots. HOW COULD I HAVE DONE THIS TO MY DAUGHTER?

So. Yeah. I tasted whatever it was. In the vain hope that it was just some sort of bread, or food that she had snuck under her onesie before bed, or something. I don't know. I don't have reasonable explanations for my insane-mom reactions.

It took me an hour (an HOUR) after that incident to remember that I had just bought new diapers the day before. Kroger brand. I was trying to be frugal. The diaper had gotten soaked overnight and omitted some sort of disgusting content from its innings out onto her body while she slept.

The things we do for our children.

By the way--it tasted like plastic. Delicious.

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Birthday Eve.

A year ago today I was having these pains in my abdomen that I kept writing off as Crohn's, indigestion, a result of the box of macaroni and cheese I had eaten the night before. In a matter of hours I would be sitting on my couch with my dear friends Crystal and Melissa, eating pizza and watching The Hangover, finally saying out-loud that I might be going into labor.

"My stomach is really, really hurting," I said to my friend Crystal, a nurse. "I don't know if these are contractions or not."

"If they were contractions," she reasoned, "you'd probably be saying, like, 'ow.'"

I wasn't saying, like, "ow." So.

That sounded reasonable enough to me. I went to sleep that night next to a snoring Jason, waking up constantly in serious pain, waiting to recognize some sort of pattern that would signify Adelyn's impending birth.

The next afternoon I had an already-scheduled doctor's appointment. During the drive the pains started coming every six minutes like clockwork. We hadn't even brought our hospital bags, the ones I had meticulously packed weeks before.

I was already four centimeters dialated when we got there. And eight glorious, painful, intensely exciting hours later, Adelyn was here.

Tomorrow is her first birthday. Jason and I already gave her her big present--a baby-friendly MP3 player, safe for chewing and throwing and stomping and inevitable drooling-on, filled with her favorite songs. (Including "Time of my Life," The Black Eyed Peas; "Let it Be Christmas" by Alan Jackson, a song she FELL. IN. LOVE. WITH. at her grandparents' house over the holidays--seriously, every time it comes on she does nothing but dance and smile; "Whip My Hair Back and Forth," which, if you read this blog you know she loves; "Soul Sister," Train; "Never Stop," by Chilly Gonzales, from the iPad commercial that has Addy bouncing up and down every time it comes on; dozens of others.)

Addy's birthday is, of course, all about her. That incredible, hilarious, attitude-filled, sassy, spirited little creature that I helped create and gave birth to a year ago. But I can't help but let the huge occassion wash over me, too, let it put things in perspective in my own life and this journey and who I am and what I'm doing.

364 days ago my life shifted. Adelyn became the focus. 364 days later and she's ever present right in the center of everything. And that is how it will remain forever, as long as it can. This is the thing I didn't--you just can't--really know, really understand, 364 days ago, right before she made her grand entrance.

Happy birthday eve, Adelyn Belle. You are so loved by so many people. (If I have one complaint--er, request--of your newfound age and wisdom, it's that you please, please stop screaming when I change your clothes. It will be something that I, and then you, will have to do the rest of your life. No sense wasting tears.)

Here...

To here...

Now here.

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The WHERE ARE YOU GOING?? Face.

Yesterday morning when I dropped Adelyn off at her babysitter's, she clung to my shoulders and laid her head on my chest and cried, cried, cried. I have never seen her do this before. I read a long time ago that I should expect separation anxiety to kick in about now, and that this demonstration of powerful attachment was a good thing, that it meant that she trusted you, knew she needed you, recognized you as the thing with which she is able to survive.

So when week after week passed and I dropped Adelyn off with grandparents or babysitters and she never let any discontentment--not even a second of clinginess--I felt, of course, a pang of worry over how I'm doing as a mother. (What doesn't inspire that question in a new mother, really? Everything and anything.)

But yesterday morning, though. Yeah. There it was, finally. She did not want me to leave.

This made it kinda hard to go to work, see. Because to open the door, walk out of the babysitter's, get into my car and go wherever I needed to go that day now meant that I'd be doing it while Adelyn watched me, crying, looking at me like all she wants to do in the world is dig her head into my chest. When I dropped her off before yesterday, she'd usually just dealwith it while I kissed her cheek over and over and then happily crawled off to play with her babysitter's one and a half year old daughter. She's barely walking and already she'd mastered the whole "Um, ok, mom, bye... bye!" thing I so remembering mastering as a teenager.

And the thing is, I'm not the kind of mother who needs to be with my baby all of the time. I enjoy--um, need--some motherless time to keep me going. Both sets of grandparents take their turns watching her so Jason and I can do our own thing every now and then. Jason watches her so I can go out with my friends. I, in turn, do the same for him. We've struck a good balance, I think.

It's just one of the essential parts of parenting, dealing with this stuff. I love my job, and I love even more its flexible schedule. I love my daughter above all else, and I love the rare day when it's just me and her, at home, all day, no separation anxiety required. But in order to feel fulfilled (for me, anyway--these decisions are so deeply personal, more so than pretty much anything else in the parenting world), I have to have another title besides "mom." As much as I like to say how much I'd love to find a job that would allow me to work full-time from home, I know I'd miss getting up and going. Somewhere.

Geez, though. That face--that WHERE ARE YOU GOING? face--it's enough to make you rethink everything you thought you knew about working and what you wanted to do with your life.

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