A Tree Grows in Austin

It's not you, it's me.

We've been in Austin now for two months. Not a long time, but long enough for me to realize something fairly important: we're not leaving.

Nope, this is for real. I guess I had to know on some level, when we packed up and cleared out the entire collective contents of our lives, leaving behind only dust bunnies, wistful-looking neighbors and a squadron of real estate brokers holding our keys, that we weren't going back.

Yet I think that somehow in the way, way, dusty, dark, desolate back of my mind I didn't really feel like it had to be permanent. That at some point, despite all the signs pointing to the contrary, we'd zip back in space and time and geography and pick up where we left off, snug in the Sesame Street that is Brooklyn Heights, nestled in the warmth of everything and everyone we knew.

But as the boxes - and boxes - and boxes - became the recycling and our stuff settled into its natural nooks and crannies, this little experiment became very, very real. And seemingly impossible to undo. This is where we live now. In Austin, Texas. TEXAS!

It's not easy for me. I've never been one to make a decision, feel secure that it's the right one, and move on. And it doesn't have to be a big decision - do I like these shoes? Does this eyeliner work? Do these pants make my butt look fat? (no, never never answer that one) You name it, I obsess about it. I'd say I return about 40% of all purchases, at least one time. I now carry around an envelope (and Kleenex and hand wipes and hard candies because I am apparently becoming a grandma) stuffed with the receipts of my latest purchases.

But this is one we can't return. We've bought into Austin and it's time to give in.

Yep, I've decided to make peace with you, Austin. I'm sorry I've been unable to see your good side. It's not your fault, it's mine. My judgment has been clouded by the blinding force of a 15-year NYC loyalty.

So, um, err, I'm sorry, Austin.

I'm sorry for:

• Actively seeking out your flaws.
• Idealizing Brooklyn.
• Accusing you of having a cooler-than-thou attitude, fueled by youth and tattoos and music and the best marketing for any city, ever. Come to think of it, I guess I'm not really sorry, you do think you're really cool.
• Equating living here to living on the surface of the sun. Truth is, I don't really know what it's like to live on the sun. (But my guess is it's something akin to Austin in August.) Good news is lately it's been glorious, near-perfect weather.

(This isn't really sounding like an apology, is it? Like I'm sorry you think I've been unfair. I'm sorry you think I was mean. I'm sorry you think....)

• Dissing your freakishly fit breed of superhuman inhabitants. Sure, there are many, but I saw someone chunky at the gym today. All is not lost!
• Mocking your suburban strip malls and drive-thru mailboxes. They may seem weird to me now, but maybe weird is just another word for convenient.

So now can we all just try to get along?

I can't promise that I will love you, Austin. But I promise I will try to stop seeking reasons to hate you.

Peace out.

Up next: Now that Molly Maids have been here, it's time for photos! The tour launches soon.

It was a moving experience.

Today is a Very Exciting Day.

I say this as I watch the nice man from the Steam Team trudge upstairs with his toolbox of carpet cleanliness, unfazed by the considerable grime deposited on our carpets by the pitter pattering little feet (and unnamed bodily fluids, beverages and snacks, no doubt) of the five children who used to live here.

And why does carpet cleaning spell happiness?

Because we couldn't clean the carpets, which are filthy, until we finished unpacking. And we couldn't finish unpacking until we finished moving in. And we couldn't finish moving in until we finished painting. And we couldn't finish painting until we decided on paint colors. And we couldn't decide on paint colors without our carpets from Brooklyn. And we didn't have our carpets until the moving truck showed up. Which happened, of course, after the painting was finished.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

Despite all the moving parts, we've been in The New House for a week now. Just 8 days ago, we were consorting with the Beautiful People. Today, we wander the halls of our seemingly vast (what doesn't seem vast when you've been shoehorned into 1200sf or less for 15 years?) home, searching in vain for personal items large and small.

So how is it, you ask?

It's been rough, quite honestly. When we first decided to move to Austin and surfing real estate porn became more than a daily pastime, I had fantasies of galavanting carefree around the house, lovingly polishing doorknobs and lounging in zen-like spaces far from the prying eyes and needs of Crouton and Cheeky while I sipped a Chai tea. Sure, I knew it would take some work but I now know we grossly underestimated not only how much work, but also how work-averse we really are.

Yet, we persevere. Sometimes we work. More often, we block out the mess long enough to veg in front of the TV. We move forward planning our busy social calendar despite certain spots, rooms, bins of unresolved chaos. (the grill arrives tomorrow, we think, if it manages to defy the INSANE ineptitude of the delivery scheduling system/person at Home Depot who recently triggered the onset of Epic Mental Breakdown #16.)

Our actual driveway.

I dream a dream of a tidy house, where floors and carpets and ceiling fans and bathroom floors are clean and accessible without climbing, bending or contorting in ways at which my almost 40 year old body balks.

And I think it's within reach. If I can just.....stretch....a little.......further.

 

Home. Sweet Home.

PS: A special "Omigod thank you so much for slogging through it all with us" goes out to Grandma Ricki, without whose help this past week one or more of us most certainly would have been recycled with the boxes.

Seeking: Friends. Now accepting all applicants.

I confess: I have never moved to a city where I didn't know at least a few people.

Crouton, on the other hand, has led more of a nomadic existence - from Spokane to Minneapolis to DC back to Minneapolis (guess he missed the Mall of America) to New York. To Austin.

I like to think I'm worldly and open to new things but I guess my history proves otherwise. Sure, I grew up in Joisey and then went to college way far away (it was a 90-minutes drive!) in Pennsylvania then went waaaaaaay back to New York. I did go off the board for 200 by moving to in DC, but that only came about because I didn't have a job in NY and two good friends were headed there to attend law school. So I went there clinging to them and quickly branched out. Not too hard when you're 22 and working as a waitress.

This is a different story.

We've got no one. No Grandma/Grandpa, no college roommates, no former work colleagues, no co-op neighbors, no guy from the corner diner who always had our drinks in his hand before we sat down, no gym buddies. So we've had to step a little bit outside our comfort zone and do the unthinkable: socialize. Actively.

It's not that we aren't social people by nature, we are. We like people and doggone it, people like us. Still, in Brooklyn, we were always envious of couples we knew with BFFs who did fun-sounding things like vacation together, hang out on weekends, casually meet up in the park.

But we didn't really have that. We each had friends, and we tried our best to make "family friends" but truth be told we never made a lot of headway. Part of the appeal of moving to a new city was actually feeling like it would give us the social kick in the ass we needed. Now we'd have to be aggressive about our social life or spend eternity staring at the TV while we absent-mindedly inhale our dinners.

Before moving, we heard that Austin was a place with a lot of transplants. No one was actually from Austin, they were from NY, LA, Chicago, even Houston. So if everyone moves here from someone else, then everyone's open to meeting new friends, right?

So far we've done a good job. We've had a family playdate in the 'burbs with people who also just relocated from Brooklyn; two (yes, two, I think they like us!) family dates with the stepsister of Crouton's former colleague, who didn't even work in the same office as he; and two dates (two - again!) with one of Crouton's blogger friends. I used Facebook to get in touch with a woman I worked with ten years ago and haven't spoken to since. I've even had a blind date of my own with the daughter of the college roommate of my college roommate's dad. Got that one?

And you know what? It's not so bad. It's easier than I thought it'd be. Of course it would be swell if there were a way for families to "date" that didn't involve a bowl of keys. Like a familymatch.com. It is, after all, a widely known secret that Crouton and I met via match.com (back in the days when the normal male to normal female ratio was about 10:1 - like shooting fish in a barrel!) so I guess we're open to that. But until someone comes up with a site for us, we'll have to stick to our current outreach plan. Seems to be working okay so far. I guess time will tell if these are friends we're making or if people are just being nice.

Up next: MOVING DAY!!! Join the Crouton Clan as we lift, dust, pack, sweat, grimace, bicker, weep and whine our way through the week!

D. Love and Special Sauce

Sometimes, it surprises me that I am a mother. 

You see, I'm not really a "kid person."

I was never interested in babies when I was a kid. I never babysat. I never knew, for sure (and still sometimes wonder...) that I wanted to have kids. I would never, not in a million years, have decided to have a kid on my own, had I not been swoony in love and, let's face it, a little drunk and married to a guy I knew would help make it fun.

So how did I get here?

It wasn't just the gin or the urge to stumble blindly in the footsteps of all those who have gone before me.

It was, in large part, the idea of overwhelming love. Sure, I loved my family and I loved my husband and I really really loved molten chocolate cake but parental love became clear to me when I became an aunt. I loved my nieces, the first babies I ever cared about, fiercely. Yet I watched them return that love not to me, but instead redirect it towards their own mother. Wow, I thought, wouldn't it be great to love and be loved like that?

Imagine my surprise when Cheeky was first born and I wasn't instantly, Lifetime-movie, in love with her. I didn't even really like her much. Not for four months. Then, WHAM. Like a ton of bricks I understood.

But what I didn't expect was the effect her type of love would have. It was needy love, not the thoughtful, caring love of grown-ups. It was a crushing, anxiety-causing, stifling weight on my chest. It pulled me back when I walked out the door, leaving her with a sitter for a few hours. It left me worrying while we were apart - was she okay? Was she happy? Did she need me?

And oh, she needed me alright. For four straight years. All mommy all the time. Call me crazy but I don't think it's a coincidence that the word "smother" is mostly "mother." I have to give credit to Crouton. He loves Cheeky unconditionally and has never resented her preference - like most babies, of course - for mommy. He took his snippets of daddylove and that sustained him. He could swoop in at the end of the day, fill her world with a fresh face and upside-down swinging and bladder-compromising tickles, and go to bed the hero. Until she woke in the morning thinking of, needing, wanting, only me.

There was no escape. Sure, I was secretly a little smug. Who doesn't want to be the favorite? The first one picked? The alpha parent? But I more often than not felt like it was too much, and wouldn't it be great if she picked daddy just once?

Enter weird new alternate reality.

Now, Cheeky doesn't just prefer daddy. She flat-out rejects me like a new kidney. Just when I need her the most.

I guess I should have seen it coming. When Crouton lost his job six months ago (really? wow, just 6 months?), his daily presence was a little weird, a little routine-disrupting. But also a big relief for me. No longer did I have to do it all - drop-offs, pick-ups, lunches, dinners, playdates. Finally! The B-team was in!

As time progressed, daddy being around became standard and expected, by both me and Cheeky. Then, the unthinkable: employment (way to go, Crouton!). After 3 months it was back to the salt mines for daddy, in Austin no less, and back to full time mommy and me (and Grandma and Grandpa, thank god). For a month. And then, the reunion.

Since we've been in Austin, Cheeky has been all over Crouton like a cheap suit. She calls for him when she needs something, even if I'm sitting right there. She draws pictures of the two of them, writing Chloe "heart" Dad all over the back. She goes to his side of the bed in the morning for WAKE UP TIME, leaving me to bury my head under the pillows. She sweetly hugs and kisses him goodbye at the door, temporarily befriends me and then trots into school. When I pick her up at the end of the day, she walks into the apartment, her shoulders slump, and she groans, "daddy's not home yet? I reaaaaaaaaaaaally wanted DADDY to be home."

Thanks, kiddo! Nice to see you too.

My personal favorite came just last week when I reminded Cheeky that daddy would be in NY for a few days helping the movers load up our stuff. She let out a big sigh, then declared, "then I will be STUCK WITH YOU FOREVER and daddy will NEVER come back."

Slap. Ouch.

Sure, I know that kids are fickle (not to mention in dire need of sensitivity training) and this is the age at which, according to some guy, female children identify with their fathers. And of course I know that Cheeky loves me deeply and with all her heart.

Yet it still stings a little to be pushed aside, over and over again. I can enjoy the break in parental obligations but every now and then - especially here in a new city with a limited supply of friends/life of my own - I get a big old pang of sadness that I am no longer the center of her world. She'll be back, I know. But for now, daddy's having his day.

Cheeky and Daddy take on the world, one rainbow bridge at a time

Please stand clear of the closing doors.

It's been killing you, hasn't it? The suspense. The waiting and wondering, keeping you distracted during the day and reaching for your Ambien CR at night.

How did the trip go?

I was worried. Crouton was worried. Friends were worried (I think even Grandma was worried but she didn't allow it to overshadow her relief at our return). It was risky, going back so soon after landing in the Land of Longhorns. I expected a few tears with a side of angst, a subtle yet nagging desire to maybe just not come back.

Surprise, surprise, it wasn't so bad.

In fact, it was pretty easy breezy (not to be confused with my signature dish, cheesy mac n peasy, the only way to get Cheeky to eat veggies). Cheeky was a dream within a dream on the flight and we were delighted to find Grandma gleefully waiting for us at JFK. We loaded into the car, parked ourselves in some obligatory traffic and headed for celebrity row.

Once ensconced chez Grandma, we set plans in motion. I alerted the troops, called, texted, emailed friends. Come see us! Better yet, I'll ditch the kid and come see you! A couple of Cheeky-starved retirees make excellent and accommodating babysitters.

Cheeky was delighted to be in the old stomping grounds. She even opted out of a trip to the country for an action-packed city week. Didn't hurt that our arrival coincided with the start of fashion week, a surprise source of fun and princess regalia:

Isn't this the best balloon "animal" you've ever seen? Don't show Disney. They might sue.

Despite the sad reality of our first NY day being September 11, we had a good time. I enjoyed a run along the river, we ate, drank, shopped, frolicked. The weather was cool and comfortable. The takeout was spectacular - Vietnamese, Indian, upscale Szechuan. Hell, even the rotisserie chicken from D'Ag tasted pretty good. YUM-O!

One day, we even made the bold choice to pull a Quantum Leap and have a playdate in the old 'hood. We hopped a train and were at our stop in minutes. Neat - we didn't even have to get into a car!

We were a few minutes early, so we headed back to 6H to wait for our friends. The door to our apartment swung open and.....here's the weird part: it was just an apartment. It no longer seemed like home. Sure, it was our furniture and Cheeky's toddler bed (for an excellent tear-jerker on this subject, click here) and those pants I left behind, but it turns out Crouton was right. It didn't feel like home because my family didn't live there anymore. Go figure.

Our friends called. We walked out to meet them. And that was that.

It was great to catch up, to go to the old park, the playground, the ice cream truck.  The girls were BFFs, the weather cooperated and all was good. We headed back to Grandma's feeling satisfied, a little tired, but really just okay. With the whole situation.

The rest of the week went by in a blur of activity - some fun, some not so much (note to self: Statue of Liberty - never a good idea.) We finished out the week feeling good. I had grown-up dinners, lunches and coffees with friends, Cheeky had the unfettered attention of two devoted grandparents and two cats, and we managed to lessen the amount of time we'd be living in our soulless apartment.

NYC even managed to pull some crap that made me glad I don't still live there. I particularly enjoyed:

• Yelling, "EEEEEW vomit!," at Grandma as she backed up to take a photo, narrowly avoiding stepping in a pile.
• Garbage. Everywhere.

  

• Having to holler, "Watch out! Baby rat!" as I walked home from dinner with a friend.
• Herald Square. (if you look closely, you'll see Macy's right there next to the Soothsayers)
• Pinkberry. Really? $7 for frozen yogurt? Overrated.
• $99 dinner for two. While watching Port Authority buses thunder by. Ambiance costs extra I guess. 
• Dog urine, the smell of dog urine and dog urine loving dog owners who allow their dogs to piss on everything - piles of garbage, bike tires, parked cars. If you stand still long enough, watch out!

So thanks NY (and of course our fearless hosts) for all of that - and for the good stuff, too. The trip actually gave me a little sense of closure. A sense that it's okay to walk away and let the door close - to glance back, to even visit - but mostly to move forward.

Home, where my thought's escaping. A saga in 2 parts.

 

The idea of Cheeky and I retreating to NY for a week was born of a knee-jerk reaction. Things weren't going smoothly in Austin. I was terribly homesick. I longed for friends, neighbors, for our "stuff," for the ease (it used to be a hassle though, didn't it?) of walking to the store/park/playground/fill-in-the-blank effortlessly, nothing carrying us along but the momentum of our swinging hands-in-hands. We thought by now our Brooklyn apartment would be cleared out, having defied the real estate odds and sold our place for asking price to an all-cash bidder one day after our first open house.

But that wasn't meant to be. After stringing us along for almost three weeks, our dream buyers - who had had the nerve and luxury of visiting the apartment with their contractor three times - went the way of so many in this dismal market. After some furor, some tears, and some hard soul-searching, we made the tough choice to cancel the move (actually scheduled for the day after the buyers flaked) for now, leaving our furniture in place so the apartment "shows well." Yep, the stagers of HGTV won out and we made our broker's life even easier than her $40,000 commission would.

Crushed, defeated, I called Grandma.

I think we need to come home for a visit. I can't stand being in this soulless apartment  for another month.

Yes please oh please come home come home when can you come how long can you stay????

Can you guess who said what?

Credit card numbers were provided, Jetblue was contacted. We were on our way. Back. Home.

Or is Austin home now?

Crouton once said that (true but trite?) home is wherever Cheeky and I are. That's sweet, but to me it's much, much broader than that. Probably why I'm struggling so much to adjust.

I'm looking forward to my trip to NY but I'm also a bit worried - will it make it easier or harder to come back?

It helps that we'll have a real home to move into, at some point. That our nomadic existence is becoming more and more finite.

But would it be easier to rip NYC off like a band-aid, or slowly, painstakingly, peel back the edges, wincing - just a little bit - until it's all gone?

Not sure. But I do know, that as I settle into the flight, (I love you, Jetblue despite your silly snack choices) the sweet, slightly necrotic smell of self-tanner wafting my way from the oompa loompa in the next seat and the flickering lights of Spongebob casting a gentle light on Cheeky's entranced face, that soon I'll find out one way or the other.

And the good news? You, dear reader, get to find out too! Check back soon for Part 2: NYC, I hardly knew ya.

Loosey duck duck goosey.

When we first decided to move to Austin, finding a school - the right school - was a Big Scary Unknown. Cheeky, who is 4, was due to continue at an elite institution of lower education. Now of course I adore Cheeky but I was psyched for school this year - finally she'd be attending full time and I could reclaim some of my life. It was simple - I had to find something comparable (but hopefully and undoubtedly less expensive).

So I did some online searching to find a school in Austin. Following a brief episode of panic wherein I decided, emphatically, that a) no school would have an opening b) no school would offer a full day and c) Crouton would live and work in Austin and we would stay in Brooklyn, we found some options.

I made a bunch of phone calls and sent Crouton a-visitin'.

We narrowed the list down to two. Both felt, to Crouton, similar to Cheeky's old school in vibe and philosophy. One is located a quick and easy 5-minute drive from our home-to-be. The other is about a 15-minute drive through shopping mall- and traffic-infested streets. Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

I was happy to learn right from the start that Cheeky - and I - would have a full day. More, in fact.
When I asked the school administrator what time the day starts and stops, I got an interesting reply:

School: Well, we open at 7:30 and we close at 5:30.

Me: Really? Are you a daycare or a school?

We are a nationally accredited preschool (sounding slightly offended).

But you have no set start and end time?

We like to be flexible for the parents, but most of the learning-based activities take place between 9am and 3pm.

What??? Flexible? For the parents? Did she really just say that? Clearly we weren't in Brooklyn anymore.

OK, I thought, flexible is good. Weird and completely foreign to everything I know, but definitely a good thing. Imagine if, one day, I was - gasp - doing something for myself and wanted to take some extra time? No problem, just show up later.

But I also thought, really, is there so little structure to what you're doing there all day that it makes no difference whatsoever when the kids come and go?

I opted to give them the benefit of the doubt, deciding that maybe it's not that weird and abnormal for a preschool to be flexible, that maybe instead New York is weird and abnormal for not being flexible and accommodating.

Maybe.

Then school started, and I noticed a few things.

Cheeky, the World's Most Picky eater, was downright gleeful when she learned that her teachers would heat her lunch. Oh. My. God. She could have grilled cheese! Dinosaur nuggets! Kraft dinner! The possibilities were endless.

So imagine my surprise when I peeked into her lunchbox at pickup to see what was left, and her whole sandwich was there.

Um, Cheeky, you didn't like your sandwich?

It was cold. My teachers forgot to warm it up.

So you didn't ask them to heat it?

No.

Oh, did I mention I also have the World's Most Passive child?

When I asked her teachers the next day, they sort of sighed and said, oh yeah, we were running behind and some stuff got forgotten.We'll try to remember tomorrow.

Speaking of food, let's talk about the bowls of snacks out at all times (really? a bowl of cold corn and a stack of paper bowls?) and the kids bellying up to the fridge (it teaches them independence!) to retrieve the remnants of their lunches at any given hour (usually 3 though, it seems). One of things I found most valuable about school was the distraction it provided our not-surprisingly but clearly-definitely snack-prone kid.

Then, there's the mayhem. I arbitrarily decided that I'd pick Cheeky up at 3ish the first day. The next day when I realized most of the other kids were still there and she had no interest in leaving with me, the time slid back until about 3:30. Today, Crouton was planning to be at his millionth fantasy football draft, missing dinner/bedtime chores, so I left Cheeky at school until 4 to minimize my parental responsibilities. What's my point? It's this: Chaos Reigns. It really seems, regardless of what time I show up at school (and I just walk right in, nah, you're not interrupting anything), the room is in complete and utter disarray, the children are in complete and utter disarray and, not surprisingly, the teachers are in complete and utter disarray.

So much so that the other day, I noticed a princess blanket-shaped lump in a corner by a window and asked the head teacher, um, who's that? A look of shock came over her face, she turned and race-walked to the lump, whom she roused, saying, wake up! You shouldn't still be sleeping, that's waay too long of a nap. The poor kid had no clue. She's a sound sleeper and was forgotten in a corner.

All of this is not to say that Cheeky doesn't love school or that I don't feel that she's completely safe, nurtured and happy during the day. I consider myself a pretty laid-back mom. But really, a feeding trough? Forgotten nappers? Flexible hours?

Maybe I just need to loosen up even more. Sure, this school doesn't have the celebrity spawn (I think this one or this one is best we can hope for) that her old one does. Nor does it have the sense of structure. Order. The resources of an elite private school. But at the end of the day (whatever time that may be), does it really matter? She's happy. I'll be happy too.

Goose.

Welcome the gene pool.

NYC is treacherous ground for anyone's self esteem, let alone one that's been battered by years of yo-yo dieting and compulsive sideways glances in storefront windows. So when me and my shaky self esteem contemplated moving to Texas, I felt a sense of relief. It had to be true that everything's a little bit bigger in Texas, including the people. Right?

Guess again.

Until we close on our house, we're staying in temporary "corporate" housing. In our case that means a slick high-rise in "downtown" (I use the term lightly) Austin, replete with a wall of water, glistening concrete floors and a concierge staff that would put Barney Thompson to shame.

One of the building's highlights is the pool, sleek and modern like the rest of the building; cool, refreshing and inviting on the mostly three-digit days.

We thought it'd be a great playground for Cheeky - there are fountains! Colored lights! Chaise lounges that sit right in the water!

What we didn't consider is the pool's population.

I can honestly say that I have never in my life - not on the beaches of the Caribbean, poolside at the Princeville in Kauai, overlooking the Amalfi Coast in Positano - have I seen such an overwhelmingly attractive group of sunbathers. These people seriously test the tenets of the Declaration of Independence and fuel the fire of Darwin's natural selection. 

And it's not just the women...

It's the men, too...

I mean, I knew it would be HOT here, but I had no idea just how ubiquitous that hotness would be.

Sure, sure, there are some "normal" people I see in passing. Like the overly made-up, big-haired Texas housewife or the uptight chubby snitch making poolside citizen's arrests for rules violations and offering unsolicited parenting advice ("Poor baaaaaaaaby her feet will burn up you have to make her wear her shoes. Right, try making YOUR 4-year old do ANYTHING.).

But more often that not it's the insanely stunning (and it's not just me, ask Crouton), string-bikini wearing MILF tethered to the earth only by the weight of her ice cube-sized diamond ring.

Sometimes, the beautiful people even leave the pool deck and seep into other areas of the building - the gym, the elevators, the lobby. They even prance into the parking deck and get into their beautiful cars - have you ever seen a bright green Lamborghini?

So think of me, dear readers, each day boldly crossing the beauty threshold established by the building's admissions committee. I'll be the one in the momsuit, dragging the soggy toddler. Don't tell the guards...

In. Dependence.

I am a ten year-old girl. It's sometime in late July and I've been at camp four weeks, which, truth be told, should be about the legal limit. My mom and dad drove more than 800 hours to the sticks of Lake Placid for Parent's Weekend. They brought me a one-pound bag of M & M's, Twizzlers, stickers, stationery, and a red coin purse shaped like lips. I desperately longed for this weekend since being belched out of the bus at the start of summer and now that it's almost over the weight of their impending departure feels like a brick in my stomach. I dread saying goodbye. I dread being left behind while they return, together, to our home. They leave. I cry and wish I could go home, too.

Flash forward.

I am a 39 year-old woman with a daughter of my own. We're in Austin, Texas. After a much discussed and debated plan, the trip that was supposed to be a visit to daddy but morphed into relocation for me and Cheeky is upon us. We spend 4 days in denial acting as if we're all on vacation - exploring the city, dining at great restaurants, revolving like a solar system around Cheeky and diligently suppressing our angst to limit any of hers. But it gets harder and harder to hold back my own.

Isn't it amazing how quickly we can be swept back in time? How instantly we can be reduced to childhood, how seamlessly we can regress?

I mean, sure, I am a "grownup." Technically. But picking up our little family and moving halfway across the country to the surface of the sun is not only "exciting" and "an adventure" but is also tough, to say the least. Goodbye has been long and painful. With Grandma and Grandpa a 15-minute subway ride away, we had it good for four years, and now that's come to an end.

And once again I am a 10 year old girl. Feeling sad, alone and left behind. This time, without even M & M's to show for it.

An update: Things are looking up! I only cried twice today - once on a phone call and once, embarrassingly, while talking to the preschool director at dropoff. Plus, a few minutes ago, I was distracted by really cool lightening and glanced outside to see a red, blinking radio tower that catapulted me back to my youth. There was a similar tower near the house where I grew up, which we had nicknamed "the friendly tower" because we always knew when we passed it that we were almost home. So now I'm a little closer to "home" with my own friendly tower, and feelin' a little better thanks to M & M's I "borrowed" from Cheeky's care package (thanks Grandma Bette!).

Is that a clown car?

What's the limit for checked suitcases on a major airliner? Oh yeah, right, I remember now.

One.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I laugh in the face of rules, of authority, of airline suitcase weight restrictions.

I mean, we are moving after all. Shouldn't we get some sort of special dispensation?

Sure, sure, as Croutonspouse smugly told me yesterday, "you know we have movers. I only packed two small bags" Right, Crouton, you're very very special and talented. But you packed for your bachelorhood stint. I have other considerations. Like what about light-up swimming Ariel? Little blankie, big blankie, new pillow, old pillow, soft blankie? Mini princesses in their cases? Or those high volume taffeta-laden dresses? Pool flotation devices? Ten gallon hats? You get the idea.

 

It okay, we'll just strap the kid onto the roof.

Amazingly, we defied the laws of physics, dusted off our spatial relations hats and fit 14 suitcases, 140 people, a cowboy hat, and a whole lot of stress into the back of a Lexus SUV. Let's hear it for Lexus!

Barring any unforeseen yet inevitable delays at JFK, tonight we ride in TEXAS.

See y'all there!