with our closing date on the arlington house looming close, sean’s been grieving the end of our DC days.  to be honest, it’s been a bit disorienting for me because sean’s always the calm and steady captain of our crazy ship, but as my brother says, the consequence of society’s refusal to allow men to emote is alcoholism.  so, grieve away, my love.   the thing is, staying in our current house, while centrally located to all urban conveniences, is not realistic given the second baby.  for example, we have one full bath, and that bath has a very slow drain.  so, for each baby bath, i either have to clean the entire tub or use a separate baby bath, which we store in the hallway.  yes, this is not a big deal, and i know that we have it great in our beautiful 100 year old house (you should see our tall ceilings — LOVE), especially with the fully staffed play room downstairs (did you guys know i have a home day care in our basement apartment?  career change, for sure).  but…all the great things about this house doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s not a house set up for multiple children or that it is 45 minutes away from sean’s office (which is in virginia, by the way). i recently read something on penelope trunk that gave me an a-ha moment.  in response to the question, should i have a second child?, penelope wrote:  Two kids are way, way more than twice as difficult as one kid. In general I find that parents can pretty much go on living their adult life when there is one kid. With two kids, the parents life starts to completely revolve around the kid. And example of this is going out to eat: Going out to eat with a baby is manageable. Going out to eat with a baby and a toddler will be too much trouble to be worth it — it’s easier to stay home and eat. then, today, i read this in an interview with another of my favorites, louis c.k.: I had to be the head of the household really for the first time and say okay, I have to actually make a rule that we’re going to live by here. And I decided what it was is that the family comes over the work always. I mean, with the kids it’s a priority. Because I wanted them to have a feeling like they could count on me like I was really there, I wasn’t just visiting. I didn’t want one of these moments like, “Jeez, honey, I’m sorry I’m not going to see you this week or this month or whatever because I’m going to LA.” I got some offers early that go out to LA and do parts on sitcoms and I said no, because it meant going and being away for a month… . So I just made that rule and it made life so much better like immediately, because it simplified things. And I like being able to say to people I ain’t going. I don’t do stand-up on the road if it’s on a kid day. I don’t shoot on a kid day. I stay with them. I don’t have babysitters. I just take care of them all day and put them to bed at night.  and that is where we are - sean and i’ve already arranged our lives around annahole (usually, she is annabelly, but today annahole really describes her best).  sean especially adores his little monkey — if he is not at work, he wants to hang out with his baby.  and you know that i quit working partly because i didn’t like my job but also because i wanted more time with annabelly, so, clearly, my life revolves around the baby something major.  we rarely get babysitters, and most of our activities occur before baby dinner/bed time.  (btw, i’m not making any judgments, here — this is just what works for us.)  (which goes for most things on my blog - please don’t take anything personally.  it’s not about you.) so, the move to the ‘burbs that cuts sean’s commute time in half, and places my parents only 20 minutes away, really makes a lot of sense for us.  but everyone’s got his/her opinion, you know? sean gets to mourn the loss of our city house since it is his life that this move is affecting.  but i want all of you to know that sean found the arlington house on his own, because, as soon as he found out that we were pregnant again, he didn’t want rush hour traffic to get in the way of being home before baby bed times.  so, he is very much on board with this move.  and me?  i am excited about the change.  so, you over there, you tsk tsk-ing our move to the suburbs, you should know that, as much as you believe you are thinking of us, you are not.  you are sad for your vision of what you think is best for us.  which is a whole lot of nothing supportive.  i know you mean well, but, jeez, you make this relationship unnecessarily difficult sometimes because you are so attached to your views. p.s.  sorry for the long blog silence only to return with this bit.  i didn’t have much to say for a long time, but then sean had a sleepless night over this which made me so very pissed off at the incessant naysayer that suddenly i found myself with something to say.  strongly opinionated people who don’t ask questions are pretty annoying at times, no? p.p.s.  the photo is of annabelly at her last doctor’s appointment.  who wants a flu shot?  i do!  i do! 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with our closing date on the arlington house looming close, sean’s been grieving the end of our DC days.  to be honest, it’s been a bit disorienting for me because sean’s always the calm and steady captain of our crazy ship, but as my brother says, the consequence of society’s refusal to allow men to emote is alcoholism.  so, grieve away, my love.  

the thing is, staying in our current house, while centrally located to all urban conveniences, is not realistic given the second baby.  for example, we have one full bath, and that bath has a very slow drain.  so, for each baby bath, i either have to clean the entire tub or use a separate baby bath, which we store in the hallway.  yes, this is not a big deal, and i know that we have it great in our beautiful 100 year old house (you should see our tall ceilings — LOVE), especially with the fully staffed play room downstairs (did you guys know i have a home day care in our basement apartment?  career change, for sure).  but…all the great things about this house doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s not a house set up for multiple children or that it is 45 minutes away from sean’s office (which is in virginia, by the way).

i recently read something on penelope trunk that gave me an a-ha moment.  in response to the question, should i have a second child?, penelope wrote:

 Two kids are way, way more than twice as difficult as one kid. In general I find that parents can pretty much go on living their adult life when there is one kid. With two kids, the parents life starts to completely revolve around the kid. And example of this is going out to eat: Going out to eat with a baby is manageable. Going out to eat with a baby and a toddler will be too much trouble to be worth it — it’s easier to stay home and eat.

then, today, i read this in an interview with another of my favorites, louis c.k.:

I had to be the head of the household really for the first time and say okay, I have to actually make a rule that we’re going to live by here. And I decided what it was is that the family comes over the work always. I mean, with the kids it’s a priority. Because I wanted them to have a feeling like they could count on me like I was really there, I wasn’t just visiting. I didn’t want one of these moments like, “Jeez, honey, I’m sorry I’m not going to see you this week or this month or whatever because I’m going to LA.” I got some offers early that go out to LA and do parts on sitcoms and I said no, because it meant going and being away for a month… .

So I just made that rule and it made life so much better like immediately, because it simplified things. And I like being able to say to people I ain’t going. I don’t do stand-up on the road if it’s on a kid day. I don’t shoot on a kid day. I stay with them. I don’t have babysitters. I just take care of them all day and put them to bed at night.

 and that is where we are - sean and i’ve already arranged our lives around annahole (usually, she is annabelly, but today annahole really describes her best).  sean especially adores his little monkey — if he is not at work, he wants to hang out with his baby.  and you know that i quit working partly because i didn’t like my job but also because i wanted more time with annabelly, so, clearly, my life revolves around the baby something major.  we rarely get babysitters, and most of our activities occur before baby dinner/bed time.  (btw, i’m not making any judgments, here — this is just what works for us.)  (which goes for most things on my blog - please don’t take anything personally.  it’s not about you.)

so, the move to the ‘burbs that cuts sean’s commute time in half, and places my parents only 20 minutes away, really makes a lot of sense for us.  but everyone’s got his/her opinion, you know?

sean gets to mourn the loss of our city house since it is his life that this move is affecting.  but i want all of you to know that sean found the arlington house on his own, because, as soon as he found out that we were pregnant again, he didn’t want rush hour traffic to get in the way of being home before baby bed times.  so, he is very much on board with this move.  and me?  i am excited about the change. 

so, you over there, you tsk tsk-ing our move to the suburbs, you should know that, as much as you believe you are thinking of us, you are not.  you are sad for your vision of what you think is best for us.  which is a whole lot of nothing supportive.  i know you mean well, but, jeez, you make this relationship unnecessarily difficult sometimes because you are so attached to your views.

p.s.  sorry for the long blog silence only to return with this bit.  i didn’t have much to say for a long time, but then sean had a sleepless night over this which made me so very pissed off at the incessant naysayer that suddenly i found myself with something to say.  strongly opinionated people who don’t ask questions are pretty annoying at times, no?

p.p.s.  the photo is of annabelly at her last doctor’s appointment.  who wants a flu shot?  i do!  i do!

Notes