Life Lately // On Where We Live, Snow in October, Child Care.

I am on Twitter and Instagram most days, but here is our life lately:

We absolutely, positively ADORE where we live. 27 restaurants within a three-quarters of a mile of us, a dozen coffee shops, a library, several yoga studios, several acupuncture clinics, a shopping center, a natural foods grocery store, and two pharmacies.

To say that our quality of life has drastically improved is not an exaggeration. We love it here. It would be where we chose to live if we had a choice – except for 2 things: the cold weather (IT SNOWED LAST WEEK) (melted already) and the lack of our support system nearby. Oh! And the cost of living. But the rest is great.

I’m excited to take the kids trick or treating downtown today – I love living somewhere with a vibrant downtown! And within walking distance! Plus, a short drive to the ocean or the mountains. It’s pretty great.

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Whenever I complain about living somewhere cold, people inevitably tell me to move somewhere else. The problem is, we didn’t really choose to live here. It’s just where Mike got a job after spending 5 years getting his PhD. You don’t turn down a faculty position no matter where it is! (Well, at least, we didn’t.) If I had my wish – we’d live somewhere like Virginia or maybe North Carolina with milder winters but not too deep south. Plus, a cheaper cost of living than New England.

Of course, being back in Ohio would be great too – having help from our family and the support system of family and friends would make up for the winter!

The truth is, getting to see Mike more often is so worth the sacrifice of choosing where we live.

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Theo has been at peak cuteness lately. He’s chattering up a storm and making jokes and generally just being a downright delight. I love age two so much. (I love all the ages so far! But there’s something uniquely adorable about age two – it’s part baby, part kid and I love it fiercely.) I find myself desperately wishing to slow down time. Only eight more months of toddlerhood!

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It’s been 6 months this past Saturday since we lost Clare. It’s hard to believe half a year has gone since I held my baby. I am surprised that it’s not gotten easier, to be honest. The profound loss feeling of this loss just feels so much more real than my other losses. (Not to minimize a loss at any gestation! It just…has surprised me how not over it I am compared those. I relate to stories about child loss now – even though my child was never born alive.)

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Having child care again is game changing. I was trying to make it work around Mike’s schedule last year, working the days he could work from home, but my work time often got scrapped if he had an usual day or meeting. So paid child care is hard to swallow but my productivity is SO much better than I’m sure I’m recouping the spending.

Our days go like this: a few mornings a week, the babysitter comes and I go work at a coffee shop, I come home at noon – she’s put Theo down for a nap and Gabe and I do some school stuff. Then we all spend the afternoons playing, cleaning, reading books, making dinner, etc. It’s a really lovely balance.

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We’ve lived here for 14 months and I think we’re adjusting pretty well, but I realized I miss having a great moms club full of kids and moms to hang out with. There were nights out with the adults and playgroups with the kids and tons of outings. I’ve been looking for something similar here that I can plug into, but have been coming up empty-handed. I do have a few friends I get together with, luckily, but I miss having the bigger group to organize events like clothing swaps or hayrides. It was awesome and helpful to get perspectives from veteran moms.

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8 days and the election will be over.

I hope.