(Aaaactually not really: my brand new heavvily belated 'gram is peppered with all the weird craft projects Chaya forces me to make - pooping cats! Tubas playing violins! anything I can shoddily cut out with scissors from construction paper! - with a side of food failures and some of Chaya's art, whereas Andrew's is a user picture of his bullet journal and no entries, but if he ever makes posts, it will probably involve various planners he's experimenting with, possibly variations on his signature and the occasional bike part, but this is all theoretical because he claims Instagram sucks too much.
But there was one time that Andrew ordered avocado toast in a fancy restaurant in Chicago and I made him take a picture with it to fulfill our generational destiny and here it is:
Nope, couldn't find it, so here's a picture of Chaya being a flower girl during that particular trip and playing with a gold wedding dinosaur...)
and ... I'm a very old Millennial so I don't know what gentrified houseless Millennials are supposed to do. But it definitely involves some kind of panic attack when the little texting camera I carry around develops delusions of phonedom.
But one less mortgage tying us to Mt Vernon and we may - as Marie Kondo would have us do - thank our house for its service and set it free! Hopefully to thrive and not promptly fall apart in the hands of the next tenants. But however it plays out, it's not gonna be our problem anymore.
I'm getting ahead of myself here. We're not closed yet. We need those buyers' signatures and we need recording and we need a check.
BUT...
On Saturday we signed the closing documents for our home in Mount Vernon. The title company sent a notary to us. Which was entertaining. She was Slavic of some uncertain origin, although she'd clearly lived in the state of Washington for as many years as I have. She had blingy glasses, a Jeep with a magnificent American Eagle sprayed across the back, and talked an admirably chaste but sassy brand of smack about notary life and legalities in general. For instance, privacy agreements - HA, like anyone believes in privacy anymore... and lord knows why we needed to sign our middle names since it basically destroys any claim to an actual signature but there we go, just scribble.
Oh ha, like Andrew could just fake a Gelfand in his signature. Being my lovable hubba hubba, he interrupted his rabbit-hole-perfect-planner-to-rule-them-all lucubrations in order to craft a suitable signature style for Gelfand. He practiced before AND after. And for the following days. His signature is now pretty rad, so we'll definitely have to buy a new house just to justify a full-name signing. In the meantime, he'll address all love notes with Andrew Gelfand Wright!
In order to keep Chaya occupied, I finally managed to introduce her to She-ra. A show I dig! I sold it hard on the magic sword/princess side and finally finally we let go of Bananas in Pyjamas and went for it. I mean if she's as into it as some of her other obsessions, we might end up watching all four seasons repeatedly for the next year until I'm actually over it, but at least it will take me a while first.I mean She-ra! I wanted to be She-Ra - I was She-Ra. In a different color scheme skewed from a different cartoon version, but still! (I preferred silver to gold and blue to yellow, because... fashion!)
I'm happy at least to supplement her biting-butterfly, "Flying cat who eats M&M's" (which is actually pretty terrifying when you think about cats and what would happen if they could also be airborne), and Wonder Woman schtick.
Of course the excitement was moderately short lived. Two days later and she's obsessed with Smurfs. But still better than more Bananas in Pyjamas. And we made it back to She-Ra
And well, I think I can bring her back around. At least... maybe. Every day's a day for a costume!
Above, Chaya is dressed up as a "kitty." The day after that, she was a carniverous plant. Which was unfortunate, because... well... carniverous plants bite. This is what they do apparently.
Chaya Mommy what happens if a carniverous plant eats you?
Mommy: Then I probably won't be a very good mommy on account of having been eaten and all. Please don't bite honey.
Chaya: You'd be DEEEAAAAD!!
Mommy: Yes, dear. I probably would be if plants ate me. I try to avoid that circumstance generally.
Anyways, she's also been a butterfly and a mermaid. It tickles me that her version of mermaids comes from a beautiful little book called Julian is a Mermaid about a little boy in the city who wants to be a mermaid and dresses up using things in his abuela's apartment, then she takes him to a big dress up parade (almost entirely wordless - so pretty). Way better than any Little Mermaid BS.
Chaya fought the end of Halloween valiantly before settling on "Well, it's Easter! And April Fools!" Which I'm slightly indulging, but only to a point. I've tried explaining the economics of scarcity implicit in holidays, and the importance of the intervening holidays. So far I've got "Thanksgiving - the day where we eat pie." Chaya likes this. "Pie," she opines, "is good for kids." Thanksgiving is also the holiday where Chaya rides in a plane (which she's not excited about because it hurts her ears BUT...) and gets to watch Cars 2 on the free in-flight entertainment.
Why not? I like holiday movies. Cars is ... better than most Thanksgiving movies I can imagine.
So, most days Chaya demands for night to come so it can be Easter/April Fool's/Thanksgiving when she wakes up. So far, this has not occurred. But that's just gonna make it sweeter when it finally comes. Hopefully. Halloween and that fourth birthday both survived the hype. Perhaps being able to hype hype hype and evade anticlimax is a superhero of childhood. Though I have certainly had my taste of the experience.
Don't worry. The birthday is already being anticipated again. Last year it lived up to the hype of this many months of anticipation, so this year: challenge accepted.
We've already got a working list of what Chaya's gonna do "when I'm five." It involves sitting on the potty when she needs to go, wearing underwear, riding a yellow school bus, driving a blue car, having braces, and flying." I approve of most of her list. I suggested maybe the "sit on the toilet" thing could be a 4 and a half year goal. If she were into it, I'd throw her such a half-birthday-time-to-friggin-potty-train-already party. It'd be epic. Like Gender-Reveal-Weird-Death level of epic at this point. And if she wants to be a cat, then I will personally buy her a litter box. But well... patience. Parenting is all about being patient while your child has epic meltdowns that - in doing exactly what she asked - you are taking a millisecond more time than expected.
And on we stumble. A week to survive for sure.
In minor holiday news, I survived Veteran's Day - which for families is basically celebrated by cancelling school and all child-related activities so everyone goes ESPECIALLY CRAZY stuck at home together.
The last two preschool breaks have been entirely consumed by medical nonsense. Largely calling and waiting and calling and waiting and waiting in rooms and being told I need to be pregnant before anyone wants to see me.
It's impossible to find doctors I swear. I'm not even close to just restarting all the different medical relationships I left in Skagit for myself and Chaya. Or the dentist. So far, just the more pressing nonsense... Probably something that has handy euphimisms and related products in the "feminine care aisle." Not that we won't do some scraping and rule out something horrible, because... well it's always possible and honestly with my wonky body I keep waiting to find the theory of everything bad-bad. But what can you do. Treat, wait, test, wait rinse repeat. Savor every moment etc.
I try to keep ready for my shuffling mortality in very broad storkes. Like occasoinally wasting TWO FRIGGIN' DAYS AND MOST OF A WEEKEND tryng to sort out doctor things. And keeping at least a small list of passwords and desired distributions of various personal journals and mementos (YOU might be due something so if I die, definitely call and ask what sticker book or picture album I randomly thought would suit you). Morbid, yes, but... well...
Chaya: What happens if a truck drives over people?
Me: Well I guess the people probably get hurt and the driver gets in some trouble.
Chaya; And the truck cries!
Me: yeah maybe so.
Chaya: Mommy. What's if I truck drives over you?
Me; Well, I probably would be hurt. They'd want to take me to the hospital.
Chaya; I can take you to the hospital.
Me: That's sweet honey. But I think I'd like to have a special car with medical professionals help. An ambulance, preferrably. You can probably come with us, but I'd like somebody - maybe Pam or Daddy to come watch you so the professionals can work on healing me.
Chaya: Pam. I want Pam. Daddy can stay with mommy.
Me:That's a good idea honey. I'd like Daddy to be there with me.
This is a very matter of fact to jolly little conversation usually. But injury, death, etc, is a pretty common topic of conversation. It leaves a mom thinking. In case anyone wonders why I might have morbid preoccupations.
And - if I don't die before the weekend and honestly I'm feeling decently good about that - we have things to look forward to and things to celebrate.
Bye bye house! Adios shed. No more landscaping!
Now fetch me my avocado toast.
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