september 6

oh, that smile!  that smile lights up my world.  i can't believe how much my boy is growing!  look at those legs cramped on his buzz lightyear ride-on :)  it seems like yesterday that gavin was turning 2 and zooming around our house in snoqualmie on buzz.  now he's just about too big to ride it, but it still makes him happy as can be.

tonight we shattered a little bit of that happiness.  tonight over dinner we told brooke and gavin our big news - that daddy has a new job with a new company in california, which means... we will be moving. they were fine with the "new job" part and the "daddy's going to be away during the week" part, but when we got to the "and eventually we will move to california" part, they were pretty shocked.  brooke immediately exclaimed, "move!?!  why would we move when ALL of our family is HERE!"  i was trying so hard to be calm and emotionless, but brooke brought the tears right out of me.  i recovered quickly, but both kevin and i knew in that moment that this was not going to be an easy conversation.  gavin said he didn't want to move.  brooke asked a lot of tough and really smart questions.  she wanted to know why daddy had to get a new job?  she wanted to know why it was in california?  why did we have to move?  why would we leave our family?  we answered brooke's questions as best as we could. we explained our thoughts and our feelings and our decisions.  we let them know it was okay to be sad.  and then we gave them some reasons to be excited about moving to california.  like legoland for one!  i got out maps of legoland for each of the kids, and we talked about going there.  we talked about the beach and the sunshine and disneyland and all the fun things we would do.  it certainly didn't outweigh the shock of our news or the sadness, but it did create seeds of excitement which hopefully will continue to grow over the next several months.

weeks ago antje and i made plans to meet for drinks tonight.  it was hard leaving kevin and the kids after sharing our news, but it was also good for me to have some moments to myself and to share the evening with one of my best friends.  by the time i left the house, brooke was already running around talking about moving to california.  phew!  antje and i met at dutch's in east hyde park where we sat outside and drank sangria and talked.  it was a wonderful evening with a wonderful friend.