We finally finished unpacking! Horray! A friend is moving here this week from far away and will be staying with us, so that was the extra push we needed to finally do it. L and I had been avoiding our room, and it was the worst of all, with a row of boxes at the end of out bed like where a Hope Chest would be, except uglier. We found places for everything, even if I did fill my drawers up very full. The place looks good, and I want to keep it that way. E’s room was the first to be unpacked, because he’s so special, I guess. But now we are all special. I’ve just started reading Room by Emma Donoghue, and I think it’s making me think and write like an imprisoned five year old. “House is unpacked and that’s like empty but with things.” It’s really really good so far.
My favorite thing about unpacking is finding things we thought were gone, or had forgotten we were looking for, like my collection of wooden and plastic toy chickens that used to live on my window sill in my last apartment. I also found all my cameras, and thank god, because I am so tired of the crappy resolution of iPhone cameras. I used to have a gigantic SLR camera with me at all times, and then I got super lazy. But E hasn’t stopped being adorable and photogenic all the time, so I have no excuse.
We spent some time this weekend looking through my photo albums my mom made for me. When we were at my parents house on Saturday, E and I went though the gigantic trunk of dress up that my sister and I played with everyday of our childhood. E and I made away with a small but exquisite sampling to add to his dress up chest: a rainbow clown wig, a red “rock star” wig that my sister got when she was 3, a glitter baton I’ve had since I was 4, a plastic sword that is perfect for magic tricks, the blue and orange clown suit my mom made for Halloween that I wore in third grade and in fourth grade, a silver sequiny sash, a blue floral skirt I made for my 5th grade school play, and a few beaded necklaces. E fits into the clown suit! I love when that happens, when the things I loved turn into things he can love. He’s thinking maybe he wants to be a clown for Halloween. We looked though the photo albums to find the two different Halloweens when I wore the clown suit, once with the rainbow wig, once without.
My photo albums are glorious. I think they actually make Elliott a bit jealous, which is hard to watch. He sees the life I had and wants it. Of course, he’s only seeing the photos we wanted to put in, but still. He loves to see the birthday parties, the summers at the beach, the swim team and soccer. The dad who took me to airplane museums and baseball games. The aunts and uncles and snowy adventures. Quite a different life he has in some ways. L and I had similar childhoods. Girl scout camp, sisters, church, soccer teams. E is in a city, and his back yard is small. Both his parents work full time now, so there isn’t the luxury of afternoons that I was used to.
We have a kid who is learning how to be safe on busy city roads. He knows about speeding cars, and buses, and how to ride a train. We have a kid who knows that there are always people asking for money right outside the train station and that people who hang around the playground talking to the trash can are probably “sick in their heads” and he shouldn’t stare or play near them. Sometimes L and I are surprised when we go on evening strolls with him and we turn the corner and we are on a busy street littered with junk food wrappers, beer cans, and cigarette butts. E has an eye for “treasures” and is always trying to bring home trash. He sees colorful things on the ground and goes to pick them up. We are always shouting “drop it!” so he stops holding on to that broken piece of glass, or bit of used hairbrush that he finds so amazing. It’s disgusting. Sometimes I think how lovely it would be to go on walks in the county, or even the suburbs, and let him pick up the things he finds. A pinecone, an earthworm, a rock. Here, I’ve had to teach him that he can’t take little rocks from people’s front yards or from the sidewalk in front on a church. I’ve explained that those are “landscaping rocks” and that people had to pay for them, so they belong to them. It seems like such a silly concept when I have to explain it, and answer his questions. “But where do they get them? Are they made in a factory or do they take them from nature? I don’t get it.” It's weird.
I can’t tell if I have a cold or if I have leftover dust allergies from unpacking, but either way it’s highly unpleasant. I’ve definitely done more sneezing than is appropriate for one day. Good thing we also discovered a dozen little packs of tissues.
And with that, I bid you achoo! (adieu, of course-it’s a pun, E-style. Extremely clever and hilarious.)
-B Star
No comments:
Post a Comment