We moved.* We enjoyed the holidays. We ran away for a week to a seriously, unbelievably improved Camp Davis. And now we’re back. Natalie heads to work tomorrow. The kids and I go back to doing whatever it is the kids and I do during the week. Life marches onward. We have a lot of catching up to do.
*I know. Again. We’re nomads. We signed a two year lease this time. That’s practically forever, right?
This post was supposed to be about Camp Davis – for the most part anyway. After a year (a year!) of hemming and hawing, planning and drawing, scheming and pushing to make it whole again,** we were finally able to spend a lot of time at our home-away-from-home with the majority of the structural renovations complete, the floors installed and finished, some walls painted, a most incredibly bad-ass custom-built kitchen island installed, and – I can hardly believe it – the justifiable urge to furnish and decorate. Because that is how far along things are now.
**Long story short: someone drove a car into our house, which led to major renovations and much fist shaking. Long story longer: see excruciating blog post here.
That was the plan for my first-of-2014 blog post. I pulled up Picasa to start sorting through blog-worthy photos of our recent exploits – a normal writing habit that helps jog my memory before I get typing – and then my plans changed. That’s because I ran across this one:
My daughter. ”The Rooster.” That Hair. That Face.
I AM SUPPOSED TO PARENT THIS CHILD!
She wakes up with that hair. As-Is. I know one day it will be the bane of her existence. I’ll try (stupidly) to comb through tangles. There will be tears. Straightening Irons. She’ll try to conquer it. She’ll fail. She’ll get older and finally accept it. Then she’ll realize how amazing it is and wonder why she fought it so long.
In the meantime it’s the harbinger of her personality, as best as we can tell anyway. And either one will knock me over if I’m not on sure footing.
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Natalie and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary yesterday. We’ve had to do the math several times in order to confirm it’s really been that long.
The length of our marriage requires math now.
Of course, we haven’t been at this thing long enough to offer advice. Eight years is a good initial run, but we would have been out of place in the closing credits of When Harry Met Sally. I can say that whatever we started in 2006 (and really much earlier than that) continues to evolve and work, so much so that I want nothing more than for it to continue evolving and working for many, many more years to come.
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