growing our roots deep

i have held off doing anything closely related to permanence around this house for nearly three and a half years.  no nails in the walls, holes in the ground, or fancy fabrics adorning the windows.  mostly because at first, we didn't know if we were going to stay here long-term, and i didn't want to make parting any bit harder.  but having two babies in that spread helped me hold off the urge, too.  i've been preoccupied with diaper changes, mushing up fruits and vegetables and freezing them in little glass jars, establishing bedtime routines, choosing the right sippy cups and baby forks, and all at the same time watching the height of the marker lines on the growth chart swell higher and higher.  

well, things are beginning to change.  we're sinking our roots deep into this house and staying for the long haul.  we like it here and are excited to know that if we have anything to do with it, this is our "forever house".  it is also becoming evident to me that instead of having two little ones that require my constant help, i am blessed to have two little ones constantly begging to help.  thus, the beginning of the project years.  

this marks the time where we hem and haw here and there, slowly making this house our own custom dwelling place....a place where memories are found in the paint on the walls, and with one look around, our minds will be full with the sights and sounds of the family projects that it took to make this home ours.  for eight years, i've waited for a "project" house, and now we wake up in it every morning. i'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get started.

privately, in my mind, i marked the beginning of this era....holy cow, hold on - a milestone just made it's mark. i must stop and explain...

.....currently, it's naptime and the house is quiet.  our oldest, age three, is at the brink of keeping his diaper dry at night, as you know.  in our discussions together about that very matter, i have told him that if he has to go potty, he can get out of bed and walk to the bathroom, do his business, then quietly walk back to his room, get back in bed and go back to sleep.  you must know, that true to his firstborn nature, he is extremely obedient, and has never ever gotten out of bed unless instructed he could do so.  this is a huge deal.  he didn't even peek around the corner to see what i was doing, or shoot me a non-verbal question as to whether it's time to get up yet or not.  i am a firstborn, and i totally pulled that stunt when i was little.  it got me in trouble every time.  so, i am a bit flustered by the nostalgia of this event and am now way off that sweet wave of words that i was previously riding. 

focus, beck.  you can hug and high five him when he wakes up and you'll do so a lot more energetically if you've completed your thoughts in this post first. 

....right.  so in my mind, the beginning of the rest of our memories here in this home was marked by the family style picnic we had on our front lawn for the kids' recent birthdays.  i saw an event of that proportion the minute we drove up to the house for the very first time, sitting in the back seat of our realtor's car.  and on the day of the event, i found myself celebrating because i knew it was happening.  just like i had envisioned it.  that day in the back of our realtor's car, i was only six months pregnant with our first baby, so i didn't know the exact context of that event.  but i could see friends and families and laughter and food.  and standing in the middle of exactly that, i knew.  and i know that was only the first of many fun times we will share with those we love on our front lawn. really, those intangible memories began the moment we brought the first box into the house.  but that one in particular solidified itself into reality from the envisioned form where it previously resided only in my mind.  for previous to that party, i was hesitant to even host such an ordeal in our home, because the thought of leaving it behind if we ever did have to move was something i wasn't ready to digest. 

and now, i'm proud to announce the first of another kind of memory...our first family project...a first mark of improvement that is right in front of us to see.  tomorrow, we will be planting palm trees and flowers in the sadly barren planters inside our pool cage that we have been staring at for just long enough.  it was an impromptu project, but those are the best because the results are always pleasant surprises rather than way too contemplated with expectations impossible to meet.  we trekked to lowe's and had fun pondering over the colors of the 88 cent potted flowers we would plant.  would a hot pink or a soft sweet hue be best to look at while splashing in the shallow end of the pool?  and, you just know we had to throw some orange in there...our son would make sure of it.  then we had to consider the height of the mature plant...did we want a low ground cover to give an open and airy feel, or a knee high bushy bunch of multicolored blooms?  well, i can't tell you that we knew all the answers to those questions when we were piling the trays of baby plants into our trunk,  but we did know that we got a little bit of a lot of different kinds and we are sure this will be the prettiest flower bed we've ever seen.  

tomorrow is planting day.  our roots will uncurl themselves and reach down yet a little bit further into the soil that we happily call home.