No rest for the weary

Trillian and I both feel like we haven't had a break from all this motion. Sure we made it to Capital City on Sunday, but we've spent the last two days going back and forth between Capital City and Springfield to let the painter in (the master bedroom's brown turned out gorgeous, but the office color is a bit more purple than blue--we'll manage), set up phone and internet service, and wait for the cable guy--only to discover that the service center lied to us when they said we could get that hooked up before our TV arrived. On top of that, I've been running errands around Springfield both days.

And then I head back to Canada tomorrow so that I can finish up my semester and supervise the move.

Of course, all of the back and forth of the past couple days was immediately validated when we brought Scooter with us this morning and showed him his new house. He loves his room with its sky blue paint and fluffy white clouds. He played with the vehicles we brought up for quite a long time. He explored other parts of the house, remarking especially on the fireplace. And then I showed him the playset. He discovered that the slide is a very fast slide indeed, that the previous owners left some dump trucks for him, that there is a tricycle in the shed, that there is a sandbox that will be filled when the weather warms up a little, that we have a flat grassy area which will be excellent for soccer. He pronounced our "brand-new" (40+ years, actually) house "perfect."

Before today, I think that the house was mostly an abstract concept for him--pictures and descriptions, but nothing concrete. Now he has a frame of reference and can talk about the slides and swings on his playset, the paint and curtains in his room. I find myself arriving at a similar point. Even though the house itself has been real to me for some time, it is only now sinking in that it is our house, that we rightly have keys and can let ourselves in and out as we please. And this will serve as my frame of reference as I struggle through these last few weeks of class and separation from my family: knowing that we will all be there together, making that house our home, in less than a month.