Inevitably Keely

When we started the school year, we were a Reagan Elementary family. But things got complicated last Tuesday. Here's our story*: Our family relocated back to Bakersfield on June 9, 2016. The house we purchased was perfect - close to my husband’s work and just doors down from the front doors of Reagan Elementary. The price of the home was more than we planned on spending, but it was worth it to be so close to a highly regarded elementary school that our kids could walk to. We knew the school was highly populated, so I rushed to the school the morning the office opened back up for the year so that I could turn in our registration paperwork. Both kids were anxious about the uncertainty of where they would end up. My husband and I did not (and still don't) understand why they would let these kids start at one school and then uproot them 2 or 3 weeks later, after they've made friends and adjusted. That seemed extremely unfair to the students and th...

Last night I was up all night because our floor was the party floor, duh. I  found out  there's only so many times you can shout "Bakersfield PD!" and get a heart racing/fear reaction from me. So thanks for that drunkards in room 804. Thanks for that. We were up at 4:30am. On our first flight at 6:30am. We took three flights. Slept a bit. Made "To Do" lists and "Must Sell" lists and reviewed our calendar for the month of May. We stressed a little and then we took deep breaths. I felt sad flying into Houston and seeing all the green. I've loved it here - far more than I ever expected to.  We got home and hugged our kids - Mol tried giving me the silent treatment for a bit, but after a while she nonchalantly said, "Hi, Mom." Just like that, as she walked by and barely made eye contact. Apparently, Molly turned 13 while we were away.  We showed the Biggies pictures of the new house and wiped away Zoe's tears. Her room is smal...

So the thing about getting a new roof is, it is REALLY noisy. I knew this in theory, of course. But as the pulled the old roof apart and hammered the new roof in place, we all kind of went along with it.  I was super amazed that the girls managed to sleep in and at first they seemed kind of amused by all the banging. It was like music and they danced around and turned in abrupt circles in a sort of jerking motion and laughed. Fun. Getting a new roof is fun. And then they napped like champs and we were all thinking, "Wow! These girls! Amazing!"  And then five rolls around. And then six. And then Charlotte had enough of all this business and she was NOT happy and she made sure we knew. She'd reached her breaking point with all that noise. Almost 11 hours of that constant racket had us ALL on edge by the time the roofers finally left.  And then we got the kids ready for bed and I hugged them all extra tight and maybe I got a little emotional smelling the girls clean...

"I do not think you will ever have it this good, ever again."   He said it with an approving smile and in complete sincerity as he looked around the new home he was helping us move into. The home was beautiful: open floor plan, high ceilings, three bedrooms, two bathrooms. The backyard was huge: plenty of room for our almost crawling Zoe to eventually run around, a pool, gorgeous roses and citrus trees. The front yard had huge hydrangeas and roses and other flowers and the front of the home was covered in vines - there was a fountain. It was beautiful. It was perfect for our family of three and just as perfect a little over a year later for our family of four. We held many parties and hosted dinners and hat parades. We danced it out. That house was filled with love and friends and good memories and we were grateful our friends rented it to us and grateful that we had the opportunity to purchase it (escrow went through on April Fools Day, 2010). It was the first home ...

I was driving home yesterday - thinking about the last ten months, this weekend, next week, the next few months, etc. I was mentally writing my "Things to Do" list and calculating what my strategy would be to stay sane through it all (no luck there, btw) when "Plate Spinners" popped into my head. You know plate spinners, right? Those amazing people who spin all these plates on sticks. It's a circus act - dozens of plates up in the air. Audiences watch with anticipation - breath held, waiting for a plate to fall.  Some of us spin more plates than others. Some of us support the weight of other plate spinners - holding them on our shoulders, in the palms of our hands, on top of our heads - as they try to balance their own plates. We work together (or in spite of each other) spinning and balancing and sometimes a plate falls. Sometimes it feels like all the plates are going to come crashing down, but you slowly pick up the plates and you rebuild. I have friends with...

These girls are two days shy of being ten months old and I absolutely cannot believe it. Two more months of them being babies and then... oh, who am I kidding? They will always be our babies. Our last babies. The two who showed us that everything we thought we totally knew about babies was good and all, but they were different. Different from Zoe and Finn - and yes, different even from each other. These last ten months have gone by so fast, and I have this feeling that the next two will go by even faster. I'm not ready, but at the same time, with every milestone and every day of growth, we are further from that scary time when I was pregnant with them and when everything seemed so out of our hands during Charlotte's time in NICU and CVICU. Every day moving forward feels like a little victory celebration. Their being here -  healthy and happy - is a testament to how strong our girls are and to how capable and tough and loved the entire Emery family is. It's been quite the jo...

I had an ultrasound a week ago, and for the 2nd time the girls didn't cooperate for us so that we could get good images of their hearts. My doctor came in and looked and said she wanted me to have an echocardiogram. She patted my leg and I didn't see the same look of confidence I usually get from her. I gave her an opportunity to put me at ease - "But we're not really concerned, right? We just need better pictures." She said we need to have me come back in. I left the office afraid.  I did not have a good feeling at all. The echocardiogram was  Wednesday  morning. More than two hours of watching the girls move - both transverse, then one breech and one head down, and then both transverse again. It was amazing to see our strong girls move. "Can you feel all that?!" I could feel every single movement - in my belly all the way back to my spine. At the end of it all, the cardiologist smiled and said she saw no problems. Molly and Charlotte's hearts l...