The Biswolds

Today’s post will be one of my shorter ones. I’m sitting on a plane waiting to take off from my 34^th (I think) flight since I took this job. I’m officially 34 weeks pregnant today as well. I have been in Vegas – sick, pregnant, and subsequently sober all week. Bad combination in this city. I have a cold which would seem minor if I wasn’t pregnant but excessive coughing and zero stomach muscles left to use has resulted in a torn stomach muscle. I have been experimenting with the fetal position, a pillow pressed into my stomach, and crouching tiger position all week. Everything results in me on the verge of or in tears post coughing fit.

I’m in good spirits though because this is the milestone week I’ve been waiting for! Once I land in LA today I head home to help Liz with some last minute packing, pick the kids up from school, and head off to the airport again…we’re coming for you East Coast! I can’t fly back east for Christmas so we’ve had these flights booked since May.

We will have a whole week where we are able to see our family and friends in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We fly in tonight and leave next Sunday afternoon. I plan to kiss and hug a lot of people I’m missing. I’m going to meet my best friend’s new baby boy Bryce, have a dinner with my mom and brother, go to a Raven’s game, see my high school friends, see my in-laws, sisters in law, and snuggle my nieces. We love California and it’s been a great transition so far but my heels are clicking.

Once we are back in LA I’m officially grounded from flying and Liz starts working immediately. With only 4 weeks to go until Baby #3’s big day I anticipate time speeding by. Without excessive travel and a billion flights to catch I plan on dropping the boys off and picking them up most of the time so Liz can get settled into work. The school will probably ask for ID or birth certificates at pickup. I plan to take 12 weeks of maternity leave so for me that means 16 weeks free of overnight trips away from my kids…all 3 of them J I’m trying not to think any further ahead than that because when my thoughts do wander to 3 kids and lots of travel again all I can think about is playing the lottery on a weekly basis.

On a side note, I can’t believe that we don’t know who this baby is yet. Liz and I talk all the time about how different our lives were once our kids were born and how we cannot for a second imagine this life without either of them. McKay was so young when Gabe was born that he didn’t fully realize what was happening. But now McKay is 5 and Gabe is 3. They have known the whole time I’m pregnant that they are getting a new brother or sister. They say, “whoa mommy, that is a big belly!” And rub my tummy. They lay on me and feel their sibling kick them and put words in his or her mouth. Mommy, she said, ‘brodher’ Mommy, I think her wants my binki when she comes out, or mommy, I think she tooted (farts are funny from a very early age) …especially with two boys. Their personalities have changed us and changed them and I’m so excited to add a third crazy Biswold to the mix. See you soon East Coast!

Tomorrow my first and oldest baby will turn 5 years old. I literally do not know how that is possible. Tonight I laid with him at bedtime and we talked about the exciting weekend we have planned to celebrate him. Then in one swift movement he turned towards me, put his arm around me, and dozed off. I remember wanting so badly to be a mom that I couldn’t function. The months of negative pregnancy tests, lying in bed crying with Liz, and resolving to try again because it wasn’t yet our time. And then finally, a positive pregnancy test followed by more tears, just joyful ones instead of heartache. 40 weeks and 5 days later this little man came into our lives with the famous Bisland scowl on his face and changed the entire landscape of my life. I have tried to describe this extreme change to people before and it’s almost impossible to put it into words. But it’s true…EVERYTHING changes…your view of the world, your place in that world, mortality, and everything you thought was ‘important’ before.

Watching him grow up has been tough but extremely rewarding. It’s tough because time seems to pass in dog years when you are a parent. But on the flip side, watching this little person grow into who he is becoming has been so unbelievably cool. Liz and I used to call him our 3^rd best friend because we dragged him around everywhere with us. He was a regular fixture on the sidelines at our flag football games in Baltimore and then at Claddaugh’s Pub with us after the game. I can prove it. Here’s a picture of him napping in his stroller in the corner.

Liz and I coined the phrase ‘double mommy kiss’ with him. We would each kiss one of his cheeks and say, double mommy kiss. Now he says, um, mommy’s, I think I might need a double mommy kiss. I’m sure Freud would have a field day with this one and I’ll save this post for his future therapy sessions. LOL!

McKay is of sweet but stubborn and determined, confident but sensitive, intense and competitive but incredibly funny. He has a secret toy drawer where he stashes his most precious toys. The problem being that he doesn’t actually play with them. We have a running joke that he’s a hoarder…he’s in on it and even calls it his hoarding drawer and giggles after he stashes something there for ‘safekeeping’. He’ll say something like “Mommy, I just put something somewhere…” and we all know what he’s talking about. He and Liz have an ongoing battle with the hoarding drawer which usually results in tears. I remember when I was younger being teased about keeping my 1^st communion money…I was frugal even when little. I had a spot I kept the money in and I would check it at regular intervals but never spend it.  I know, apples and trees. Gabe will have to show him how to loosen up a bit and enjoy his life…just as Liz has helped me do. And believe me, McKay will be a positive influence on Gabe!

He’s a ravenous eater but he isn’t a chicken nugget/French fry kid. We can’t even get him to eat that stuff when we are on a road trip and we just need to put calories into his belly. We typically have to order off of the adult menu for him and can rarely talk him into a restaurant if calamari are not on the menu. His favorite foods are steak and pizza, he can eat his weight in fruit, and he’s completely obsessed with anything that has sugar in it.

He’s can be the sweetest big brother. Don’t get me wrong, they are like any pair of brothers and fight like cats and dogs but he’s genuinely happy and prideful to help his brother learn his letters, turn on the bathroom light when he’s scared, or let him play with his hair. He can make friends with literally anyone and seeks out friends at the park, at school, at the pool, or wherever he is. He’s a natural leader so much so that when his teacher started assigning jobs to the kids in the class this year she kept him as the leader for two weeks straight because he was teaching all the kids how to do it right. I know you are probably reading this and rolling your eyes…yeah, every mom thinks her kid is naturally take charge, confident, etc…but he has ‘grown up’ so much this year and his social confidence has surprised me. For a kid who has been put into a different daycare or school setting every year of his life he completely embraced California and his new school. He is in a Jewish pre-school and he’s totally into all of the holidays, traditions, and values. He’s educating his two mommies who were raised Catholic and are completely clueless about Judaism. His Thanksgiving project that’s hanging in the hallway at school says, “I’m thankful for my family, my teachers, and God” – McKay. Proud mommy moment noted.

Every night I’m home I get to snuggle with him. He normally comes into our bed during the middle of the night or early in the morning and my side is closest to the door. He pulls himself close into me and snuggles up. I know he won’t always climb into bed with us but for now I’m eating it up and not taking it for granted. Again, I’m sorry to whomever McKay falls in love with in the future…it’s our fault #canwesnugglemore #twomoms

There will always be something incredibly special about this boy, after all, he was the one who made me a mom. He is the one who changed everything the moment he came out of my belly and was laid on my chest. Oh my God, I thought, the whole world was exactly as it should be in this very moment. Happy 5^th Birthday Mr. Man! If I die tomorrow I know that you are hands down the greatest thing I’ve ever done.

Yesterday would have been my dad’s 62^nd birthday. Birthdays, death days, holidays, and other milestones are minefields that I try my best to navigate through. The lead up to the day comes with a certain level of uneasiness and nervousness because you don’t know how your emotions will hold up. The day itself sometimes crushes you. Sometimes it passes with relative ease. When it passes easier than you anticipated, the day after it sneaks up and punches you in the stomach like a bully as if to say…”one more year without him, how does that make you feel?”

The passage of these days is brutal because it always signifies time since you last celebrated that day. It’s a bitter reminder of the insensitive and overused phrase “Time will heal your pain”. Fuck that…Time will lessen your pain and that’s because you learn to live with it. And then you come to hate time for its ability to desensitize you and then you hate yourself for allowing time to have its way with you.

It’s not his 62^nd birthday to me as much as it is the 14^th birthday I’ve celebrated his life and old age without him. He was always sensitive to getting older…losing his hair, the thought of losing his hearing or physical strength, or mental faculties. I remember how he struggled with the fact that his own father was getting older. I could see the pain in his eyes when he told me his dad had backed out of the driveway and not even realized her had run over the trashcans. He feared becoming a burden to his loved ones in his older years. Well no need to worry about that… at 48 years old he remains forever young and strong in mind and body.

I find myself making a concerted effort to be eternally grateful for 10-13-54. Without his birth, my brother and I would not have life, and I would not have these two beautiful sons and soon to be baby on the way. Life is truly an amazing gift when you look at it that simplistically.

What I find incredibly difficult sometimes is trying to keep his memory alive…my immediate family doesn’t know my dad. Liz never met him and my kids obviously never did either. I think Liz wishes she could roll back the clock to meet him just to know who this man was that helped create me. Gabe is too young to really understand for now. And McKay, my emotional twin, feels all the feels with me. When you have kids you wish to pass along only your best qualities but with those often times come all the baggage that you didn’t want to pass along. McKay got my emotional side for sure.

A few months ago after we moved to California, McKay went over to the bookshelf and started to stare at a picture of my dad for a long time. Liz noticed him first and realized that his eyes were beginning to water. She asked him if he was ok, he slowly and silently took the picture off the shelf, hugged it and then he walked over to me. He buried his head in my lap and began to cry uncontrollable sobs. I was shocked and I didn’t know what to say or what to do, so I just held him tight. I asked him what was wrong and through his tears he said, “I miss your daddy and I just wish I could see him”.  I reassured him that I miss him too and that there is nothing that would make his Papa happier than being able to hang out with him and his brother.

I started to tell him stories about my dad from when I was younger, about how he taught me to cheat my Papa out of money in a card game or how we pretended to steal his dad’s car one day. Laughter slowly replaced the tears and both of the boys wanted to hear about him. It felt good to tell them stories about him and to see their eyes light up or hear them say, tell that again mommy. At the same time it tears at your heartstrings because the words that came out of my 4 year old’s mouth were so simple and yet so precisely accurate. Out of the mouths of babes…

So one more year has passed, not made easier by my travel schedule. This year I was in a hotel room outside of Vegas instead of with my family. But I got a video of my boys in my dad’s old race car t-shirts, down to their knees of course, singing him Happy Birthday. Per McKay’s request, that picture of my dad now has a permanent spot in the boys room, right next to his racing helmet. I like to think he watches over them every night and I don’t think he’d have it any other way…

When I took this job I knew exactly what I signed up for…running ½ of the country from LA. One would think that’s everything West of the Mississippi but really it’s a bit more. I have California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska. To be honest, I had to look at the map to piece it together for this blog. And even though I have regional managers in each of my 6 territories I have to go spend time with them in their regions…so travel was a given. I’m on week 12 of California living and I’ve done more ‘elsewhere living’ than Cali living. I’ve been to Sacramento twice, Illinois, Colorado, Baltimore/Richmond area 2x, Texas, Vegas, etc…

I managed to stay home for the first two weeks of our lives here. Week one was just me trying to get my office settled and figure out what the heck I was supposed to do on a daily/weekly basis (still a bit of a work I progress) and week two was the week our stuff arrived and Liz had a job interview. I also managed to stay home the last week of August which coincided with the first week the kids started school and Gabe’s 3^rd Bday. I know…mom of the year right?!

I’m fairly certain that the kids think I live in hotels and on an airplane…somewhat true. Time is a strangely difficult concept for kids to grasp so ‘I’ll be home on Thursday night’ doesn’t really work for them. We started measuring my time away in number of sleeps I will miss…’mommy will be gone for 3 sleeps this week’. They like to Face-Time when I get to a hotel so they can check out where I’m staying that week. It has morphed into a virtual tour of every Courtyard Marriott I stay in. I’ve heard some interesting questions out of them during all of this rapid fire travel….mommy, where are you? A hotel in (blah blah) sweetie….ahhhh, again mommy? Mommy, why do you have to get on so many airplanes? Mommy, is that your new house? Mommy, is that where you live now? Mommy, why do you have to travel so much? I want to snuggle you mommy….each one of these little questions/statements are like tiny daggers in my heart.

I have some stay at home moms (friends or otherwise) who come up to me and tell me how much they admire me for ‘having it all’….To be clear, these are their words not mine. They say, you have a successful and demanding career and you are a great mom. I politely thank them and tell them they have a really hard and amazing job of their own and that if I could stay home with my kids I would. I think they partially believe me and partially think I’m full of shit. What I want to tell them, and sometimes do is that I actually feel like I’m “half assing” my way through all of it. I NEVER feel like I’m giving work or my kids enough…and don’t get me started on my spouse or myself. Because after kids and work those two things are on the back burner or maybe not even on the stove yet. What I have come to appreciate is my friends who can keep it real and be vulnerable and just admit that this (having a career or being a stay at home mom) is hard and they don’t have it figured out…because to be perfectly frank, no one does. We are all just doing the best we know how to do.

I try my best to enjoy every moment with my kids when I am not traveling…I wake up with them early on the weekends even when I feel like I could use a few more minutes sleep, I stay in the pool until I’m a shriveled prune, I take them to do exciting things and fill our every living moment with activities. And I buy them ice cream way too much…overcompensating much?! Maybe, but I don’t care. Because I’ll sleep when I die, water pruned hands go away in 10 minutes, and who the hell doesn’t like ice cream? My kids are everything to me and I can only hope that the example that Liz and I are setting for them is a good one. That woman are strong, specifically their mommies are strong, that hard work pays off, and that we will do whatever it takes to make sure they are provided for in life. I also hope they are learning to make the most out of every moment you have with the people you love. “Quality not Quantity” to quote my mom. I don’t know if I can or will want to do this job forever. For now, we are counting sleeps and doing our best to ‘live the dream’.

So far all I’ve managed to write about in this blog is deciding to take the job, our house hunting trip, saying goodbye to Maryland, Gabe turning 3, and the bun in the oven. Meanwhile, we have been living in California for about 7-8 weeks. It’s strange to think that we actually live here and at the same time it’s been a surprisingly easy transition for all of us. It took almost 2 weeks for the movers to bring our things from Maryland so we basically set up camp Biswolds. Sleeping on air mattresses wasn’t so bad…the challenge was not having a place to sit down. A bunch of our neighbors came over to meet us and introduce themselves in the first few days, which was really welcoming. Our boys welcomed those same neighbors half or completely naked on multiple occasions. “Thanks for welcoming us to the neighborhood! We feel comfortable already. – Love, the Biswold boys

When our ‘stuff’ did arrive I wanted to take the beds, table/chairs, and couch and tell them to keep all of our boxes. Unpacking is terrible. Unpacking with two maniac toddler boys is strangely similar to attempting to read a book when you are exhausted. You continue to read the same sentence of the same paragraph and after multiple attempts you just throw the book on the ground and go to sleep. I’ll be honest, there are still 2 full boxes in the boys’ room that I’m not remotely interested in unpacking and various boxes in the guest room closet and outdoor shed. I’m over it.

Our dogs showed up 3.5 weeks after we left Maryland after not eating a single bite of food during their cross country journey. We have old anxious Labradors and neither one of us was comfortable with putting them on a plane. I’m pretty sure they thought we had left them and my mom had sold them off to this over friendly stranger from Kentucky. We could call the driver to check on them. He was say odd things like: “they are a real gentle pair”, I would thank him for taking care of them, quickly get off the phone, and shake my head. Adam Sandler’s voice from Billy Madison going off in my head “What a weirdo!”

When people ask what it’s like to live in California I’m not exactly sure how to answer. Here’s my best shot at it…there are two notable differences to living in California….1) the weather 2) the diversity. The weather is surreal. We haven’t seen a single drop of rain since we moved here, it’s sunny and mid 70’s to 80 every day, and outside of some initial clouds in the morning there is rarely a cloudy sky. We are close enough to the coast to get a nice breeze off the Pacific and it feels like a Maryland fall or spring day every night here. We are super close mileage wise to the beach but realistically w/in 30 minutes of 4-5 different beaches. We are outside all of the time which suits our active lifestyle and the boy’s incessant requests to go outside and play!

The diversity was apparent from our first trip to the park on day #2. Our kids played with White, Black, Asian, Mexican, and Indian kids. In 20 minutes of play they were exposed to more diversity they had been exposed to in their whole lives. The awesome thing about kids is that they don’t see skin color…my kids have literally never asked me about the color of someone’s skin. When they describe a friend or someone on TV to me they could easily say, the black boy or girl but they don’t…they say, mommy, look at that person in the blue shirt. It makes me smile and it makes me sad that grown-ups or tv or shitty life experiences are to blame for discrimination.

It was one of the things about Maryland that worried us or conversely, one of the things that excited us about LA. Our neighborhood in Maryland had one black family and a bunch of white people. We talk to our kids all the time about different kinds of families….families with two daddies or two mommies or just grandparents or aunts or uncles raising kids. We tell them that all families are different and that’s what makes them special and unique. But in Maryland it was all lip service because 99% of families were white bread with a mommy and a daddy. The kids don’t even realize it now but for us it has been a refreshing change.

I admit…we are in the honeymoon phase and I’ll keep you posted for when it starts to wear off. But for now, we’ll enjoy our vitamin D and rainbows!

On any given day at any given place I can run into moms with more grown up kids than mine. Purely based on the look in their eye or a glance they give my kid(s) I can guess the next words out of their mouths. “It goes by so fast….cherish it” “They grow up so fast” “I know it’s cliché but before you know it they will be all grown and out of your house” I sometimes wish I could wear a sign that says…”I’m trying to slow down time, it’s already going so fast, no need for reminders folks, thanks!” But I also get it. I don’t fault these other moms, because they are right. My oldest will turn 5 in November and at the end of this month, on August 30th, our youngest will turn 3. Where the Fuck does the time go???

When I think back on year #2 into year #3 it marks the year he actually started sleeping through the night, was potty trained, got his first haircut, and started talking our ears off. He’s very social and verbally advanced. And I’m not just the that mom that says…oh my child is so much more advanced than all of the other kids. He still can’t identify all of his letters or numbers but he could hold a conversation with any kid or grown up around. He loves cheese sticks, bars (granola, fig, cliff bars), bacon, blueberry pancakes, & yogurt. He’s small (10th % in weight and 29^th percentile in height) but what he lacks in BMI he makes up for in personality.

At only 3 years old, our little guy already makes jokes that cause our 4 year old to shoot milk out of his nose and his mommies cry laughing. And to be clear, it’s usually a joke we should not encourage, but can’t bring ourselves to show self-restraint on. He refuses to sit down for meals…we might get 5 minutes out of him before he gets up and tells us, ‘I’m just going to play a little bit and come back and eat’ as if that’s ok with us. He jumps and climbs on every piece of furniture he can find. He’s mischievous. He’s started to scream, as if his fingernails are being pulled out, anytime he doesn’t get his way or something gets taken away from him. The 3’s are going to be a trying year for us.

That all being said, he is the sweetest boy on the planet. He’s an animal lover. We find him laying on or with our dogs on a regular basis. He chases birds on the beach and gets sad when they fly away from him. He sees a picture of an animal or watches an animal planet show and says “aww, mommy ‘wook at dat little baby’. He’s got an obsession, and I’m not exaggerating, with hair. He has played with our hair since he was a tiny baby. He is as aggressive as Maggie Simpson with his binky sucking…maybe we will give that up this year. He will randomly come up to you and tell you how much he loves you. “My love you mommy”. I hope that doesn’t end anytime soon…it still it melts my heart every time. I’ve never been snuggled harder in my life than by this kid. He has to sleep touching you or being touched by you. Before he goes to sleep at night or when he wakes up in the morning he actually says, ‘Mommy/Mama, I want you snuggle me’.  I feel the need to apologize to his future partner…so here goes: we are sorry. But seriously, what did you expect for a kid with 2 mommies?!

Happy 3^rd birthday little man! Thank you for bringing so much personality into our house…I literally cannot imagine what life would be like without our wild man! The number three is a significant number in our world right now…our baby boy is turning 3 and we are about to add baby #3 to the mix. He is going to make a great big brother!

 

The next morning the heat and humidity of summer in Maryland was an intense reminder of the weather we were leaving. A 500 yard walk to breakfast had McKay talking about wanting to take a shower in the hose a man was using to clean the sidewalk. Touché buddy. Gabe flirted with the waitress, barely ate his breakfast, and walked all around instead of sitting in his chair. Par for the course with this guy. McKay sucked down two “dippy eggs” (over easy eggs) and toast. Liz and I ate nervously but only to curb the empty feeling in our stomachs, knowing we wouldn’t eat until dinner in California. We drove to Gabe’s daycare to drop off the last check and say goodbye to Mrs. Linda or “Sinda” as Gabe had begun to call her. Gabe had been going there since he was 12 weeks old. McKay went there for 18 months prior to Montessori pre-school this year.

She had become an extension of our family and we were blessed to have found her. When Liz about to return to work the daycare we had lined up for Gabe called and said it would be a few more weeks because the new room was delayed due to construction issues. Liz was at the end of her leave and we were generally pissed at the way they handled the whole situation. I sent a Facebook message to a friend who lived close to us to see if she had any recommendations. She did…a woman named Linda that ran an in-home daycare very close to our house. I called her and arranged for Liz to come by and meet her. This was the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I dropped him off the Monday morning after Thanksgiving. There is something about leaving your tiny baby with a stranger that I would compare to taking a surprise sucker punch to the gut. That first day I spent feeling extreme guilt over being the worst mom ever, questioning if we had fully vetted Linda enough, voicing these concerns over the phone with Liz, and resisting the urge drive back and pick him up. But day one went well, Gabe was ok, and we took him back on day 2 and came to look at that daycare issue as a bump in the road at the perfect time.  Gabe walked for the first time at Linda’s house and we got the video right away. When our oldest struggled in a new pre-school we moved him to Linda’s as soon as we could. After 3 straight months of him not napping or eating at pre-school he started to flourish at Linda’s. Her homemade black bean soup became his favorite and most requested dish and he napped without complaint.

So here we were, almost 3 years later saying goodbye to this woman that we had trusted with our most precious parts of us. Her husband answered the door and started crying when he saw us. I’d never seen him cry before and his reaction was so unexpected that I began to cry. No one reading this blog is currently surprised by that reaction. Linda saw us and started to get emotional too. She hugged the boys tight and told them how much she loved them. She kissed the tops of their heads, a sign of affection I had seen many times before and had come to love. This wouldn’t have happened a daycare center. She opened a card we had given her and began to cry and again, I lost it. By the time we made it out to the car I was crying uncontrollably and the kids were worried. “Why are you crying mommy, what’s wrong?” ‘I’m just crying because when you love someone it’s hard to say goodbye to them and Linda has been so good to you guys that it makes mommy feel a little sad to leave’. I tried to talk to them about the movie Inside Out. (Side note: If you have kids and have not watched this movie yet you are missing out. It basically takes place in the mind of a kid where characters Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger play out the little girl’s emotions). I told them that when I said goodbye to Linda I was thinking about all of the Joy that she had given to both of them but that Sadness had touched the memories and that’s why mommy was crying. Liz shot me a warning look and mouthed ‘keep it together’.

We began driving the 15-20 minutes to pick my mom up. She would drop us at the airport and we would say our goodbyes there. She drove even though I said I wouldn’t mind. My mom, never short on words, talked to the boys the whole way there about our plane ride and our move to California. She had packed up some lollipops and gummy bears for her favorite boys to eat on the plane. I didn’t say much, the tears were too near the surface. Every few minutes my mom reached over and held my hand.

We pulled into the airport and Liz and I unloaded more luggage than we had ever taken on a flight before. My mom and the boys got out of the car. When I said goodbye to her I completely lost my shit. Hyperventilating and crying like a toddler who cannot pull themselves out of it. But that was nothing. I watched her kneel down and open her arms for the boys as they ran to her I had to turn away. The emotion bowled me over. These boys had come to adore their crazy Gi-Gi and the time they got with her once a week. And my mom had reached a new level of fulfillment being a grandmother to these crazy little monsters.

We walked into the terminal and got into the security line…I was still a glass case of emotion. Liz said something to the effect of, ‘you need to get yourself together, stop crying, the boys are going to think this is a bad thing that we are moving’. In classic Angela fashion I snapped back. I told her I was trying but that I couldn’t get myself together right this minute and if it were possible I would have done it already. I’m sure the words didn’t come out quite as politely as I have just written them, and no doubt an expletive or two made it into the statement as well.

Liz and I have completely different personalities. She has an amazing ability to compartmentalize and move on. It’s one of the things that makes her super successful at her job. On the other hand, I have a tendency to dwell on things, rehash them in my head, and generally beat a dead horse. She has been a good influence on me in that she calls me out on it and I can’t help but laugh. She calls it sitting in my poop. There are gestures to go along with this. When I’m annoyed, or angry, or frustrated she can normally pull me out of it by making those types of jokes. Highly emotional and about to make a major life change….she didn’t even attempt it.

We boarded the plane…it was officially go time. As we taxied to the runway I grabbed my rosaries and braced myself for my least favorite part of every flight, takeoff. I hate flying because of the loss of control. Yes, I’m a control freak. As we picked up speed, I thought, ahhhh, the irony, and started praying Hail Mary’s. Ready or not, here we come California.

We planned a last “Girls Night Out” (GNO) with my High School Friends in Annapolis. Onto my broken record about not seeing people enough. Outside of one friend who lives in Delaware we all live within 25 minutes of each other but you wouldn’t know it. Life is busy, yeah, yeah. But the real reason I don’t think we see each other enough is because of the obvious void in our group. Kellie is gone. See this group was basically formed by her. Kellie was always our high school friend’s glue. She is the one who would send you letters in college…no, I’m not that old and yes, we had email. Kellie called you on every birthday and wrote you little letters and notes and mailed them snail mail. She organized events to bring us all together during the holidays and post college she created GNO. In classic Kellie fashion she created fake rules and bylaws that were aimed to keep it as exclusive as possible. She threatened to revoke my membership on more than one occasion and whenever someone suggested to add a friend to the group Kellie would reference some fake bi-law that stated you couldn’t live more than 32.5 miles from Annapolis proper. (I’m pretty sure her house was 32.4 miles away).

She was suddenly and cruelly ripped from our lives 4 years ago. We tried to keep the band together. The first couple of years we did a fairly good job of it and then the nights out were fewer and further between. Were all busy…we have 9 kids between us and jobs and spouses…but my gut always takes me back to this big personality that no longer sits at the table gossiping with us, forcing us to take shots, and drink too much beer. El Nino is gone and we are here still picking up the pieces.

I had seen individual GNO members over the last 6 months but we hadn’t gathered together as a cohesive unit for a year maybe? We went out for crabs and beer…we obviously had to get our fill before we headed West. Old Bay and Vinegar on blue crabs isn’t a thing in California. Believe me, it was on our ‘Con’ list. We sat there talking and laughing about old times and current times, ragged on each other, talked about our move…I love these girls. There’s something about the friends that you literally came of age with that is different from any other friendship you will ever know. I will miss them all so much, and at the same time, I have been missing them for a while. I hope that our return trips back home will force some GNO’s onto that calendar and eventually there will be a weekend GNO that travels West to us!

The last few days in Maryland were a blur. We had Monday and Tuesday to get organized before the movers came on Wednesday. My cousins came over on Monday night to say goodbye and by default help us move some furniture out of our house and back into my mom’s place. My cousin Corrine had just gotten married earlier in the summer and brought pictures over. We looked at pictures, talked, ate takeout, and prolonged the inevitable goodbyes. We cried when it was that time. My cousins growing up had been like brothers and sisters to me even though they lived in Florida and my brother and I lived in Maryland. The bond that my cousins shared over that distance is one of the things that made me less anxious about moving our boys away from their cousins.

The movers packed us in a day and loaded the truck on the following day. In just 36 hours our house went from containing our whole lives to feeling like it didn’t belong to us anymore. We would leave on     Friday. Thursday evening we showered in our empty house, zipped our suitcases, and said goodbye to a place that just 3 years ago we’d made our forever home. This was the only place Gabe had ever known and arguably the only place that McKay had remembered. Gabe will probably never remember living here, being brought home only 2 days after he was born, walking here for the first time, throwing tennis balls to the dogs, clapping for the golfers after they teed off on hole #13, walking to the coffee shop, and riding bikes up and down our super long driveway. I cried when we pulled out…Too late to look back…way too freaking late.

As we headed over the Bay Bridge for our last ‘friend’ goodbyes I knew this one was damned from the onset. We were headed to Kellie’s parents’ house. This is the week we lost her 4 years ago and gained two twins that look just like her. My (our) best friend Megan was there…she had driven up from the beach and was headed back that night. She is the reason that Liz’s path and my path ever crossed in the first place. So she is ‘our’ best friend…but I claim her first. She only had to speak 9 words to open the flood gate… ‘ok, I think we are going to head out’. Not that anyone’s goodbye is easy but I knew this was going to be one of the worst. Megan had been my rock through my parents divorce, regular high school woes, my borderline eating disorders, ups and downs in college, my dad’s death, my breakup with my fiance, my coming to terms with not being as straight as I thought…. All of those little cliffhangers above could be their own separate post…or multiple posts. More to come…maybe. I only hope I’ve been there as much for her as I know she has been there for me. It’s not easy leaving her but our friendship is one that can’t be lessened by any number of miles in between us.

After her goodbye I tried to get a hold of myself because ultimately, this night was about Kellie and her family, not me. I did a fairly good job until it was time to say goodbye to Kellie’s mom. I know that Kellie’s three kids, her extended family, and her friends have become lifeboats for her mom. She holds us all close because we are reminders, sad but good, reminders of the daughter that she lost. We held each other close as tears dripped onto the other’s shoulder. Words have become somewhat unnecessary between us….we know what we are both thinking. This isn’t fair, she should still be here, nobody is the same since she died, and we miss her, the void sucks, fuck, shit, fuck.

We checked into a hotel in Annapolis since we didn’t have anything left in our house to sleep on. We had a few things to do in the morning before the airport. Liz and I ordered pizza delivery because we hadn’t eaten dinner. We ate our slices while our two baby boys slept next to us…trying to take in the fact that we were about to turn all of our lives upside down.

With about 2.5 months from when we accepted the job until we would call California home, we began the process of saying goodbye. Towards the end I began likening this experience to planning a wedding vs. eloping. The latter would have been much easier and less painful but we wanted the ‘big wedding’ so that we had time to get used to the idea ourselves and plenty of time for heartfelt filled goodbyes.

Goodbyes started in Baltimore, which, coincidentally, is where Liz and I began. Our friend Kate held a party for us at Little Havana. Little Havana had hosted our friends on many occasions in the past. We drank too many mojitios on the patio that overlooked the industrial – port city that we came to call home. Most of our friends moved to neighboring counties outside of the city when they began to have kids. A few held out and decided they weren’t ready to leave Salty Balty. I can’t blame them. Although we made the move to suburbia about 3 years ago and we no longer had to deal with rats or stolen vehicles or burglarized homes (all could be future blog posts), we missed this place. Baltimore is so much more than meets the eye or that you see on TV. It leaves its mark on your heart and soul. I only lived there for 6 years of my life but it felt more like home to me than many places on this earth ever will.

This group of friends was Liz’s crew originally but when we started dating in ’06 I was adopted into it. Mid-twenties and pre-kids most of our time was spent at bars, playing social league football – followed by bars, theme parties, weddings, bachelorette parties, Raven’s games, and beer Olympics. After four years of banning myself from letting loose or enjoying myself…mourning the loss of my dad…this was a period of much needed letting go. Liz and this newfound group of friends was able to help shake the cobwebs from my soul and make me feel like it was ok to live again.

Kate managed to wrangle up much of the old crew for our send off. As I looked around the party I thought, damn I miss these people (in the present tense…in Maryland)…why the hell haven’t we done this more? Life gets so busy, but we make time to see the people we want to see and do the things we want to do. Sure, it’s harder to plan around a bunch of people’s schedules but when you love people and you genuinely have fun with them…make it work! We were still a good 4-6 weeks out from our move date when this party was held so I didn’t feel sad because it still didn’t feel real. But when we said goodbye to Kate I felt it…the slight tinge in your heart. Kate has always been the glue of this group. She’s met all of our friends at every different place in their lives. Some people get weird when you have kids and think they can’t hang out with you anymore because you have changed. Kate knows that life has changed but just expects you to get a freaking babysitter. But she also went places with all of our kids and talked to them about life. She cares and you can’t fake that. Kate is real, true, and a little bit crazy. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

We then, somewhat unintentionally, said goodbye to some of our favorite places….we went to a concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion with a few of my friends from college. Again, we don’t see them as often but when we do it’s like we just saw each other a few weekends ago. My brother came with us and that felt like old times. The three of us hung out a lot in between my brother’s relationships. It felt like we were always a safe place for him to land. We drank until the wee hours of the night and listened as he talked incessantly about (insert ex-girlfriend’s name here). We dubbed said girlfriend or multiple said girlfriends as ‘Madeline’ after the movie Death Becomes Her. If you’ve seen the movie this will make you laugh. If you haven’t, forget it and move on. I’ll write another post about my brother one day but for now, I can’t. It’s too emotional. Let’s just say, I’m going to miss the hell out of him and I can’t wait until he comes to visit. Liz and I went to our last concert at the 9:30 club in DC…Grace Potter…one of our favs. We hit the gay sports bar down the street from the concert for dinner beforehand which had always been our go to.

We went to Bald Head Island, our last hurrah before we would come home and pack. We were with Liz’s family who we always travel there with. Our nieces were there, my sister in law, one of my brother in laws, and Liz’s parents. Not much will change about this trip. We have committed to coming back every summer to spend that week with them. But BHI will definitely see us much less often. We are no longer a 7 hour drive away. Last year we went for a week in June, 5 days in September, and the week from Christmas to the New Years.

I know we will have access to any number of beaches but there is something about BHI that is so special, almost magical. I remember when my niece, now 8 years old and swimming like a fish, was scared to swim on her own and when we finally talked her into going down the slide.  I remember my brother and sister in law’s wedding when it rained right before the ceremony and cleared up just before the big moment. I remember when Liz and I were first trying to have a baby and I found out I wasn’t pregnant on the drive there. That trip was over our anniversary and I have a vivid memory of sitting on the deck at Ebb and Flo’s drinking too many Bud Light Limes wondering how long it would take us to have a baby. I remember when I was pregnant with our first baby and my niece was sick and she took my temperature in my belly button…or what was left of it. I still remember the nervousness that came with being a new mom and bringing our 6 week old to the Island for the first time. That trip we were still in the fog of being new parents. We would wake up very early when he did, I would feed him, and then all 3 of us would go back to sleep until mid-morning. Then we’d take a walk and read, stare at him, eat dinner, drink wine, repeat. He is now diving under North Carolina waves and swimming on his own. Life moves quickly even when you try to slow it down. You begin to think about all of these past milestones when you are approaching a current milestone.

When we said goodbye to Liz’s family after the Ferry ride I cried when I hugged my nieces and my sister in law. Liz’s sister and I are sometimes emotional kindred spirits so I think we both did our best to hold back as many tears as possible and keep the flood gates closed. Vacation was over, we were headed back to Maryland to pack and move, shit was getting real.

Saturday, Day 3, was my turn for an epic meltdown. I woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept searching for homes, I expanded our search even more than we already had, and I continued to come up empty every time I hit the ‘pets’ filter. My wife rolled over and asked me if I was ok. I couldn’t be strong anymore. I just completely lost it and cried until I didn’t have any more tears to shed. We talked for a long time about life, what was right for our family, & what our next step should be. Ultimately we decided that I should call my boss and lay it all on the line. Tell him everything we were up against, from the ability to buy a house to the pet unfriendly rental scene in LA to the school deposit we were losing for the boys next year to the inevitable roof repair and loss of equity in our own home. I scripted out what I would say and even though I felt like a boulder was sitting in my stomach I knew I had to make the phone call. I cry talked at him for at least 15 minutes before he could get in much more than the transitional, ok’s, and I understands. He asked me exactly what I was asking for and I very clearly said, is it too late to take my Baltimore job back and say no to this job? He promised to make some calls and call me back.

We headed to Manhattan Beach and away from the roach motel to get something to eat. We had been up for 5 hours with no food. Normally I would be very hangry but I had eaten a boulder earlier and I had been unsuccessful at digesting it up to this point. My wife and I spent the time at brunch talking about how things might all shake out, wondering if she could still get her job back, about what would happen if we got an offer on our house, about our kids school and if they would re-enroll them next year if we begged. Around 12:20 my boss texted, “call me”. I was prepared for the inevitable talk where he would ask me to reconsider, remind me about the job I had committed to, etc…I have the say, from the way that my boss handled my initial tear filled explanation, to this second call, to a reassuring text from my boss’s boss, I was pleasantly surprised with their approach. They stated that we’d been up against more obstacles than one should have to deal with in these circumstances and that if at the end of the weekend I wanted to back out that none of the decisions were too far gone. But the kicker…don’t give up…you have two more days, keep an open mind, continue to look at places…we’ll talk on Monday.

A combination of guilt and pride put me back in the driver’s seat of our GMC Terrain. The fact that our rental car was nicer than our hotel is just dawning on me. We had discussed driving to Santa Monica but I drove with one purpose in mind, the open house in Culver City. I stopped by a home that our realtor had given us an early preview of because it hadn’t officially hit the market. It wasn’t bad but it was still a property I’d call twice and half. Twice our current home price and half the house. On a fundamental level looking at these properties is like a throw up burp in your mouth….each one takes you by surprise and you can’t exactly spit it out so you just swallow it and keep on moving. Next I drove towards Culver, the acid still burning my esophagus. My wife was silent and so was I. I feared admitting where we were going in anticipation that she would ask why we were bothering. As I pulled up in front of the house it was going on 2pm, two hours post start time, and the “For Rent” sign was no longer up. My wife frantically pulled up Trulia convinced they had already found a renter in the last 110 minutes. I nudged her along dismissive of her search and we approached the front door.

Before I could knock a middle aged woman with a warm disposition and a kind smile opened the door. “Hi, I’m ‘Sue’, I’m the owner” she said as she reached out her hand to shake mine. We exchanged pleasantries and she told us a bit about the house. Her and her husband ‘Tom’ had the same renters in for the last 5 years and they figured an upgrade was needed. They had lived there for the last 6 months while they completely remodeled the place. It was 1800 sq feet…quite possibly one of the biggest places we’d seen. It’s an old Tudor home, which I didn’t find out until later was my dad’s favorite. I’ll write plenty of future posts about him but for now it’s important to know that he was taken way too young and that if you could only split my life into two halves they would be named: ‘Pre 12-6-2002’ and ‘Everything after it’. His opinion has always and will always mean a great deal…i.e. Tudor houses, one more check mark that this was the right call.

Sue showed us around the house and told us about Culver City, it was a great neighborhood especially if you have kids…Fourth of July, El Rincon festival, and Halloween were all huge events here. At some point along the tour we shared that we were relocating from the east coast out to LA for my job and that my wife was an attorney but would most likely have to re-take the Bar exam. When she showed us the downstairs sunken bathtub we told her how much the boys love bathtime and I took the opportunity to show her a picture of them in the bath with outrageous silly faces and mohawks (or Ho-Mawks as my 2 year old calls them). The kitchen was completely redone, it was 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. We had looked at a property the previous day that had one bath and we were trying to convince ourselves it would be just fine. The back patio was spacious, beautifully landscaped, and nicely shaded…perfect for the Labradors that had eliminated 90% of our housing options J

We went back inside and she handed us a lease application and asked if we had any questions. I nervously explained, with tears in my eyes that we had dogs and that we weren’t sure their stance on pets but that we understood most owners were not willing to rent to a family with pets when there was so much interest from others without pets. Tom chimed in, “Ok…well, depends, what kind of dogs, how old are they, are they well behaved…three pointed questions that flowed easily into one due to his mild mannered tone. My wife took over from here…they are great, they have been potty trained forever, they sleep all the time, they aren’t big barkers, and we bathe them once a week. Three truths and a lie…I’ll leave you guessing on this one. With a rare flash of brilliance I brought up the fact that we own two homes, our primary residence and a rental property. I talked about understanding the importance of finding good tenants that will take care of your house and are low maintenance. We promised to never call them about a loose cabinet (which one of our tenants called us about once). They said, well, if you are interested then fill out an application and email it to the address at the top. Just so you know, we’ve had a lot of interest and we’d like to decide soon.

We thanked them, went out the front door, looked at each other, and mouthed….”oh my God”. Both of us walked at a steady gait towards the GMC and hopped in. We both began to blurt our random thoughts: that place is so nice! They TAKE DOGS! Holy crap! The owner are great! Is this real? Pinch me! What should we do? We need to fill this out asap! We need to write a letter to them and include pictures of our kids and dogs. Lots of interest already…we have to make these people want us. Where is the nearest Fed Ex office? Once we regained consciousness we googled a Fed Ex Office and drove the 2 miles there. We have always operated well under pressure and with last minute deadlines. The day before our wedding day we drove to a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, bought a trellis, and tied it to the roof of my wife’s 4 Runner that had 230,000 miles on it with leaving ourselves 45 minutes to shower and meet our family for dinner. My wife filled out the 2 lease applications and I wrote them a letter with pictures of our family at the top. One of them had our two year old laying on top of the dog beds with both our labs. We printed it out in color and stapled it to the lease applications. The last hour had been an absolute blur and we frantically drove back to the home we could only hope and pray would be ours. We knocked on the door and Sue said, “oh my, you came back, we were just talking about you, we realized you didn’t leave any contact information with us”. One of us told them we wanted to hand deliver our applications. Sue took one look at the pictures and said, aww, aww, Honey look. She said, we want our tenants to be happy and we would love to rent to you.

I’m not sure what happened next other than us affirming that’s exactly what we wanted to hear. We talked logistics…how they would get us a lease to sign, how to give them a check. My wife offered to drive to their home almost 2 hours away to make it happen. They told us that wasn’t necessary. They would email us the lease and we could mail the check back to them. Sue told us that the previous tenants of 5 years had been a gay couple with a Great Dane. Thank goodness for the lesbians that came before us! Sue told us to go take pictures since the place was ours. We shared that we would move out mid-July but probably be in temp housing at first since our plane would arrive well in advance of our furniture. They told us it was silly to live in temp housing and they offered to leave the couch and a bed there for us. Are these people real? I wanted to pinch myself or them but I didn’t want to wake up. As another couple of people came to tour the house Sue walked them around, apologizing it was taking so long but encouraging us to stay. We talked to Tom about his career and where he had moved to and from. He told us about their 5 acre farm with 200 avocado trees and promised to bring a load of them when they came to meet us and check us in.  Sue freed herself up from the guy explaining why his credit score was so bad. Once they left she hugged us. I almost cried for the 13^th time that day…maybe I did.

I have bought 2 homes in my life and the minute I walked into them something felt right…call it what you will, good vibes, good energy, faith, a feeling, whatever…Bluebell was a 3^rd that sucked me in immediately. This was going to be our home. The park is a stone’s throw away and a great elementary school is walking distance. I’m a 15 minute commute into work. A brand new metro stop was just built that can get my wife into the city in 30 minutes. Our boys will be happy here, our dogs, my wife. Every single thing, except for the Pacific Ocean, had felt wrong from the minute we arrived in California…until now. It’s funny how a couple of hours can change your whole world. I believe that someone was looking out for us. And I believe in the immeasurable value of meeting people face to face, looking them in the eye, shaking their hand, and having a good old fashioned conversation where each person knows the character of the other by the end of it. I can’t wait to tell our boys this story and help them understand this never would have been accomplished on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever new apps are available when they get their hands onto technology.