People live this way for a reason

Promoting urban living is all well and good, but the backyard has revolutionized my life. The children can go OUTSIDE while I remain INSIDE. This is new. This is wonderful.

Not only that, but when Katie asks me to take out the trash, I don't have to go down four flights of stairs and walk through the dirty, slightly creepy storage area. My marriage has improved considerably.

Not only that, but I feel no pressure to get all 18 bags of groceries in one trip...you know, sliding bags all the way up to my shoulder like an old-time watch salesman. You can just go back out and get the rest.

New

Regarding the new church:

"Daddy, I like this church. My teacher is pretty."

Regarding the new house:

"I never knew houses had backyards. I like this house."

Regarding our friend Jacey's house:

"I like this house. The toilet flushes quiet."

Regarding Chris and Julie's house:

Whispering, "She looks like Ariel, Daddy. I like this house."

On the other hand, when Maddie slipped on the rocks in the backyard her response was: "I want to go back to my yellow house."

And Caleb sometimes asks, "When we go home?"

Urgent Idiots

Please forgive me for posting my first non-trivial entry not relating to my children. It was just on my mind.

There appears to be a subset of users of public transportation who live, sadly, in constant fear that the next stop will be the one in which the doors open ever-so briefly, allowing only that one heady passenger who fought his way to the front, to exit.

These people stand behind you. They fidget much. They are ever poised, muscles taught, ready to leap off the train during the painfully brief TWO MINUTES the doors ALWAYS remain open. As a stop approaches, perhaps even it is your stop, they press forward. "Excuse me," they say with feigned courtesy. Their tone reveals the true thought: THIS IS THE TIME THE DOORS WILL ONLY OPEN FOR ONE SECOND. MOVE YOU IDIOT!!!

An elbow. A frustrated grunt. They are in the front. They cast a satisfied glance your way and you see, even through their thick glasses, the glint of joy in their eyes: I beat you, it says. The door opens and they spring to the platform...followed leisurely by everyone else they pushed out of the way.

But they know, deep down, that the time will come and the joke will be on us.

Maddie Suddenly Sees

Her best friend Clara was the source of Maddie's revelation.

"Maddie, you can't move to Utah," she said. "Because you have such great princess dresses."

Later, as we were telling bedtime stories, Maddie reflected on her friend's concern: "Are there princess dresses in Utah?"

"Yes."

More thinking. "Will we have a yellow house in Utah?"

"No, honey, we'll have a gray house."

"But we can come back to the yellow house when we're done with Utah, right?"

"Not to the same one, but we can look at moving to a different yellow house," I fudged. "But you know, our new house in Utah is across the street from a big park," I diverted.

"How big?"

A successful redirect.