New and True

It’s impossible to hold on to the fresh feeling of new love. “True love,” as it were, grows and changes and molds itself to your life, or perhaps your life molds around the love.

Last night Matt was playing his guitar for Jaden. After he played “My Bonnie” I started looking for my old Beatles Anthology CDs because there’s a really fun cover of “My Bonnie” on the first anthology. I didn’t find it. Instead I found about 15 mixed that Matt and I made back before Jaden was born, ie: our courtship years.

I showed Matt my treasure and how I came by it and he promptly went downstairs and dug out a giant plastic bin full of all the CDs we deemed too precious to sell when we converted to digital files. “I got your back, babe!” He said and he planted the bin in front of me. Not only did I find my Beatles collection but about 100 photos from our early years.

Today I’m sitting in a cubicle listening to these CDs, much like I did nine years ago when he made them for me. The butterflies are missing from my tummy and have been replaced by warm nostalgia. I could make the argument that this nostalgia is stronger than any new flutterings. Instead of analyzing every line of every song for hidden meaning behind my new boyfriend’s choices, I’m remembering long bus rides to my love’s apartment; standing in the cold waiting for that bus; lying in bed watching him get his gear together for a show; replacing his screensaver with the words I didn’t have the nerve to say aloud; hearing those words from him; laying in the grass watching the sunrise and handing him a fallen leaf (which he still has); games of dirty scrabble; building forts in the livingroom and watching old cartoons on rainy days.

15 years of friendship
9 years of love
5 years of marriage (in September)

New love is exciting, scary, spicy and full of risk. True love is comfortable, sweet, responsible, and less risky. And I get to have both of them.

Jonas is Four

A couple days late but boy wore me OUT this weekend with the birthday celebrations. Made a big birthday breakfast, spent the day at the Science Museum and didn’t want to move yesterday. We had a bunch of fun so it was all worth the exhaustion. And now! Me detailing all the ways Jonas is Jonas. Well, not all of them. The boy is very complex.

Jonas is Four

Seeing through different eyes

Another inserted document! It’d be a lot easier if wordpress would just let me copy and paste images into the actual post. Oh well, here’s what happened during my trip to the Minneapolis Art Institute with Jaden yesterday.

Seing through different eyes 6.27.12

Jaden is Seven

Inserted document time! WHOO!!!

Jaden is Seven 6.25.12

Out of Family Experience

Every family has their own little quirk that makes them unique. Something you all probably know about my family: we sing. We sing a lot. We sing songs we know and songs we make up. I know most families don’t live in virtual musicals; Matt knows this. Up until yesterday, this was all theoretical. Yesterday, the reality of our own particular quirk became all too clear.

This weekend is our city’s annual festival thing, complete with parade, carnival and fireworks. Over the last couple months, Jaden has become “friends of convenience” with the neighbor girl who visits her dad every other weekend. Yesterday we invited her to come with us to the carnival. We all crammed into Matt’s mitsubishi outlander and we discovered that “5 passenger family crossover” doesn’t include three booster seats. But we made it work and away we went.

Immediately, Jonas starts singing “It’s a party, it’s a party for Brobie!” and Jaden joins him. The friend was quiet and I suggested the kids maybe sing something else. “Follow the askie bugs, follow the little askie bugs!” I gave up suggesting they stop singing and instead explained that the kids were singing songs from Yo Gabba Gabba; they kept singing and the friend kept silent. Matt and I glanced at each other with sudden understanding in our eyes.

Later that night, we were driving to his sister’s house to watch fireworks and Matt said, “So, earlier today when the kids were singing…?” “Yeah,” I said, “That was interesting.” Matt nodded and said, “I felt like the Flanders. I’ve got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart!” “Where?!” “Exactly.” We both busted up laughing. “Yup,” I said, “We are the Flanders without the religion.”

(As I type this, both kids are singing a Muppets song. All singing, all the time. That’s us.)