Welcome to a New Year, and Another Move

Happy 2012! We’ve been taking advantage of New Year’s resolutions and organizing the house.

This should have been done back in the spring when all that cleaning typically happens. But a top-to-bottom house organization project just isn’t that much fun. And two kids in diapers provide a pretty full-time distraction from closet-sorting.

But we just found out we have to move. Our landlords are moving back in to the cute little house we’ve been renting. That kind of news makes your heart sink. Because with two kids we’re just not as mobile, and we also want to establish ourselves without having to load the wagons and head to another frontier every year.

I was lying in bed pondering our fate when it occurred to me that my current mattress has lived in seven different bedrooms since 2003. That’s a lot. And I would love for it to rest in the same location for a while.

The silver lining on this rain cloud is that we’ll get to try on a new house for size, we’ll meet some new people, and hopefully we’ll be right down the same block. Someday soon we’ll even get to settle in for a longer.

The blog is going to be a little more intermittent for the next few weeks as we pack up and move on. I love writing and interacting with friends, other writers, and wonderful followers, and I think 2012 is going to be a great year for Momsicle… starting in February. See you soon!

We’re Back! Live from the Pacific Northwest!

Winter is always a bad time to cross the Rockies in a wagon train. Even though we went with air travel, Nor’easters hit hard as we were making our great escape. Amazingly, our flight was not canceled; so with the help of good friends and family, we fled the Big Apple just in time for the season premiere of Portlandia.

K-Pants and I have spent the last few weeks deciding what we should get first: lip rings, nerd glasses, or unicycles. Your thoughts appreciated.

With the crib finally put back together and our little family safely—if haphazardly—stowed in a cute, suburban house next to a park, Momsicle can finally come back to life. I thought we would be back last week, but it turns out I was crying into empty boxes and aimlessly watching K-Pants throw everything down the stairs, so no dice.

Here’s the new digs:

Cute, right? And there’s a garbage disposal and laundry inside.

It’s harder than I thought to unpack when you are pregnant, watching a toddler, and your husband is at work. (That’s right! BIG NEWS: Momsicle is adding another turtle to the herd!)

I’m used to being able to unpack in a day. But this go round, every box took an hour. I would unpack some things, take a power nap, then collect the items Mr. Pants threw down the stairs during the nap. So when the satellite TV people told me the pricing they had quoted was no longer valid, it was too much for this hormonal unpacker to take. Normally I would demand a manager until I got through to the CEO, but this time I threw myself on the floor and cried giant tears.

So it’s taken a little longer to get back online.

But I’m happy to report that the last box is out and we even have toilet paper. From the house we’re renting, Mr. Pants and I can walk to Mexican food, bagels, pizza, sushi, and coffee. It’s pregnant-lady dreamland. Wait! You might say. You could walk to that stuff in the Bronx. Almost true! But have you checked the temperatures and the snowfall in those parts? Ain’t nobody walking to bagels these days.

And when the walking rounds get old, I can get in my car and drive two minutes to Trader Joe’s where I can fill the back of my car with cheese and pizza dough. I know that Buddha tells us life is suffering, and I’m with you man, but a girl can still get high on a car full of cheese once a week to take the edge off.

Here’s K-Pants doing some grocery shopping:

So here’s a toast on Valentine’s Day to the things you love (cheese), to being at home (wherever that may be), and to family. My husband and I are thrilled to put the Pants down early tonight and enjoy frozen scallops from TJ’s and some Netflix from the comfort of our unpacked family room.

Happy V-Day, and I look forward to catching up with you soon!

We’re Heading West!

The grass is always greener on the other side, right? I’ve been down on New York for a few months now. It’s lost its luster. Walking down the street, I used to think, “I live here! Can you believe it!?” Now, when I’m down in Midtown I think, “Can’t I just get a hotel and pretend I’m a tourist? Do I really have to get on the subway and go home?”

The subway system is a cruel joke on thinking individuals. The MTA recently put up signs intended to improve rider confidence:

Instead of waiting until everything in a station is broken, now we fix something right when it breaks.

Which Mercedes-driving MTA executive got that brilliant idea one morning and sent it to the PR team? “Tell them we’ll fix things right when they need fixing! It’s cutting edge! They’ll eat that sh*& up!”

But it’s really not the city that’s changed, it’s me of course.

I used to weather subway delays because I had a good book or The New Yorker. Now I have a squirming toddler who’s trying to lick the subway poles and hold a screaming contest. Instead of being able to skip up the subway stairs, I have to carry the toddler and stroller sherpa-style.

So we’ve been thinking about a move for a little while.

Our immediate families aren’t in New York, so we cast our net out to our family hubs. We looked online at all the space we could get. And that same excitement that we had when we sold our cars to rely on public transit is back, but in the opposite direction. I can’t wait to have wheels again so I can drive to Trader Joe’s anytime I want. I can fill my cart with blue cheese and gouda and not worry about having to carry it home with the toddler, relying only on my biceps for support.

So here’s the BIG NEWS that is rocking our world: this big-city family is packing everything onto a covered wagon and hitting the Oregon Trail.

We are moving to Portland, OR! Next week!

Hopefully we won’t get cholera along the way. I also hear the winter is a bad time to cross the Rockies in a wagon train.

I’m not sure what the change in scenery will mean for me. Will I be nicer? Less sarcastic? Will I stop running people over with the stroller? I’m going to try my hardest not to get into any knife fights during the first few months of big city detox.

In the meantime, please send some good vibes thissa-way. Momsicle’s going to be on hiatus until February, when it will come back slightly schizophrenic, full of cheese, and wearing Birkenstocks with socks.

Bon voyage!