Living in Community

Part of the long process of moving overseas has so far involved a lot of moving within the US!  We spent the first three weeks of October living at Keystone, our friends’ building, while we waited for our temporary apartment at headquarters to open up.  We had our own private bedroom, living room, and bathroom but did meals together every night.  Four adults and three kids under four was definitely a recipe for chaos at times (plus four more adults and four more kids on the other floors), but we appreciated the extra and unique time this gave us with our friends.  I think we did manage to avoid all three kids melting down at once but they each had their own moments!  It was a sweet, temporary period to do life together in before life becomes more separate than we would ever want.  Eric and Em were extremely gracious in letting us interrupt their regular schedule for an extended time.

I liked having people to watch Parenthood with, being able to tag along on the many activities that Em plans such as pumpkin patches and apple picking, witnessing life with a 3 and a half year old first hand and spending dinner trying not to laugh out loud at Eleanor’s renditions of what pre-school teachers are like, that Canaan has become better acclimated to lots of people, “strangers”, and loud noises, participating in riveting, opinionated, funny, and intense conversations at house desserts, being invited to play Ticket to Ride with Charlie & Beth, trying Las Cemitas delicious cemitas, having extra people to cook for (and people who really like dessert unlike Nate), having an insider’s perspective as to what some of the negotiations/conversations about having a shared ownership in a building and block look like, watching Katie and Emily’s coupon savvy shopping trips, sharing a babysitter and completing the monumental task of getting enough kids asleep to leave the babysitter with 5 kids 4 and under, Friday play group being so easy because Canaan could nap in his own bed when he needed to, coming home from one night away in Indiana and having Eleanor tell us she missed us at dinner, and more.

We had a totally relaxing Sunday afternoon out in the backyard with some fun drinks and all of the kids peaceful and playing.  Edie and Canaan are starting to be aware of each other’s existence now.  Can you believe Canaan is three weeks younger with his giant head and long body?

Dressed for Fall in the Keystone backyard with Em and Katie during a neighborhood pumpkin carving and painting party.

So far Ella is the only member of her family that likes to cook. She’s quite a champ to have fun making dessert with me … a dessert she knows she cannot eat herself because she has to start eating her vegetables first.

Sharing life, sharing kids. Em has been irreplaceable in my transition to being a parent.

Welcome to life on Keystone. It has its moments. We jumped in our car to go get visas one morning only to discover this lovely, spray painted message on our hood.

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