Hit The Road, Jack

While Jack is apparently pretty comfortable in his current digs...

No, really, Buddy, just put your old tootsies up there because that's sanitary. Don't let common courtesies get in your way or anything. 

we're starting to pile up the boxes and look ahead to our next steps. This is our last full week in Penticton and I'm sadder than I thought I might be as I say goodbye to people or do things for the last time. It's been an enjoyable ride up here and we've gone on some amazing adventures and met some truly wonderful people. Some things I don't care to repeat but overall it's been a really positive experience. I'm ultimately glad that we got outside our comfort zone (okay, Ms. Homebody here got outside hers... John's comfort zone is wherever he can lay his head at night, which many of us know is almost anywhere. Literally.) and stretched ourselves and made our family stronger. When we came here, Molly was still rocking a mullet (and some things never change...) and in diapers. Now, her hair can go up in pigtails, she runs around in her undies, she can get dressed and undressed (several times a day) by herself, she swims better, she runs better, she thinks better, and lord, does she talk better (and more and louder and more and louder and more and louder). She went from a toddling 18-month old to a spunky three year old and gained lots of friends, confidence, acrobatic abilities, a love for our dentist, speed, determination, education, and an opinion while she's lived in the great wild west. SO much personality developed and emerged while we've been here and while it was often hard to be away from the bulk of my support system when some of these traits popped up, I think she and I bumped along together pretty well. We have stumbled and fallen down together many, many times but we have also managed to pick ourselves up and repair our mistakes and, as a favorite professor of mine liked to say, we're stronger at the broken places. Penticton was a good place to explore and have loads of fun together and I'm so, so proud of who she has become. This has been a period of a lot of growing up and figuring out and while she obviously would have done some of this anywhere, this has been a good and caring community to really let her be herself and come into her own. 

And Jack? When we came here he was still a bump in my belly and hadn't graced the world with his gap-toothed grin and chubby knees. His life started here and he went from sweet, sweet baby boy to a sweet but feisty 15 month old in no time at all. He rolled, spit up, sat up, spit up some more, crawled, started spitting up less, and now, walked all as a little Canadian. He's never lived in the mother ship as evidenced by the fact that he likes to add "eh" and "dontcha know" to any animal noises that he makes (just kidding). He won't remember his time here but I hope it's a place we get to come back and visit because my earliest memories of him will be rooted in these mountains, valleys, and lakes. He has gone on some wild rides that not many babies can boast and he's done it all with very little attitude... until now (the big little guy has really started expressing his opinions. Chief targets on his favorites/mom's do not distribute list: iPhones, remote controls, home phones, John's iClamshell phone, iPads, laptops, and electric outlets). Jack has done 10 cross-country flights, done more than 20 5+ hour car rides, and slept in some strange, strange places. I think he can stop gunning for platinum airline miles status right about now and can settle down a bit. I'm interested to see if his interest in throwing himself headlong (again, literally) into EVERYTHING will decrease once we move across the border (why do I think it will? I have no idea) since, you know, Americans are more conservative than Canadians... 

When the movers come to pack us up next week, it'll be with mixed feelings for me. I'm super, super (did I mention super?) excited to get back to home turf, be closer to family and friends, and live near Trader Joe's again. I am no good at termination, though -- never have been, never will -- and I don't process endings very well. It's way down the road, at random moments, that I realize how much I really miss someone or how important something was to me and it's only then that I can fully appreciate how an event or a person impacted me or our family. I've had ample opportunity to realize how important the folks back home are since moving out here and I suspect that I'll feel some twinges of those same feelings about stuff from here. These are the things that make our lives richer, though, and in the end, we all have been luckier for getting to love and to lose a little bit than to never live at all. 

Jack versus the piano... there was a clear loser in this battle, as in a "does he need to go to the ER for stitches?" loser. We, naturally, said "nah, we've got a stapler around here somewhere, that'll do". Thankfully, he got a matching bruise today when he fell off the chair at school. I like my kids to be symmetrical. And no, I didn't really home-staple my kid's head shut.