Easing toward the empty nest

My kids are currently 23, 21, and 18. The oldest is away at college. The middle child lives in an apartment in our violin store building and is an apprentice at a tattoo shop across the street. The youngest is in her final year of high school and we are still waiting to hear back from the last couple of colleges she's interested in.

Officially they are all adults. Realistically they are all still supported by us as they continue to build skills that will help them live on their own at some point. We're glad to help. We're also glad that we didn't go cold turkey from having kids around, to their complete absence in our day-to-day lives. I like when the oldest returns on school breaks. I like that we see the middle child more often than we did when she lived in our house and retreated (as teens often do) behind her bedroom door. I like that my baby is around for games of Boggle most evenings. She's quiet and keeps to herself, but she's definitely still home.

I feel like we're easing into the empty nest years. It's an interesting transition, because if you'd asked me when my kids were small how I would be handling this concept, it would have sounded too sad. I love having a front row seat to my kids' lives. But I may also be ready for something new.

Someone asked me recently what having just one grown kid still at home even entails. I was a little taken aback because I definitely still feel the weight of parenting, but truthfully my daughter doesn't need much. She's in charge of dinner four nights a week (we get a Hello Fresh box which cuts down on decisions and shopping and food waste, and delegating dinner in this way was one of the best ideas we ever tried). She takes the bus to school. She seldom if ever needs help with homework and is handling all her IB classes just fine. It's not like with little kids where you have to help them bathe and dress, etc.

But it definitely impacts your life to be available all the time. Parenting a self-sufficient kid is like being on call 24/7. If she misses the bus, we have to drive her across town. There are still doctor and dentist appointments. There are still prescriptions to keep track of. There are piano lessons, and for a while she had debate that she needed to be picked up from twice a week, along with occasional meets on weekends. We went to our very last parent-teacher conference over a week ago. We may not have to technically do very much, but we still have to be ready to drop things at a moment's notice the way parents are sometimes called to do.

I don't envy people still in the early days of their parenting journeys. It's a lot. It can be great fun, and I'm glad I got to do much of it, but I've reached a stage in my life where it mostly looks exhausting. I may never be lucky enough to have grandchildren, but I understand the appeal. Getting to visit some of those experiences again without having to commit to them full time sounds great.

Starting this fall, we expect to have no children living at home most of the year. Having grown children means rethinking what holidays mean, what travel can be, and not being tethered to the particulars of a school calendar. The amount of time saved simply from reductions in meals, dishes, and cleaning opens many possibilities.

The first big thing on our agenda is doing a remodel of the first floor of our house. Last year at this time I had a frustrating experience with my knees that required weeks of physical therapy, and it gave me a preview of potential complications from aging in the future. I really like our house and would prefer not to move ever again, so we're going to bring our bedroom down to the first floor, add a real bathroom with a walk-in shower, and bring the laundry up from the basement. We'll move my home shop upstairs (because one day if that's an issue we can always bring it back down), leave our youngest's room alone for a few years, and make our current bedroom into a proper guest room. It's a big project, but the idea of living entirely on the first floor seems like a good long term plan, and one best started early. None of that would be comfortable to do with any kids still living at home.

I'm looking forward to going out with my husband occasionally. Four or five people going anywhere is a lot of money and/or effort. Just two of us trying a new restaurant sounds so easy. Buying only two tickets to a movie or a show sounds affordable. 

My husband is also a lot easier to convince to do anything. Trying to dislodge the kids from the house has always been a challenge. They like doing things once we're out, but dragging them to any of it is often more work than it should be. Seriously, my mandolin orchestra may possibly got to Cremona, Italy this fall, and I invited my middle kid along since the town is her namesake. The other two will be in school, but I figured her schedule has more flexibility, especially with this much notice, and she's on the fence about it. How? Who turns down a free trip to Italy? Anyway, I love the idea of finding dog-friendly trips to take where Ian and I can close the store for a few days and go see something or visit someone just because we can.

I'm also getting absurdly excited by the idea of cleaning out our house. That's somehow hard to do with extra people in it, and I'm not even sure why. I want get rid of anything we don't use, starting by emptying the basement. There are small bikes and old pots and pans and dried up cans of paint and old floaties, etc. There are some useless things that I still want but that need to be better organized. There is a section of the basement I'd like to paint and make more habitable for my bandsaw. But most of it needs to go! I spend what little time I have for cleaning simply repeating myself with clearing the same surfaces over and over that using that reclaimed time to finally tackle messes we've put off for years will be satisfying.

I even have visions in my head of creating a once a month quartet meet up at my store after hours, where anyone who feels like doing a bit of chamber music purely for the joy of it can come over and pull up a stand. Wouldn't that be lovely?

When imagining empty nest possibilities, I tend to remember a two week stretch where my husband took all the kids and their cousin to the cottage and I had to stay behind with the dog. A friend invited me for an evening bike ride that she did with a group once a week, and at first I turned her down. I never had time to spare for something like that. But my first day home alone I cleaned the house, and the second night I realized I didn't have to do that again. It stayed clean. There was no laundry to do. There were no dishes. I realized I did have time to go on that bike ride.

I'm sure life will throw challenges at us and anticipating any sort of smooth sailing in life feels foolish at best, but currently the idea of my husband and I only having to be responsible for ourselves in the coming years sounds like a well-earned break, rather than the lonely existence I once would have pictured with the kids gone. 

We did okay, I think. We got the kids this far. There's still more to help guide them through. Do we ever stop needing our parents? I know I still need my mom. I expect my kids to still need me. As long as they keep coming back regularly enough that I can hug them and occasionally cook them something they like, I think this new phase will be fine.

I'm excited to see what they will do. I'm just as excited to see what I will do.

Having a scoopable baby-size dog also helps

Rethinking the Kitchen

We've decided to take the plunge and remodel our kitchen.

We've been trying to figure out what to do with it for the past year or so, because it's sort of all or nothing, which is daunting.  The counter tops have reached a crisis level where they are buckling, one of them is burned, and the edges are falling off to the point where if we don't keep screwing in one section with bigger and bigger screws the dishwasher falls out.  Plus they are just not attractive or all that practical since they are textured.

The problem with just replacing the counters is that the layout of the kitchen is bad, and buying new counters to fit that layout sort of seals it in for a long time to come.  We looked into getting all of it rearranged.

After getting some estimates last year it looked like there was no way we could afford it.  Which was a shame, because now is when we use the kitchen.  Now is when we have three kids all living at home, now is when we host meal-heavy holidays like Thanksgiving, now is when we are cranking out cakes for birthdays and cookies for recitals, now is when we actively use the whole kitchen all the time.  We could wait until the kids are grown and gone but by then I may not care much.  A new kitchen for just me and Ian would be a luxury by then, not a necessity, and there are other things I would rather spend money on.

When a new kitchen seemed out of reach I decided I was content to simply get new counters and a new sink and then work with Ian one cabinet and drawer at a time to replace all the crumbling hardware and make them work at least a little better.

But finances work in mysterious ways sometimes!  Business was worse for us last year.  Which ironically means we now can (just barely) afford to do the kitchen because something about not having to do estimated taxes every month something something.  (This seems completely messed up to me that if we had done better last year we would have less money for such a project.  I will just keep working on my violins and try not to think about that too hard.)  When Ian got the final word on our taxes this year he gave me the unexpected green light on the kitchen.

New kitchen!  I can barely believe it's going to happen.

So what is so wrong with our kitchen?

Pavlov's Children

Our bell came apart this week.  I haven't quite figured out a way to repair it, but it's weird not having a bell.

When we lived in our first house across the street it was about half the size and sound traveled in it a little too well.  If I called up the stairs to get the kids down for meals that worked fine.

In the current house, not so much.  It's bigger and the doors are thicker, and even though creaks and thumps carry from floor to floor, I quickly found out if the kids were in their rooms they would never hear me from the kitchen.  To call them to meals I had to walk to the other side of the house and scream up the stairs, and often that wasn't enough and I'd have to go all the way up.

But the sound of the bell carries!  We have a glass bell with a tractor engraved on it that a cousin gave us years ago that is nice and loud without being obnoxious.  I explained to the kids when meals were ready I would ring the bell.

The latest chapter of be careful what you wish for

I recently got back from a nice trip to Michigan.  I went out to visit with my parents and see my brother and my niece, and I had an amazing but all too short dinner out with my friends.  I loved it all and wasn't ready to come home.

My kids and my husband are still out at my parents', but with a business to run and teaching obligations to fulfill I had to come back early.  So I have the house to myself.  And it's weird.  I don't think I've ever been alone in my own house overnight since we've had kids.  I've been away from them before, but I can't think of another time when everyone was away from me.

How many times have I wished wished wished that I could have a vacation in my own house?  Where everyone would leave for a while and not undo all the cleaning as I'm doing it?  Or that there was no one to cook for but myself and I'd be free from the tyranny of meals for other people?  To do what I please without interruption?  To have it be quiet?

Well, it's quiet.

I'm starting to see that there is such a thing as too quiet.  And too clean.  And too simple.  

I straightened up the stray toys in the living room last night, and now the room looks less inviting.  There's no evidence of my kids' happy play and creative games.  I like things to be clean because it sets the stage for something fun.  But there is no one here to then step on that stage, and all that clean space just looks lifeless.

I'm being silly, right?  I'm being silly.  I'm probably just having trouble adjusting and by the time I'm used to it and it feels like a good thing it will be over.  But I miss the hugs and snuggles and the cute things my kids say and do.  I miss my family.  My days never feel complete when I don't have my husband to tell them all to, and any day that I don't see my kids I know I'm missing something.  All of that is worth more than a clean living room.  And it's lonely here.

Luckily, I have the dog.

Chipper on Aden, whom he misses very much

The dog, who was being cared for by a neighbor for a few days (that in dog time probably felt like weeks), and who greeted me upon my return by practically levitating with happiness.  It's nice to have somebody be glad when I get home from work, and I appreciate his company as he follows at my heels from room to room.

I think I'd be enjoying this more if I weren't stressed out about teaching at string camp (it's my twelfth year doing it and the first few days are always hard because it's impossible to imagine the kids will pull it together and be ready to perform in only a week's time, but they always do) and if I weren't drowning in work at the violin store.  It's harder for me to wind down when I have so much going on, so I'm not using this time the way I probably should.

Maybe tonight I'll do something insane, like read.  With the dog at my feet.  While blasting the soundtrack to The Book of Mormon, which I certainly can't do with the kids around.  (I am trying to think of anything wild I could be doing to add to this list, but I am duller than I realized.  I don't even drink so it's not like I can toss a glass of wine to this picture.  Sheesh.)

Anyway, I'm at least trying to file this away in my mind for the next time the house full of kids is driving me up a wall.  Because that wish for an empty house?  Emptied it of feeling like a home.

Is This Crazy? (Babble)

The house across the street recently went up for sale and we’re trying to put a bid on it.  I can’t believe I might be moving while my husband is gone.  On the one hand it sounds insane, and on the other it could be an awesome distraction.  Or not.  Good grief.

When I have big decisions to make I do an agonizing game of mental ping pong.  I know it makes Ian nuts, and it’s probably not much better for my family and friends whom I call for help with input.  People talk about having a lot of imagination as a good thing, but when you can picture too many possibilities and they all seem real it can be paralyzing.  So rather than feel stuck, I ping pong.  Come enjoy my game of mental house moving pros and cons:

(And keep in mind we’re not really house hunting, we are just interested in this particular house.  I like the idea of staying on the same corner and keeping our neighbors and our two block walk to Target and all of that.  We like where we are, so this would be changing the house but not anything else, and that’s appealing.  Also, not needing a moving truck sounds good to me.)


On the pro side of the new house:  Much bigger.  There would not only still be a room for my in-home violin building shop, but a seperate space for music practice and teaching, a bathroom upstairs, and enough bedrooms on the second floor that we could all sleep up there together.  (The plan in the house we have involves me and Ian moving down to a tiny room on the main floor next year so Quinn could move into our room upstairs, but I don’t like the idea of us sleeping on different levels.)  And there’s a dishwasher.  An honest to god appliance that would wash dishes for me.  Can you imagine?  And counter space, and a little reading nook just for Ian and CLOSETS.  There are walk-in closets just littered about like it’s nothing.  And it’s very pretty inside–Arts and Crafts style from the 1920’s, built-in china cabinets, fireplace, leaded windows…. I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty banister, too, and this house has that.  The second floor of our house is really a converted attic, so the stairs are unusually steep and in a closed hallway.  From the outside, the new house is unassuming, but inside it has an efficient yet elegant grace.  I love the whole idea of waking up each morning in such a pleasant environment.

Things we like about our current house better:  The garage is much nicer–holds both our cars and all the bikes, etc.  (New house has a tiny garage and one car would always be outside, which isn’t nothing considering how much ice and snow removal we’re talking about in the mornings, and the fact that once the radio was stolen out of our car when we had to park it on the street one night.)  I love having a big front porch with a swing.  We’ve spent many a thunderstorm on that porch watching the rain, and the new house doesn’t have a way to do that without us getting very wet. 

Our current house has a fun family room at the top of the stairs that is just a wide open play area that has been great for all kinds of things.  Space is cut up more in the other house, but there is still a little family room at the back where the TV and toys could go, so I’m sure we’d get used to that, but it’s been very handy to have the whole upstairs level be a play haven for kids.  There is a lot of important running from the bedroom to the family room that goes on whenever the kids are home and I’d miss that.  Since we bought our house we replaced all the windows, the roof, and remodeled the laundry room.  And this may sound silly, but more often than not our house feels cozy rather than cramped.  We can call to each other from anywhere in the house and be heard, and I like how connected everything feels.

My biggest problem is I’m deeply sentimental.  I love our house.  We bought it after I graduated from my violin making apprenticeship, and it’s the ultimate symbol of my trust in my husband because I let him buy it without my seeing it first.  (I was getting too attached to houses while we were searching and I would get really depressed when we didn’t get them each time, so Ian was trying to save my sanity by doing all the looking alone.  Of course, I would have picked a house with a bathroom on the second floor….

That was a lot of pregnancies of tromping up and down those stairs a million times a night.)  This was the house we brought all of my babies home to.  This was where they all took their first steps and fell down the stairs and got bathed in the kitchen sink.  This was the last home of mine my grandmother will have ever visited.  A friend built my front porch steps.  I painted the lower half of the house alone in the dead of night over the course of a month so it would be clean and pretty for Ian’s homecoming in 2007.  We have put so much work and time and laughter and tears into this house….  How weird would that be to see it across the street being lived in and changed by other people?

And speaking of weird, I asked Ian if it would be too strange to come home from Iraq to the house across the street.  How would it feel to come home to a new home?  Would that even feel like really coming home?

Of course, Ian insists home is wherever I am, so he may turn the wrong direction at our corner a few times by mistake, but aside from that he’d be fine.  So he has no passion about the house question one way or another.  Ian’s no real help in discussing any of this because he loves me and will do what he thinks will make me happy.  He doesn’t struggle with trying to figure out how to make our house work for five of us, so it’s all the same to him.  He would like it if we moved, but given his way we’d keep our money in the bank and stay where we are.  It leaves me feeling sort of selfish for wanting to go into debt over closets.  I don’t want to be shallow, and compared to the space my brother in New York lives in, I have nothing to complain about.  But Milwaukee is not New York and our needs are very different, so I try not to get distracted by that thought.

It helped to talk to my friend Gabby.   She’s moved a few times since she started having kids and I asked her if it was hard leaving a house that felt special.  She said matter of factly that a house is just a building and that I should have a dishwasher.  Another friend told me today that if I’m still thinking about it so much I should just do it.  She says if I didn’t feel a connection with the new house I wouldn’t keep coming back to the idea.
The funniest objections come from Aden.  She is sentimental about some crazy things, and her big points about staying in our current house are all concerns over how we could possibly move anything.  How can we move the curio cabinet without all the little things falling over?  How would we ever move her bed?  What would we do with our couches?  The TV is mounted to the wall, so how would we move that?  What about her toy kitchen set?  Hmm?  HMMM?  Talking her through some of this does make me look at my concerns in a clearer light.  Some of the things I cling to look just as ridiculous to other people, I’m sure. 

But Aden’s warming up.  I think she didn’t realize that our neighbors’ stuff would be leaving that house first, and we keep explaining that everything we own that she mentioned is all stuff we brought into the house in the first place, and can just as easily be carried across the street.  I told her if we moved she and her sister could have the bedroom with the little balcony.  (Mona got so excited and said, “A balcony!  We could have the balcony!  …What’s a balcony?”)  She could have her own plants to grow out there, and she could make snowballs to throw down below, and maybe we could put out a birdfeeder right by her window.  I think that did the trick, because she came up to me the other day and said quietly that if I really really wanted to move, she would come too.

So we’ll see.  Real estate issues are complicated and expensive and confusing, and nothing is settled until it’s settled according to lots of pieces of signed paper.
All of this would be better dealt with a year from now, when we’d have more money saved up and our business would have more time to get established, and Ian would be home.  But we don’t get to pick the timing of certain opportunities.  It’s a little like when I talk to people about waiting for the right time to have kids.  There is no right time to have kids–you prepare the best you can and dive in. 

I will share the one thought that haunts me, though.  As much as I lean toward moving across the street, I worry about what that means if Ian doesn’t come home next year.  If the worst comes true, and my husband dies in Iraq, I would want to live in the house he picked out for me, closets be damned.  I know that’s a dark way to look at things, but it’s the reality of having a spouse off at war.  Any of us can have our lives permanently changed at any moment, but being married to a soldier is like living under the threat of swift change all the time.  So buying a new house is a way of looking forward, not back, and embracing the hope that we will all be together again by this time next year.  Maybe the healthy thing is to buy the house.

(That sounds settled, doesn’t it?  But I know at about three in the morning when I can’t sleep, the ping pong game will start over again.)