A Year and A Month

Tomorrow, I will have lived in Maine for a year.

Today, Front Loader is one month away from his due date.

Today, Jared and I will go for the final ultrasound to see this boy who feels like he’s already a 10lb gymnast and they will look at the chambers of his heart and ask me if he’s moving and if my feet are swelling and am I sure I want to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Then we will go meet with the anesthesiologist at the hospital because everyone is freaked out about VBACs and he wants to know I’m allergic to penicillin before I’m moaning through another labor.

 

After these appointments, we will drive to a coworker’s “camp” and meet with several other coworkers over a mish-mashed potluck discussing our plans to improve the boarding program at MCI. We’ve been meeting for months and our three-hour long meetings are so inspiring and motivating that I don’t even mind we’ve been sitting inside an un-air-conditioned house while the heat and humidity threaten to melt me. Over pulled pork and guacamole and homemade ice-cream sandwiches (not in the same dish), we’ve been hashing away at a system that will allow students to earn privileges, deciding their own fates. Thrilling stuff. Seriously.

Tomorrow, Henry and I will probably go swimming at Grammie’s house and I will marvel, again, at how he can now walk down to the bottom step in the pool with his long, big-boy legs whereas a year ago his stubby stems sat on the top step with his adorably pudgy hands slapping at the water.

 

 

August 2012

 

Next week, he goes back to camp (this time Polar Bears and Penguins themed) and starts swim lessons at night. And wherever he goes he picks up words and concepts and his language, no matter how long he’s been talking and how many times it surprises me, continues to knock me over with his sharp insights and sense of humor. His face, in a constant state of expression even in sleep, paints compassion and frustration and glee and anger and surprise and understanding and confusion – sometimes  

July 2013

all within five minutes.

While I still long for San Diego Mexican food and seeing old pictures of Henry at the Zoo bring about a sense of mourning, our life is here. Walking down the street to Big Bill’s for ice cream. Eating hamburgers and fruit on Nona and Bumpie’s deck, listening for loons. Watching cousins pull Henry around Grammie and Grampie’s pool in the blue, floaty, netted inner tube. Having friends over for Taco Tuesdays. Lots of driving. Living in a dorm full of girls with my house full of boys.

The hardest thing about moving to Maine was the actual moving. Despite the weather changes, more remote location, new jobs and all our new “neighbors,” being here has been like changing an outfit. I still own my San Diego clothes, the skin I was born with. But right now, this Maine wardrobe fits pretty great.