Friday 7 May 2010

Good on purpose.

Tomorrow if all goes well we'll be plunged back into a sea of cardboard, but we'll have our things back at last. This is especially poignant for Ben, who has been living out of a hockey bag since New Year's, and is ready to stop now.

I tried to make today good on purpose. It began at five in a flurry of sheets and toothbrushes and then once Ben was off to work at 6:30, I opted to make the kids breakfast and then I ran a hot bubble bath. The big soaker tub is my favorite thing about this house and I plan to use it more often than not. Coffee, in a borrowed pot, strong and black. Then some laundry and playtime with kids and pup and then we opted for a long walk to check out the route to school and a park along the way. Met another mom and her children and then we set out for the mailbox and home. Lunch and then some more serious cleaning. Washed all the floors, washed down the walls, did the window panes (again) and tracks.

I kept finding bumblebee carcasses jammed between the locks and the sills. So not happy having to pluck out the crunchy little bodies with my fingernails but now everything is clean. Brought in the recycling bins. Drove down to the farmer's market and found there was no parking, they're setting up tents for a plank salmon supper tonight, oh and if we are around Sunday there's a fair with free gifts to the first fifty moms. And welcome, we are happy to have you here.

I have gone backwards in time.

Made another pot of coffee and put my hair up in a low twist, tonight we have a party to go to and then tomorrow the truck arrives. I haven't decided how they are going to fit an eighteen-wheeler up this hill yet but they insist I shouldn't fret about that sort of thing.

Right.

Then I'll be down to organizing bagged lunches and changing our address, fiddling with the neverending budget and finding my way around. That and looking forward to late nights with Ben. Once the kids have put out their lights and gone to sleep we go and fill the soaker tub to the brim with bubbles and we light candles and have a nice long bath together before bed. It's rather glorious, thank you for asking, and though sleep is still short, it's been deeper. Maybe that routine will change eventually but for this week I cherish it.

And Henry and I came to an impasse at the store. He wants spaghetti every meal. And cookies, but that's another story. The spaghetti request never ends. Should you ask him twenty minutes after eating spaghetti what he wants for his next dinner he'll say spaghetti. Lunch? Spaghetti. Breakfast? Spaghetti. Snack? Spaghetti please. But I persist, and cook it once a week but no more. We all like spaghetti but every six or seven days is lots. So today I see the canned Chef-Boy-is-Mommy-Lazy spaghetti and I point it out to Henry, thinking he will want to buy twenty cans and proclaim me to be the best mom on the planet.

He wrinkled up his nose and said he didn't want to buy it. Not even one can to try.

When we came home I asked him why he didn't want it.

It's in a can, mommy.

So?

So...so that means it's like two weeks old.

Good point, little man. Gross.