it's real

Our internet connection is only hours old. It didn't take me long to get here. I've been thinking about words all week, wondering what story I would tell you when we finally got connected with the "real" world again. The first few days we were elated, whenever I looked out the window at that view I melted. The kids were dancing and running everywhere, riding their scooters up and down our mammoth hallway. We couldn't believe there was this much space in one house. As Isobella said, "we live in the biggest house in the world!"

As it happens, we also live in the wettest and most drainage-challenged house in the world. Which is not surprising when we live on the edge of a rain forest! The house also badly needs painting and generally fixing-up. We have our work cut out for us.

We knew that when we bought the house, more or less, but I had no idea what it would feel like to move into a job.  We'd just finished doing up our old house. But now we know that was nothing. This is the real deal, friends. We could be on one of those reality tv shows. One of those, we must save this house now before we all go mad kind of reality shows. Or I could just write about it.

Today was case in point. Outside our plumber friend was continuing his marathon attempt to dig up pretty much every bit of mud and soil on the property. Inside, another friend, an eccentric genius, was installing our desperately needed ventilation system. In the afternoon a drain layer came to have a go at unblocking a couple of drains. Then our internet guy turned up. Celebration! 

Meanwhile Paddy was doing an evening shift and had to leave at 5pm. I was rushing around trying to get some food cooked for him to take. He left while the drainlayer, the internet guy and our eccentric genius were still in action. I fed the kids and got them in the bath and just as the genius was finishing installing our ventilation system I blew the fuse to the wire it was attached to when I let the kids use the spa bath for the first time. At one point there were three men standing around our power board trying to figure out which fuse exactly was blown. In the end they found it completely fried and we'll have to get an electrician in tomorrow. So we have a fantastic ventilation system without any power to run it!  The internet guy finally finished up by about 8:30pm, and I got the kids in bed at about nine, after they'd had a second dinner of cereal at mums'. By which time the house was absolutely freezing because there had been no point in putting the heater on, with everyone coming and going. I hadn't sat down since the morning. And it's our anniversary.

So welcome to the real world of living in the bush. Who would want a boring life? Not me. And really, I can't think of any better way to celebrate ten years of marriage than by forging ahead, arriving in places unknown, and embarking on new adventures. We did all of the above when we picked ourselves up, us and the kids and however many million boxes, and landed here. This enormous, damp, cold, and utterly lovely place in the bush. Ours.

going

We've got twenty-four hours to go until moving day. Or one more sleep, as the girls would say. Yesterday we teetered on the edge of chaos. I had read Psalm 86 in the Liturgy of the Hours in the morning; "make my heart simple and guileless" and that was my mantra when the stress started to turn ugly. I think it worked, I hope it worked. It has been easy for me to forget how big this all is for the kids. Isobella is in turns wildly excited and desperately heart-broken. She is sad about leaving our neighbours, and was nearly hysterical when I packed up the last of their toys.

I'm glad I said my good-byes to this house a couple of months ago, because that house is gone. In its place is a shell filled with boxes. They are piled up in the hall and piled up in the lounge. They sit waiting to be shifted, with their exact destination scrawled across the top of them. Kitchen, under-sink cupboard; Kitchen, cupboard under far window; Kitchen, shelves below servery.

But every where I look I see corners still filled with us, piles of us, monuments to the family that once made home here. Today is the day I take them down. The calendar hanging above the bench.  The little "to be sorted" pile by the knife block. The stones we collected from Great Barrier Island on the kitchen window sill, beside my postcard of Rembrandt's "Prodigal Son" where I sometimes stand and pray. How do I pack those? And what label would go on the outside of the box?

This is my last post from comfortable suburbia. We are leaving the house we've been living in since Isobella was nine months old. We arrived here with a cat and a baby, and are leaving with two more children and a dog.  When I next write (and who knows when that will be, as we are moving beyond the reaches of broadband!) I won't look over the roofs of houses, or down onto little contained sections filled with other people's lives. My view will be trees and sky and water. What will I do in all of that space?

There is an inevitability about this move that takes my breath away. As if this moment was waiting for us, somewhere in our future. As if it was a point we could have come to from any angle, and on any time frame. You could say it's like turning a chapter in the book of our lives, but that, apart from being a cliche, feels too passive. It's not like that at all. This move feels like pushing open an enormous and heavy door with all of our weight, and then slamming it shut behind us. There's no going back.

birthdays and babies

She's two now, that baby of mine. She turned two on Thursday. She was pretty happy about it, she knew what was going on. We gave her some playdough tools and a puzzle. We'll do a joint party with Greer when we get to the new house.

It wasn't long ago that I was lamenting the fact that she was turning one. Well a year, that's not very long, at least it doesn't seem long any more. Back then I was joking about finding a recipe for a bonsai baby. And now she's two.

I didn't think I wanted a third baby. After Greer was born I spent months angst-ing over whether we were "done" or not. Oh I talked and wondered and talked and wondered and cried. It was such a difficult decision. Most people I knew seemed happy with two. Two was such a normal number. And as much as I loved my babies I hadn't overly enjoyed that immediate post-partum period. So, out of desperation to make up my mind, I decided I was done. We sold the cot. Then one day I was sitting behind a woman breastfeeding her newborn. I could hear the baby snuffling quietly as it fed, and suddenly it hit me. I wanted to hear that sound again. I wanted another baby!

I sat behind that woman with tears rolling down my face for an hour. All I could think about was her baby and the baby I had only just realised I wanted. I rang Paddy. "I want another baby" I told him, crying. He laughed and promised me we'd talk about it when I got home. It didn't take much to persuade him. And so we got our precious Abigail Hope.

We have enjoyed her so much I can't believe I ever thought we were done without her. She's such a treasure, and third time around everything was so much easier. She wasn't an easy baby, but I had the hindsight of knowing that the worst times with a baby never last forever.  And now that she's well past the baby stage, we still enjoy her. She makes us smile and laugh all the time. She's the most fascinating combination of sweet and feisty. And she makes me want another baby. She confirms to me, every day, that I am not done.

There is a slight technical issue though. You might remember I had my tubes tied at the same time as Abigail's c-section. Hers was my third caesarean, and I just presumed that was what was expected of me. As I told people who asked, "three is the magic number for caesareans." I hardly gave it any thought. It seemed the sensible, practical thing to do. And I was so blown away to be having a third baby at all, that three seemed like a huge family. I never imagined wanting more.

Then I met someone who had been told by her specialist she could have "as many c-sections as she wanted." Soon after that I found out that the writer of one of my favourite blogs had had three c-sections and was pregnant with her fourth child. I started feeling jealous. Then I read one bloggers' answer to "do you want more children?" and her post about the Catholic teaching on contraception, and I cried. I couldn't believe I had given up the ability to bear children so easily. I couldn't believe I'd done it with barely a thought.

Now I look at pregnant women wistfully and newborn babies longingly. Hardly a day has gone by in the last six months that I haven't wished I could get pregnant. I've had a tiny taste of the longing ache to have a child. And did you know there is such a thing as post-tubal ligation syndrome? I didn't, but it turns out I've got at least half of the symptoms. Sex hasn't been the same either. I've just felt, well, sterile. There's no other word for it.

Last week Paddy and I watched "The Blind Side," a movie based on a true story. If you haven't seen it it's the one with Sandra Bullock as the feisty Southern Mom who along with her family, takes in and eventually adopts "Big Mike." Michael is a boy they find wandering the streets and who ends up becoming a very successful football player. I started crying in the opening scenes, and kept crying, until it got to the point, about halfway through the movie, where I turned to Paddy and said, sobbing, "I can't watch this any more unless you say we can adopt!" He was teary-eyed himself, and he smiled and nodded. 

I don't know what this means for us exactly. All we know is that we are not done! Our hearts are open to the possibility of growing our family. I can't tell you how much this means to me. I don't know whether it means we will definitely adopt one day, or perhaps foster, or maybe even somehow, miraculously, get pregnant ourselves. All I know is I don't feel sterile any more, and that is a very good feeling.