Leaving Home

We never planned to buy our house. 

View from downstairs porch

It just happened. I remember seeing the rental apartment advertised on craigslist six years ago; when we saw the place, we fell in love. Not just with the yard, the color, and the light, the built-in cabinets, the moldings. We walked in the door and felt that this place was a special place to be. We sent email after email, desperately hoping that no one else would get to rent the apartment. 

Ceanothus blossoms on the massive tree in our yard.

When we finally heard back, we were ecstatic. We spent the next few months getting to know our new neighborhood and enjoying the new apartment. We found commuting to our jobs easy—for me, a 20-minute bike ride, and for Geoff, a quick walk to BART. 

Persimmons

The persimmon tree in the backyard led to all kinds of culinary adventures, and we took a thousand pictures of it as the fruit matured and the leaves lit up. 

We ate apricots and plums, too; later, my husband made plum wine. There's a great mix of sun and shade in the yard, perfect for the cool and warm East Bay weather.

Plums, not ready to eat yet. But so beautiful!

Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, only 6 months after we'd moved in, our landlady knocked on our door to tell us that she was planning to sell the house. Would we be interested in buying it? We were stunned. We spent the whole long weekend talking about it, and got in touch with a realtor. We hadn't been planning to buy a house, hadn't even been looking at houses for sale. Our relationship was too new for that kind of long-term planning.

We bought the house. 

downstairs, back door.

It's a 1912 Edwardian (is that redundant?). And my husband and I found that what makes us happiest together is working on projects. Old houses have plenty of projects. We found a friend to rent the upstairs apartment so we could keep living in our apartment. We painted. 

before

after

We cleared out weeds.

We planted a garden.

Summer 2010

Our friend moved out. We moved upstairs.

We painted.

before

after

We painted some more.

before

after

We built raised beds for vegetables.

We got married. On our wedding day, we hid from each other in the two bedrooms of the upstairs—Geoff in his office, I in our bedroom. 

We spent lazy Sundays in the hammock.

We watched these twin hummingbirds grow in the persimmon tree as I grew our twins!

We badgered the City of Oakland into fixing the sidewalk in front of our house. 

The former "sidewalk." Note colossal puddle between tree and our yard, plus giant tree roots.

We updated the kitchen upstairs, putting in a dishwasher that has made our lives as the parents of twins much more sane.

We found great tenants who keep chickens, who tend the raised beds and mow the grass, who love our space as much as we do. They're so wonderful that they've offered to take our two cats when we move.

Yet we didn't know the value of our home until our twins came along. We met more of our neighbors in the first year of the boys' life as we ambled through the whole neighborhood at least twice per day. Some of them took our quinces and made them into the most sublime quince jam. We noticed more families with young kids walking around as our boys got older. Then, we discovered our neighborhood in a new way: we found Dover Park. 

The boys go there almost every day. There's an incredible community garden; my kids love to pick fruit and veggies. This year, we've picked fava beans, strawberries, raspberries,  peaches, white mulberries, and zucchini. 

In the Dover Park garden

We found kids the boys' age to play with (and their parents to empathize with!). New restaurants opened nearby; we started taking the kids out to dinner. We took walks to Sweet Adeline.

rainy day trip to Sweet Adeline

We have a ritual of going to the nearby Berkeley Farmers' Market every Tuesday. All our favorite farmers recognize our stroller and offer up delicious samples to our boys.

Sorbet sample at the market.

Our yard became a playspace,

an artspace,

a berryspace,

a place to delight in all things.

In the early morning, I look out our bedroom window and imagine we live in a treehouse. It's that serene, even with BART running nearby.

Who would ever want to leave? 

And there is the bittersweet part of this story. We never planned to buy our house, and we hesitated because we always knew that we would want to move back East once we had kids. Now we have kids, and we're feeling the tug of family, of making sure our children know their grandparents. So off we go to Durham, NC! There's an adventure story waiting to be told, but right now the story is about love and loss, grief over leaving a life we love. The kids feel it too. But I'm taking the long view now. Soon, we will call a new place home. May it be as rich and wonderful as the one we have now.

Play 'Gether

This post is for the parents of multiples whose kids are still under two. This is for the mom who sent this link to the twins club. Excerpt:

Things will never get back to “normal”—as you defined normal when you were single—when you were childless. Never.

This is true. We're deluding ourselves if we think that we can add any other human being to our family lives and still be the same person, the same normal that we were before. Never mind adding two at once! The thing to do, then, is to focus not on how you've lost your true self, but to see what's still the same, what's left at the core. And to nurture that. So maybe you don't go to yoga five days a week anymore. Maybe you have to redefine what "doing yoga" means—a deep breath is yoga.

But I digress. Let us back on track:

It changes. You get better. You grow. Learn. And that little squealer—that awesome toddler—that slightly evil three-year-old—he grows. Learns. Changes. It gets better. When you learn and change and grow and all that—it all gets better.

It does get better: now when the boys are fighting over a toy, I often hear one of them declare "play 'gether!" And they do.

This is what change, what better looks like: I spent an hour bored on the couch while my boys played a trashcan game. Pictured above: clearing out the bins in order to dump more trash.

More better: An outing to the park during which I spent 40 minutes "punching tickets" with my phone while the boys went for a "train ride."

This is a train. I believe they're dismounting...

D is collecting more tickets to punch. N seems to be meditating.

Not everything is photo-worthy, but also nice are the small daily kindnesses I see these two bestow on each other. Almost every skirmish over a toy ends with a "Here, Dashie!" or "Nicky's turn!"—unprompted by me. The ones that don't end that way end with words like "Dashie sad. Dashie cry." (often followed by "Here, Dashie!").

Most better: I was too tired to carry anyone from car to house, so I suggested that they find another way. Dash tried to get Nick to pick him up; Nick had a different idea.

Good idea, Nick!

How can we make holding hands even more fun?

Well, we could climb stairs while holding hands.

Almost two-and-a-half is tiring and frustrating in many, many ways. But it's still much easier than  juggling two newborns.

Talking to Kids

I'm thinking a lot today about how we speak to people, and even more, how we speak to kids. Now, I'm certainly no saint in this regard—my whole life, I've been told (mostly by my parents) that my tone of voice gives away my true feelings. But I'm working hard especially with my kids to be aware of what I say, why, and how I say it. The book Simplicity Parenting offers a lovely set of guidelines to consider before speaking:

Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

Not everything I say in my children's presence meets all three of these criteria (and certainly not when I'm eye-rolling to a friend about the woman I saw telling her 2.5 year-old to "use your core!" when lifting a heavy toy). But I do try to keep them in mind when I'm speaking to my kids. Why? In my experience, our kids understand everything we say, and internalize the messages we send with our tone and our body language, even if they don't actually know what all the words mean. 

Here's the gist of what it means to communicate with your kids (from Janet Lansbury's lovely post explaining the basics of RIE):

Be clear. Be honest. That's what our kids really need.

There's a world of difference between being frustrated and taking out your frustration on your kids. And learning to be kind and clear is hard, especially when you're trying to help your two toddlers brush their teeth and go to bed. Sometimes, you catch yourself turning into the Monster Mommy (you know, growly and cranky), and you have to stop and go in another room and take a breath. Or five breaths. And then you sit down with that toddler and listen, really listen to what he has to say (even if all he has to say is screaming).

Every day is another chance to practice.