Late May: Patrick celebrated twenty years of sobriety, half of his life, and all of his legal drinking life. Three goddamn cheers to high bottoms. Also, I noted that the Taurean birthday gauntlet that runs from late April to late May is now completely anxiety-free, which was my own little teachable moment about relationships.

June: Seamus had what is now know as the Worst Potty Training Accident Ever, forever confirming that despite developing a routine with him regarding well, any functions, I still need to be vigilant around him. Which is depressing because I’m not sure how to mete out independence within a framework of all eyes and ears on the boy. We had a horribly long ER visit involving a pediatric urology consult, steri-strips, and a return to diapers until he healed up. Two weeks later Seamus climbed right back up onto the potty ring where it all occurred, proving that under his two year-old wildness lurks a brave kid.

We looked at one last fixer in Alameda before caving and asking K, our realtor, if she handled rentals. Alas, no, but her mother had a place available. It’s a Craftsman cottage divided into a duplex. We have the two-bedroom front unit, our neighbor C has the studio in the back. K and her family live in the divided house in the back of the lot, and her sister will be replacing their current downstairs neighbor in a few weeks. We do the occasional swapped playdate, and the kids play together in the shared space between the buildings.

Patrick turned forty at the end of June, and instead of finding a babysitter and going out, he attended his company’s fifth anniversary party while I packed and prepared the house for an ad hoc birthday barbecue. Please note that being the wife of someone working in a start-up is not fun. It never has been, but this is a lovely shining example of the non-fun. Adult time? What the fuck is that?

July: We called in every favor we had and moved. I got most of the upstairs packed before I got run down and needed some rest days, so that got moved painlessly, but the garage….Sigh. On the plus side, someone now understands that he has too much stuff, and that he needed to choose between his stuff and his family. The progress through it all is slow, but we’re still here.

Seamus had a few potty accidents and preferred pull-ups the first couple of weeks post-move, but he appears to be completely potty trained. He’s wearing pull-ups at night and still resisting strange toilets, but he will use them, and we haven’t had very many accidents. I’ve stenciled a bunch of training pants, and we’ll keep him in those till he’s more proactive in using the toilet before we leave the house, at bedtime, etc. Given that he’s a boy, and under three, I’m pleased with how this has worked out.

Seamus starts his play-based preschool next week. He expressed some anxiety about it tonight while playing with Blue, the rubber stingray my sister gave him.

“Oh Blue, I’m so sorry you can’t find your friends. Mama, the stingray can’t find his friends at school!”

“He can’t?” I pick up the stingray and try to make eye contact. “Blue, you will find your friends at school, I promise. They may not be the friends you play with now, but you will find your friends, and you will play with them and have a good time.” I put Blue down and looked at Seamus. “Just like you, Baby. You’ll make friends at your new school too. Okay?”

“Okay.”

August: Much like July, Shea and I struggle for a good routine that gets him the stuff he needs - quiet time, play time with friends, a regular bedtime - and allows me to do the other stuff I am supposed to do around here (unpacking, general house and book keeping, etc.) All this has done is remind me that I am not cut out to live on a farm somewhere with four kids, unless we’re sharing property with another family and only two of said kids are mine. Being the solo caretaker of a boy who can climb anything and undo all manner of latches makes going to the bathroom (among other tasks) really really difficult. I bought Scream Free Parenting as a result of this.

September: Kind of awesome so far. Patrick took some PTO days so I could do something other than worry about Seamus, and while it was housework, the shared care and time off made for a massive improvement in how I approached some of Shea’s less savory behavior. We went apple picking on Saturday and brought home twenty pounds of apples, apple-pear juice, artisanal breads, and a ton of barbecue. Yesterday was the Rail Fair at Ardenwood Farm, where we met up with friends and rode nineteeth-century steam trains. Today was a hike in the bird sanctuary with my mom and sister. Tomorrow brings storytime at the library and the farmers market. Seamus is sleeping under homemade blankets I sewed this past week during our heatwave. We’re muddling through. Once he starts school, I can figure out the job thing and get rid of the pantry moths, start running again and find a dye kit for the couch. I didn’t mention the Sharpie incident? File it under Vigilance, Failure of.

I am absolutely fine.

Alt. Title: Fuck the Former Tenants

Language: English, with cursing in English and Spanish (subtitled)

Synopsis: After finally getting a large chunk of time free from Seamus, I clean up the house and prepare to clean the tub, which has been grossing me out since I rinsed some shampoo of off a sliding door and released a tide of pink shower scum. I turned on all of the lights and threw down with some Bon Ami and SalSuds. And scrubbed and scrubbed and was vanquished by poor water pressure and no-slip stickers, caked with accumulated plaque.

But I’ll be back for the sequel. With bleach and steel wool.

When Seamus is not throwing down like an almost three year-old who has just moved from the only home he’s ever known, we’re exploring our new town as well as spending a lot of time playing out back. We live near a commercial corridor so I’ve been spending a good chunk of time sourcing stuff and figuring out costs. We’ve visited playgrounds, the beach, the dog park, the shoreline wetlands preserve and the local aviation museum. We saw a tiger swallowtail butterfly yesterday. Depite my slatherings with mineral sunblock, we’re tanning under the afternoon sun.

Other news:

• I found a preschool for Seamus! I was a little worried about this, as the spot we relinquished was one I applied for in 2008 and I had no idea how competitive the application process was here in Alameda. The school is play-based with structure, and Shea loved the place when we visited. He’ll go three days a week, they’ll support potty-training efforts, and I feel very optimistic about the whole thing.
• Once I’ve gotten this place under control, I begin re-skilling to work part-time from home. There’s the dream job I have in my head, and there’s the dream of sharing both the working and care-giving responsibilities with Patrick. With world enough and time they may not be mutually exclusive, but I am not sure if we have that.
• Bandit is running about the house and behaving like a normal cat. She eats only wet food now, and we’ve made some good spaces for her food and box, and she seems to be happier. She’s obsessed with the basement.
• Faolan misses C and her dog-walking group, so we work really hard to get her time with our neighbor’s dog, and I plan on geting her to the dog park at least twice a week.

I’m helping a friend with an essay, so that’s all for now.

Ah, the Bay Area. Atlantis in our times, you are.

Yes, I had a job at the time. So did Nehemiah Wallington, and he managed to pray eleven times a day. Just sayin’.

So I’m packing them up with similar intentions, and have boxes labeled with tags like “Penguin Orange Books - Living Room”. Once you tape up five or six boxes and assign a color to each, the work goes pretty quickly. Only… I’m packing boxes 17-22 now, and I’m maaaaaybe halfway done. With the main collection, not the smaller subject/genre collections- homemaking, parenting/child development and education, travel, and porn (What?). Or Seamus’ books.

We’re also in the maket for new bookshelves. Think we can get a bulk discount?

I kept the indexing books. I’m not sure why, though I think indexing would provide a brainy component to my life that I’m currently lacking. Never say never? I’ll get some use out of that degree yet? Hard to say.

But all of that attempting to find a permanent job, contracting, then finding one that wouldn’t cover the expenses of having an infant in San Francisco and the attending emotions of anxiety and doubt and sorrow and some hope followed by more doubt and confusion (and rage, let’s not forget that one)- that’s going away with the books I’ve just consigned to Goodwill. I’ve kept the things that keep me curious. And no more.

I’ve been trying to re-jigger my exercise routine so that it’s a routine and not, I dunno, some happenstance event like finding a twenty in the street. I’m okay enough with how I look, but I don’t feel great, so I’d like to work on that. I’ve discovered that my running stride is too bouncy to effectively push the jogging stroller forward without over-using my shoulders, so I’ve settled on five-mile walks, which let me work on my posture.

It took a long time to figure out how to incorporate Seamus into the walk once he started trying to ditch his nap. He fights getting into/being in the stroller if he’d rather walk, but the truth is that if he’s walking, Im not exercising, I’m walking with a toddler who still requires constant supervision and re-direction. I do those walks too, but not as my workout. Which I really need in order to not grey-out like I have been, or to keep my crankiness in check.

I’ve discovered that if I put Seamus into his stroller at mid-day, hand him his lunch, and go for a five-mile walk, he eats well then has a nap/quiet time, and I get some exercise. But he’s eating a meal alone, essentially, and I’m wondering how much of an impact this has. All breakfasts and dinners are family meals, and I’m a much more patient person when I’ve gotten my time to do something that is mostly for me now, but he could join me in walking when he is older and undertands that this is not a walk for exploring every single driveway on every single block.

I’m torn between thinking that this has benefits for us both, and that it’s a total dick parenting technique. Enlighten me please.