Alright, so here's the big take-home from our house-hunting trip:

I have to get real.

Like, really real.

This trip has not gone exactly as I planned.

I had this fantasy of what was going to happen: we were going to spend a couple of days looking at every house on the market in a good school district within our price range (which is a total of about twelve), then spend a couple of days making offers and dealing with logistics while also slotting in some fun - a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum, maybe, or the pony farm at Half Moon Bay. (I'll write about how the house hunting part went later; I'm feeling all superstitious and want to see how it comes out in the wash before I make any predictions.)

And then that "carsick" thing that I mentioned the other day? Turned out to be one of those 24-hour bugs. And on the way to urgent care with Indy at 7AM to make sure it was nothing more than that, I discovered that whoops, I had it too (and let me tell you: I discovered this in basically the most dramatic way possible; I won't go into details because eww, but…EWW). So post urgent-care, we spent the day doing literally nothing while doing our best to inhale as much Pedialyte and water as possible, respectively. We did so much "nothing," in fact, that it became actually kind of fun in its own way - our B&B was cozy, and airy, and there's something to be said for a day of cartoons and not much else.

There was even one moment, right before we went to bed, when we were laying on the pillow and looking at each other and just smiling, and Indy reached out and stroked my cheek, in exactly the same way I stroke his when he's feeling bad. It made the entire day - this whole trip, this whole move, this whole life - just…worth it. Kids have a way of doing that, right when you need it most.

I write a lot here about how nervous I am about this move. How I wonder where we will live, and how my work will translate to a whole new state, and how our life will look once we're out on the other side. I write about me me me because this site is about many things but mostly what's going on in my head, but trust me:

It does not escape me that this is a big deal not just for myself and Kendrick, but for the whole family. And mostly for Indy.

We're out here in South Bay (is it "the" South Bay? Or just "South Bay"?) house hunting and getting to know the area we're going to live in better, and yesterday we were at lunch, and I looked at my son and thought what a cool thing, you know, getting to go on a trip all alone with him. Before Goldie was born I spent a lot of time wondering whether I'd ever get this again - this special time just hanging out, just us two - and while I don't feel like the time that we get to spend together has lessened now that she's here, it's still not all that often that I get to sit with him, asking him questions and listening to his answers and just being there.

That's why I decided to take him with me, you know: because he's going to remember this. And I want him to know that he gets time with his family, time with his sister, time with his dad, and time with me - all of us get to have adventures, together and separately and every which way. I thought about this trip a lot when I was in Florida with my own dad. I hope I get chances to spend time like this with my son forever.