On the Move, In So Many Ways

We are almost through our first week of being vagabonds. On Saturday we finished moving out of our apartment, as the new tenant moved in. Now we are temporarily in Guy's sister's apartment across the hall. This weekend we move into the apartment next door to our old one for the last two weeks of April, and then hopefully, finally we'll be ready and able to move into our new place in Brooklyn. It has been stressful.

Fortunately, Elio is rolling with it like a champ. And it's been hard to be so preoccupied with moving and closing and worrying about moving and closing because it seems like he is making huge developmental leaps, and I'm afraid I'm missing some of it. Just tonight, after he fed himself dinner while sitting on my lap, we were on the floor playing. He was, of course, attacking Amelia with hugs and kisses. Then we started playing with one of Christine's pilates balls, and he's getting the idea of rolling it back and forth and even throwing it a little bit. He's also very into putting things INTO things, not just taking them out. So he puts blocks into his stacking cups, or his stacking cups back into his wagon, or even tries to get one cup into another.

He's such a ball of energy, but then sometimes he'll just stop and gaze at something for the longest time. Just now, we were on the bed reading our bedtime books, playing Pat-a-Cake, and he stopped and stared toward the lamp for such a long while, utterly still. Thinking so hard about something, it seems. What? And it was lovely because I got to stare at him--his long lashes, his round cheeks curving down to his lips (which he likes to suck on), the perfection of his skin, the hair that's starting to grow over his ears. It's the most fascinating landscape.

After we moved out on Saturday and Guy made many trips shlepping things to the studio, we headed out to Pennsylvania/Delaware to see my family for Easter. It seemed insane at the time, after all that work and motion, but once we were through Staten Island and into New Jersey and then driving through roads lined with old stone farmhouses and hideous McMansions in Bucks County, it felt so good to be out of the city. And then we walked into Dave and Terry's house and Elio was literally absorbed into a wave of cousins who were delighted to meet him. Within minutes he was hugging and being hugged by my cousin Maggi's three kids. He followed them everywhere. And he ate lasagne. He was blissed out.

And tired, so tired. That night as I was trying to get him ready for bed at Aunt Pat and Uncle Tom's, I accidentally let loose the roller blind, which whizzed up with a mighty clatter. It was the first time I've seen Elio terrified. He kept looking up at the window in abject fear (though, strangely, he felt perfectly comfortable with the window right next to it, pulling himself up on the sill in the morning to look out).

The next day, more cousins, an Easter egg hunt, quiche and pineapple. Then we took off for a long long ride to Aunt Kathy's for Easter dinner (ham, pasteria, and two! wheatberry pies). His welcome there was just as enthusiastic. I love knowing that so many people love him.