Buzzed

A haunting drama at the house last night – a deep hissing, buzzing noise running through the center of the house that didn't seem to be coming from any of the major appliances. I followed it room to room – nothing in the kitchen, the fridge quiet, the junky ceiling fan off. Down the steps to the basement, not the furnace or the washer or dryer. Louder when I came back up the stairs, but not in any of the rooms. Turns out it was the speaker box for the wired doorbell, which is built in above the stairwell to the basement. The girls love to ring the doorbell when they come home, and Reesie must have jammed the switch when we came home from our walk in the evening.

Happy Birthday, Little Aidan!

You're not so little anymore, but I can still see you all new and tiny, a little cut your left cheek from the doctor's scalpel. Mommy was being taken care of in the next room after a very long day, and it was scary how cold she was, but you needed to be held and taken care of, and now I was your Dad, after all. I promised you I'd always take care of you, and I will always mean that.

Sometimes at night when I tuck you in, you still seem small and little and new like you were that first day. But for you, every day is still the first day of a bigger and bigger adventure. This last year, you've done so well, facing the challenges we've all faced with hardly a complaint, happy in your little girl world. You've grown and matured and sometimes it's easier to see you at 14 than it is to picture you in those first few minutes. With your long blonde hair and big happy smile, some days looking at you its like seeing sunshine in church, that sense of the divine being so close at hand.

They've got me working again today, and I'm sorry for all the times work has gotten the better of our time together. I tell myself what I'm doing makes it possible for you and Mommy and Reesie to have the days you have, and that makes me happy. But I can't help but miss the time together – I fear we don't have that much to spare anyway.

Some day, you'll be like those kids Uncle Dan and I saw at the Pickwick Theatre last night, young but trying so hard to be grown up. Hopefully you're not the kid shouting "Balls!" at the top of your lungs in the middle of the movie, and hopefully you won't date little weasels like that either.

But there's no need for you to be that grown up yet anyway.

Today you're four, and that's old enough for now. I'm so proud of you every day, and I love you. Happy birthday, buddy!

Halftime

I suppose if its any indication of "how I'm doing" lately, driving in to work at 5am this morning, the morning of my 36th birthday, I found myself thinking "well, my life is half over, now what?!" Whatever I thought life was going to be last July 5th, when I was vacationing with the family in Chicago, well, it hasn't turned out to be that. This last year has been hard and destructive beyond most of what I'm willing to admit. Whatever I'd thought I'd acquired personally or professionally in Minnesota, whatever I thought I'd been building to, well, that all seems to be stripped away and gone now.

It's a glass half empty perspective, I know. The truth is that in the faces of my girls, I see how truly blessed I am. And for them, I'd go though it all over and over again.

So really, there's nothing left to do or say but to get out there see what the second half has to offer. Go team.

Farewell 6050, So Long MN...

So the moving van pulled away on Friday afternoon, but we've had a surprisingly harder time pulling away from town. Everything's packed and tidied and we're ready to go, but the final farewell is surprising both Cindy and I with how hard it is to get out. Of course, as mixed as our overall reaction to life in MN was, the house in Golden Valley was still the place we brought home baby Reese from the hospital, where Aidan and Reese both learned to crawl and to walk , where there were birthdays and dinners and laughter and light. It's like anything, I suppose, that when its really over, it's hard to believe, even then, that it's over.

Of course, if I'm being honest, it's the house more than anything that's breaking our hearts today. It always was the house, I think...

Okay, time to hit the road. See you 'round, Minnesota. We'll be sure not to let the screen door hit us on the ass on the way out...