Farm Life

I've been working on this for a long time. We moved to the farm a month ago, on September 9th, and I've been trying to find all the right words and feelings since then. It's a big moment.

Since Brad and I began dating seriously 14 years ago, it’s been the intention that we would move to the farm.

The house we’ve lived in in town since 2005 is quaint, cozy, cute, charming, and comfortable—all dressed-up words for small. I mean it really is those things, but also really, really small.

For the last 10 years, his parents had been both casually and earnestly scoping out options for “after farm” living. They looked at houses on various lakes, they considered land properties in sac city for building, and they even deliberated remodeling Grandpa Gerald’s old farm house, Tammy’s childhood home, just a mile down the road from the farm place.

When we got pregnant with our first baby (She’s 7), I thought maybe we’d be out at the farm by the time she was born. No one ever said that would happen or even hinted at it, but as they were “house hunting”, I was optimistic and got it into my head that things were rolling in that direction.

Three years later, when I was pregnant with our 2nd daughter, I realized, moving likely wasn’t imminent, but thought maybe the arrival of a second, would jump start changes in our living arrangements, or at least initiate alternative options for Brad and I to consider in the interim.

Eighteen months after that, we welcomed our 3rd baby, a son. Now by then I’d learned, you can squeeze a whole lot of stuff into a tiny house, and on the flip side, you can literally have a baby, with like no stuff. Forget the baby swing, the bouncer, the changing table, pack and play, rocker, walker, play yard, high chair, and even the crib. You don’t need it. You need diapers, wipes (or not even those if you’re particularly courageous and want to give infant potty training a go) and a couple onesies (wish I’d known that with the first one). You got boobs, generally no shortage of people wanting to hold and/or play with/entertain them, and if you're lucky, at least initially, they'll sleep anywhere, all the time.

So, while arms and legs were close to sticking out of windows, we made it work.

Actually, if I’m being honest, while it drove me to distraction, I always (almost always) cherished it. Since we were particularly cozy, space couldn’t divide us. We were “forced” (at times, that word is painfully accurate) to spend time together, to bond, to play, to enjoy the simple times and the little moments. And I’m so grateful for that. I could see and hear my kids at all times. I knew when they were laughing and crying and fighting and bleeding. I didn’t miss a thing. Which is good. Because I don’t wanna miss a thang (channeling my inner Steven Tyler).

Also while I’m being honest, our ever present state of pandemonium was not made any better by my “help”. Quite the opposite actually. My organizational and creativity skills are woefully subpar, and those are key features to a happy “tiny home” (not like an HGTV “tiny home”, just an average tiny home).

There have been many moments in the days since our move that I’ve stopped to reflect on our family journey. I’m a nostalgic, emotional heap.

As we were driving down the lane to go to school, work, and daycare yesterday, Bob said, “I want to go home.”

I said, “Bob, we just were home. We’re leaving now.”

Parker replied, “Mom. He means our messy house—our house in town.”

Our Messy House (Bob also calls it the Tree House—I think we’ve called it the town house and somehow that got converted to tree house and sometimes right before I open the door to go in, I can envision a tree growing right up the middle of it like in Jumanji).

I've frequently told people, it currently looks like it had been occupied by drug runners who had to make a quick getaway, so they took all the valuables (there weren't many) and trashed the place.

That's not really what happened. It was messy. Like really messy. We're messy. Literally and figuratively. (Actually, it still is, so if anyone wants to help me continue to clean out….)

As much as I hate messy, I love messy.

Our lives were, and I suppose still are, messy. And just so, so real. The chaos, every day, reminds me of all the blessings I have, the most prominent, and messiest, being my children.

We’ve moved on, just literally, from our messy house, but those memories and experiences are so tightly woven into who we are.

I’m reminding myself daily to seek out my children in my house, even when I’d like to separate myself with the extra space we’ve acquired, for a few moments of peace—to seek them out in all their glorious messes, to play barbies (even though I loathe barbies).

I’m reminding myself (to a certain extent) to ignore the messes that seem to have followed us—Even if it means being unable to pick up or organize tractors and farm equipment cause Bob is deep in his field work (in my family room) right now.  I have a family room. And a living room. And a dining room. They’re all separate (not just one combined multi-purpose, pile everything up room).

I mean not entirely ignore the messes—just postpone them. As cliché as this is, there will come a day, where there will be no more messes. And I will be sad. I will be a sad, nostalgic, emotional, “synonym for mess”.

I feel a desperate urge to take a picture and capture every moment. Breakfast at the kitchen table (I have a kitchen table. AND a dining room table), picking their noses, rubbing and spreading their conjunctivitis pink eye’s, standing on their heads, watching the Ipad, opening and closing the cupboard 100 times, throwing away a banana peel, tying a shoe, picking up a bug, feeding the cats, sleeping 3 to a bed, taking a bath, helping me with laundry, breaking my treasured wedding glass champagne flute, reading a book together,—all of it. The entirely cute, creative, hilarious, and also just the ordinary and mundane. Because someday they won’t do it anymore. Or at least not with me or at my house. And I don’t want to ever forget. I need something to hold on to.

Yesterday, I had an appointment to get my cholesterol checked (I can’t really be old enough to be worrying about that, can I??) and I was talking with my doctor. He has three boys, who are very close in age, the oldest at the University of Iowa and the youngest a senior in high school. He told me that really you have 20 years with your kids and you don’t realize how fast 20 years will and does go. They don’t need you as much anymore. They don’t rely on you or turn to you for every little thing. You’re not their “home base” the way you once were. You KNOW this day will come, but then it does, and it doesn’t seem real.

And this just about shattered my heart into a million pieces. Don’t really need to worry about my cholesterol anymore because I’m dying right now.

This morning, Bob didn’t want to let go of me and wouldn’t let me set him down. It was so frustrating as I was trying to get all 3 kids and myself ready for the day and out the door on time—for once. And it just wasn’t happening. But as he wrapped his arms around my neck and held on tight, it struck me that he won’t always want to cling to me. He won’t always want to hug me. So I buried my face in his neck and just squeezed him. I won’t always be able to smell the back of his neck.

Same for Piper. This morning she wanted me to carry her downstairs when she got out of bed—and I was so hot and sweaty (Our upstairs is like a sauna—how do people sleep in an upstairs!? But I HAVE an upstairs!) And I didn’t do it. And later I kept thinking how I should have because I won’t always be able to and she won’t always want me to.

Parks, too. Last night she wanted me to read the same Berenstein Bears Halloween book 5 times—4 was enough, but really, she won’t always want me to sit down with her to read.

Moving feels like an end, and I didn’t realize it would. I was so desperate for some sense of order that I didn’t realize I would miss the disorder.

Blessedly, the disorder that is just at the core of who we are, moved with us.

Piper still leaves the garage door into the house open for over an hour and a million flies and spiders and unidentified worms crawl through the door. I remind myself not to care.

Bobby still gives his stuffed lion a shower under the spigot of our Culligan water tank and subsequently floods our kitchen floor. I remind myself not to care.

Parker still comes out of her bedroom 18 times after I put her to bed because her tummy is hot and she needs a drink. I remind myself not to care.

I forget. A lot. And every night and every morning I pray for patience and perspective.

You somehow think that your "now" is your forever, and it's not. They'll grow, and become independent, and I won't be the center of their world ( I really am right now--and who could blame them).

But they'll always be the center of mine.

No matter where we move or go, no matter where THEY move or go, the love that built us, will come too.