Six years of him

We moved out of our downtown condo and into the second of what may be a long succession of temporary homes over the weekend.  As you can see, the children did not make the move easy but it did eventually happen.

Now we live in Tiny Cottage.  Tiny Cottage is just a few blocks from The Goddamn House.  We can now walk past The GD House regularly and throw rocks at it, give it the middle finger, swear at it -- you know, the normal stuff you do to something you love.

(There is no progress on the purchase of The Goddamn House.  We need the ex-wife to sign some things and she doesn't feel like signing things right now.  I kind of don't feel like not smacking her upside the head, either.)

Tiny Cottage

Living in Tiny Cottage has put us within a few blocks of some of our best friends.  It's also an easy walk to anything we could ever want, such as bars and restaurants and tattoo parlors.  Seattle Mom and I walked to the local hipster bar Saturday night.  Hipsters are funny in their plaid pants and thick-rimmed glasses, derby hats and ironic piercings.  I bet you didn't know a piercing could be ironic but Seattle hipsters can make it happen.

 

fun

Seattle Mom and I had too good of a time and got home late.  Alex got up with the kids the next morning so I could sleep in.  He thoughtfully closed the big, beautiful pocket door to the bedroom to give me a better chance of being left alone by little people (our kids, not the other kind).
 
Our tiny cottage is a turn-of-the-century house with some quirky old house features.  For instance, you can't open the drawer of the bathroom built-in if the bathroom door is closed because it hits the doorknob.

So quirky

The exterior doors have old-fashioned keyholes that are completely open to the outside so we had to stuff them with paper towels to cut the draft --

So silly

But most important, another quirky feature of the house is once the big beautiful pocket door to the bedroom is closed, it is impossible to open again --

  Ruh-roh

I was stuck in the bedroom for a long, long time.

When yelling didn't work, I called Alex on his cell.  I said, "Come get me. I can't get out of the bedroom" and he said, "My God, you're a disaster."  We eventually shimmied the door open;  the secret is to push on the upper right side as you pull on the handle.  Of course, you need the wing span of a pterodactyl to do this alone, so I'm just going to go with "let's never close that damn door again."

Yesterday was Lucien's 6th birthday and me being the fantastic mom I am, I didn't take any pictures of him.  The only picture I took was of his dinosaur birthday balloon in the dining room.  I am the worst.

where's the kid?

In my defense, I was distracted because I had to attend Lucien's classroom birthday party and it was a high pressure situation.  I was instructed by the teacher to show up in the class with cookies, juice, napkins, Lucien's favorite book, and some music.  It made me nervous because it was so different from our school in Paris, where they instructed me to bring nothing, absolutely nothing, stay the hell away from school on celebration day, hippie. 

It was my job to read Lucien's favorite dinosaur book to the class while the teacher set cookies and juice on all the desks.  When I first sat down in front of all those bright blinkie eyes with my book, I felt icy cold fear.  Kids are very good bullshit detectors.  Would they know I didn't know what the hell I was doing?  That I'd never entertained a large group of children before?  Could they sense my fear?  Would they turn on me like angry chimps?  (The answer is no but it looked iffy for a second when little Miles raised a suspicious eyebrow.) 

The book-reading was chaotic because Lucien couldn't contain his excitement and jumped up to share what he knew about every dinosaur I mentioned.  Several other boys were also dinosaur experts so they talked over each other to add their thoughts and hypotheses to the mix.  One little boy believes dinosaurs became extinct because they ate some bad burritos.  I wonder what happened at that kid's house recently...*shudder*

Coco, for some reason -- either excitement or a grave balance problem -- couldn't stay in her chair to save her life.  She kept falling over backwards and landing with a loud THUD.  I reached over and picked her up without skipping a word, all while keeping Lucien on an even keel and fielding questions from his classmates like "Would that dinosaur eat french fries?" and "Lucien's Mommy, can I go do poo-poo?"

The teacher told me afterward it was the most impressive multitasking she'd seen from a parent during birthday story hour.  I gave her a feeble thumbs-up from the floor, where I'd fallen after finishing the final paragraph about fossil formation.

No time to rest, though, because then came the dancing and I was the DJ.  The teacher asked me to play a "dance song" and of course I played some Korn followed by some Marilyn Manson.  Dancing time was vocabulary time, too!

(I actually played Laurie Berkner and it was as lame as it sounds)

(P.S. If you've never danced with a classroom full of kindergarteners, you really haven't lived.  It was the cutest thing I've ever been afraid of but ultimately enjoyed)

Lucien's class then presented him with a book of drawings of all his favorite things.  I really liked this one --

 It's an herbivore dinosaur eating a macaroni and cheese tree

After school, Lucien, Ms. Cokes and I took cupcakes to his friends who live on the same street as The GD House.  I think we really pleased our friends when we dropped off cupcakes right before dinner, thus instigating horrific struggles between parents and their children who wanted to eat cupcakes RIGHT. NOW.  Sorry about those migraines, friends.

While delivering cupcakes, we got pulled into a spontaneous dinner at a friend's house.  That's why we want The GD House.  When you're just walking down the street and someone suddenly offers you delicious food, you know it's where you need to live.

Lucien's birthday party is this weekend.  Maybe I'll remember to take some pictures of that.  Until then, here's a picture of Lucien getting on the school bus for the very first time, just this morning.  It's blurry because I was verklempt.  It hasn't been six of the easiest years on record, but man, I love that kid.

bye-bye, buddy

May you discover a most excellent dinosaur skeleton someday, crazy little six-year old son,
MJ