My Full House

My mom is visiting this week. Ted is in CA for 5 days and, as if often the case, I asked my mom to come stay with me while he's gone. We used to have a guest room with a comfortable queen sized bed, but over the last few years, we've started to run out of space around here. What was once the guest room became Mattie's room sometime in 2007. We were able to keep the queen bed, but added his crib to the room. Elliot had recently moved into a twin bed himself, so we moved the crib that he had been sleeping in down into our room. That way, we had two twin beds in Jack and Elliot's room, a queen bed and a crib in Mattie's room, and our bed and an extra crib in our room. It worked out nicely that way for a long time. When we had guests, we would move Mattie into the crib in our room, and we could still use his room as a guest room. But, when Theo arrived, we had to move things around again. We had to put a bigger bed in Mattie's room, so the guest bed had to go. On this visit, Grammy is bunking with Jack (in Elliot's bed,) and I moved Elliot onto an air mattress in Mattie's room. Theo is still in his little nest in my room. When Ted comes home, we'll have 7 people sleeping in three bedrooms.

I have an appointment tomorrow to see a house for rent in Norwell. (Ted and I have been talking seriously about moving since this time last year. Mostly, we do a lot of talking.) I drove by the house on Tuesday to get a preview. Norwell is a great town, with great schools (especially their middle school, owing to the fact that they have such an extraordinary principal.) The house is situated on a big, beautiful lot, with plenty of room for a garden, woods to romp in, and enough room left over for a regulation wiffle ball field. But, as I sat parked in the driveway, looking up at the house, it looked empty and lonely. Our house may be small, but it is full of love. My boys can't get enough of each other (or me, for that matter.)

As I write this, Elliot is asleep in my bed (owing entirely to the fact that he and Elliot enjoy each others' company so much that they can't fall asleep.) When I'm done, I'll carry him up into Mattie's room. Grammy will go to sleep with Jack in his room. I'll climb into bed beside Theo. We'll all dream of life in our full house, all night long.