New home

Yes, I'm sending out "New Home" cards with our address. From the house we moved into in March. The text of the card lists four of our names and then says. . .and more to come. Because I bought them while still pregnant and, though we knew what we'd be naming our daughters, we didn't want to announce their names on these cards. This of course became a moot point when they were born, two months after the cards were purchased and still six months before I'm actually getting them in the mail.

Yes, when my aunt visited us two months ago and saw the stack of these cards sitting on our dining room table she thought I was crazy. Who sends out change of address cards with two sets of twins under the age of two? The same person who still has thank-you notes to write from June. . . I'm on top of it.

Side note: a friend of mine texted last night to ask "Dude! Are you pregnant??"

"WHAT?!? No!" I replied. Except my reply had a very bad word in it.

He and his girlfriend thought the ellipses meant there were even more to come. Ack! Oh my God, please tell me I didn't just send a confusing semi-pregnancy announcement to a big group of people. And no, definitely definitely not pregnant. I might die. My husband would lose his mind. In fact he asked me more than once if I'd gotten my period yet during the month of November just because this time of year has that "holy shit maybe we're having twins again" kind of feel to it.

End of side note.

The idea of committing to an address long enough to make it worthwhile to send a card appeals to me. Our home. We can see ourselves living here for many years. Raising this brood here. Learning to garden here. Growing accustomed to what the seasons look like here, for there actually are seasons in Concord, California. (This native San Franciscan was shocked to find this out)

 I moved a lot in my 20s and early 30s. So often that when we were filling out the loan paperwork for this house I really had to sit and think hard in order to list out my addresses for the past ten years. The Ship To page of my Amazon account was helpful. Otherwise it was me thinking things like "Ok, I'm 36 so ten years ago I was 26. I started dating T when I was 27 and at the point I think I was living on Steiner. . ." Eight to ten addresses later my brain was tired.

The New Home cards represent the me I like to be. Someone who takes a moment to recognize and celebrate transitions and big moments. We moved into this house when I was four months pregnant. Our big kids were nine months old. We didn't get movers so the first two weeks were an intense sprint of me taking care of the kids all day while my husband moved us out, moved us in, fixed up the old house, fixed up the in-law unit, all the while going to work and staying up until three or four in the morning. We all slept in the same room the first few nights, the two of us on our mattress on the floor and the kids each on their crib mattresses pushed up against the wall, with us on the other side of them. It stayed light until past seven o'clock and we didn't have curtains up yet so these babies were being told to go to sleep in new rooms, bright with sun. And then they started majorly teething. And got sick. And I think we both almost went insane.

So moving cards! We are here. We are alive. And more to come. . .