Dear boy,
Back in those first weeks of pregnancy, before I even knew I was carrying you, I was plagued with a fatigue so intense that I once left work and fell asleep on a city bench on Tacoma Ave. That old tiredness came back this week, your 31st. The timing couldn't have been worse with us in the process of moving out of our apartment. As adorable as your bump is, you do complicate the task of carrying boxes. We managed to devise a system wherein I could still be helpful... suffice to say it involved a stolen grocery store cart! :-)All week I kept telling people I wasn't the least bit sentimental about leaving the Broadmoor. I wasn't lying, or at least I thought I wasn't... but when we left that empty flat late on the night of the 31st I felt surprisingly heavy, sad. I kept thinking, someday we won't even remember this place! We'll argue about exactly what it looked like - was that old bathroom pink or orange? - and forget how the closet shelf was held up by wires and the shape of those little white doors in front of the trash nook.
That's how it goes, right? One day you pack up all your stuff and leave the place you've lived the longest in your entire adult life and poof! - the whole year just evaporates into the haze of early marriage lore, into that growing volume of stories from the pre-baby days. Someday we will tell you about the Broadmoor and you will roll your eyes because we are your parents, and it is inconceivable to you that we were ever cool - that we ever lived downtown in an old hotel with a view of the port, hosting Tacoma's finest on folding chairs late into the night.
How are you in there, little one? Can you tell that we're living in a new place? I like to think you are immune to the discomforts of moving, that inside the womb you don't even notice that our temporary housing has no heat and the air mattress is constantly deflating. Your dad and I are not so comfortable ourselves, but we have always loved adventures and living this little house on Washington Street definitely fits the bill.
The chill on our faces while we sleep inevitably reminds us of camping, and we last night we got to laughing about the time that we decided to test a Ray Jardine-esque raw food diet and took 12 lbs of fresh produce on the Wonderland Trail only to wake up in the middle of the night surrounded on all sides by enterprising mice gnawing through the corn husks and orange peels. Freezing and foodless, we hitch-hiked back to Olympia a few days later.
Your dad is already talking about taking you camping this summer, but between you and me I think raising you will be adventure enough!
Love, Mom