Where I show up just in time for dinner with a full basket of dirty laundry and ask for twenty bucks, please

It has been one long week since I visited and I feel a bit like a college student who is weary from killer finals and post-killer finals keggers at the frat barn who has returned home for a break that she swears will be packed full of working for some family friend or another and spending QT with the fam but will really be spent sleeping in late and hoping her mother does her laundry.

Except, without all the overly foamy Milwaukee's Best (forgive me for this, but I am totally conditioned by attending a highly-competitive state school in Missouri to follow that brand mention with horned fingers in the air and yelling, "Bring on The Beeeeaaaaast").  Oh, and without the sleep.

We've been busy. I've been working a lot of hours (this is a good thing...right?) and squeezing in an exhaustive apartment search, games of Candy Land, co-op and daycare, energy-burner laps around the block and praying for spring to arrive for real this week into any and every free moment. 

Thankfully like the whole college spring break (well, my college spring breaks which never involved bikinis or clubs in Florida filled with foam and jello shots), my parents have been very involved. My mom took on this wonderful, wired-up role as apartment finder and with my dad, did drive-bys and internet research and Google map consulting for weeks and weeks.

My dad patiently finished and folded all the laundry I neglectfully left in the washing machine for days on end and did his crossword with Lil E snuggled in beside him in the big chair while I sat in front of my laptop for seemingly endless hours, scouted out more apartments and did and re-did and re-did my monthly budget.

And just like seeing that A arrive in mail in rubbed-off type on a tissue paper report card, there are shining moments when staying up studying and cramming and flexing the brain until 3 a.m. in boxers and t-shirts from said frat barn keggers all seems worth it.

We got an apartment. An apartment (feel free to say that as shrill as needed...I do)! A lovely place that I could immediately picture us in. It is bright and safe and feels happy, even without our things inside. It is close to the apartment where we used to live, even closer to my parents and closer still to a big park that I've always loved. We will not be far from our old friends and we will be in a new place where I know there will be new neighbors to meet.

We have a lot of work to do before we settle in to our new home. There will be more late nights, more stress, more juggling of childcare and schedules and expectations. But once the books are closed, the lights are out and we are tucked into our own beds in our own home, I think there will be that sigh of relief that only comes when you've accomplished something big.

Sometimes, I guess, those accomplishments are academic, sometimes professional and often familial. They are always emotional, though, aren't they? And almost always solved by just getting home.

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Wedding Weekend: The ring bearer bares it all

This weekend, Molls got married. It was one of those weddings that you leave happy -- teary from the grace and bliss of it all, exhausted from singing into thumb microphones with your grrrlfriends and dancing with your boy to Motown all night and so full of hope that there is love like that and it can last. Happy.

I was a bridesmaid, Lil E was a ring bearer and we proudly stood beside Molls, one of our favorite people in the world and one of the strongest people in  our now very definitive circle of loved ones. Lil E was ecstatic in his tiny tux and told Molls earlier in the week, "I know you will look amazing!"  And she did.

Rewinding a bit before that, though, to the rehearsal dinner and the toasts and giggles and all the pretend pomp and circumstance, Lil E was far more serious. He took his little bow to Baby Jesus that the Catholics like you to take as you greet the priest, and he stood silent and with eyebrows knit in concentration as the bride and groom lit an imaginary unity candle and exchanged air rings and mouthed their vows.

He explained the complexities of Lightning McQueen to adult members of the bridal party at dinner and raised his juice box to toast the happy couple. He was a good boy, a sweet boy and he seemed to soak up all the loving energy in the room. I held him tightly against me as he grew tired and requested his paci and babydoll Tiger and time crept far beyond his bedtime.

He was asleep by the time we got home and I carried his limp body inside, peeled off his coat and hat and shoes and dress shirt. He woke up then and smiled up at me wearily.

"Mommy, is the rehearsal over?" he asked.

I nodded. "Shhhh. Close your eyes."

And I laid him back down on the bed, ran a finger down his nose and went to find a Pull-Up and clean pajamas.

When I turned back to put them on, though, he was still reclining but with his arms back, hands behind his head, bare chest thrust out. He looked, dare I say, playboy-in-practice-ish.

"What are you doing?!" I laughed quietly and he answered me like it was completely obvious.

"Pushing out my boobies!"

"What?!" I laughed, this time louder. And then we got to the heart of the matter.

"Mommy, what are boobies?"

It was a good question, I guess, but it threw me off since the kid spent a good 18 months so attached to them. I pointed to my chest.

"These," I said matter-of-factly.

"Ohhhh."

"You don't really have boobies," I clarified. And honestly, yes, I would normally say breasts but nearly two hours after regular night time, in the nightlight-lit room of your parents' house where you are transitioning from marriage into single momdom, these formalities cease to hold such importance.

"But I like boobies," he said completely convincingly, "So why can't I have them?!"

I smiled and slid his camouflage pajama top over his head, but I was thinking as I undressed and redressed him, covering the boobies he wished he could thrust forward into the world, or at least the quiet safety of his room, that he'd tiredly tapped into a question of the ages.

Or at least of much of mankind.  Ahhh yes, small boy, if you only knew how many grown men still wonder why, if they love boobies so much, they can't have access to them all the time. And so another lesson is learned for this 3-year-old, I suppose: Sometimes we thrust out what we don't have just because we so wish we had it. Sometimes, that's adorable and optimistic and full of hope.

And other times, it's just a reality check of who we really are, what time it is and that we need some sleep before a big day of putting forward who we really are.

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What S-T-O-and P really spells

The whole world halted yesterday afternoon.

This, in the midst of a crazy work schedule and preparations for Molls' wedding and a to-do list that rattles in the back of my thoughts constantly and all good intentions to recount every adorable detail of Easter egg hunting in the snow.

None of that mattered when the late sun was settling in through the half-closed living room blinds and Lil E and my mom and I were stretched out on the floor setting up Candy Land. They'd just returned from daycare pick-up and some time in the cold wind at the park by our old apartment. Lil E referred to it as "the playground by daddy's house" and it was this peaceful acknowledgment of these months and more changes. They buzzed proudly about how much more he can do there now that he is bigger and taller and more confident and agile-- swing from the handlebars, climb the tall ladders, breeze through the swinging bridges.

And then my mom gasped.

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