Weekend Open Thread

I posted this picture on Instagram this week but couldn’t resist sharing it again here. It perfectly captures the relationship developing between Jackson and Joanie lately. Now that she’s mobile and active and showing more and more of her personality every day, Jackson, who has always been so protective and sweet with her, is seeing her as a little playmate and she thinks he is the funniest person in the world. It’s super cute and satisfying to watch them enjoy each other as much as they do. While I was in Missouri, I saw an old friend of mine whom I remembered talking to exactly two years ago about my worries over having a second baby. Jackson had been such a challenging baby and I was concerned about how I would manage if a second baby proved to be as challenging. But not only is Joanie one of the most chill babies ever, Jackson has also matured so much in the past six months that things are, at least for the time-being, very manageable and fun.

“I wish I could take a picture of life right now to show the me of two years ago that things would be turn out ok,” I told my friend. This is the picture I’d show.

Drew and I are now at a similar sort of crossroads as where we were a couple years ago, only instead of thinking about having another baby (all done with that!), we’ve been giving lots and lots (and lots) of thought about where to buy a home/put down roots. Do we stay in our neighborhood, which is changing very quickly and where so many of our friends are fleeing from? Do we move further out in Brooklyn? Move to the ‘burbs? Leave the area completely? And, if so, where do we go? For a long time, moving was not really a possibility, but that’s changed, and over the last seven months we’ve been doing lots of soul-searching (and casual house-hunting). I told the same friend the other day that I wish the me of two years from now could look out her window and take a picture to show present-day me. Are we looking at trees and grass? A backyard? A car parked in the driveway or lots of cars parked on the street? Are we happy? Did we make the right decision?

Anyway, for now we will focus on the summer ahead. It’s going to be a bittersweet one, saying good-bye to close friends, enjoying some long weekends away, trips to Coney Island and the beach, picnics with pals in the park, swim lessons and camp and, for me, barre classes, and, when it’s all over and the school year starts again, Jackson will start kindergarten (on the same day I turn 40, no less), which will probably lead to my favorite kind of public crying: group crying (or “peer tears,” if you like a good rhyme). But that’s three months and a world away. In the meantime, there’s a brand new Paul Simon album out today, which bodes well for summer ahead, I hope. And here’s one more photo (from our Missouri trip) I can’t resist sharing:

I’d show that one to the me of two years ago, too.