‘Tis been a whirlwind seven weeks, and now that I’m getting full nights of sleep again I can look back on it all with a smile and a deep feeling of gratitude and relief that I survived.  And more than survived: I loved pretty much every minute of it. Oh sure, I can hardly walk on my left foot and I may never be able to drink another Shirley Temple, Troy’s suffering from single parenting PTSD and Huck doesn’t quite recognize me anymore. Even so, the break from normalcy was a peak experience for this old grey mare, and now I can happily return to regular life with a few hundred new memories (and aches).  To quote the last line of the play: “I think it’s wonderful.”

This is the dreamy look we get when Shana’s in town.

Tornado Shelter!

Huck (& his parents) wonders what he got himself into when he agreed to play Jesus on Good Friday.

Shana and I tried to sound non-dumb on the radio.

NPR Interview

Closing with our realtor Robin (and a folder full of important documents)

Opening Night feels like 100 years ago.

Huck made a change in his life.

Highly Evolved Males

Well, mostly evolved.

A Housewarming Moment

Troy’s mom & Shirley!  In a bar!

Co-workers by day with co-workers by night

My baby niece Lauren & her beau John drove 4.5 hours, saw the show, visited the house, and then drove 4.5 more hours home, which earned them the title of Best Family Members 2016.

The best stage manager and the best awful fake husband

Oh, my liver.

Sometimes we snuck off to our new house for a few minutes of frantic gardening.

Turning 46 on the porch

Birthday Farmer’s Market

Closing feels like a couple days ago.

So much thanks to these two …

Having survived the first two weeks of my show and returning to work full-time, Troy and Huck surprised me at our new, empty house last Sunday afternoon with this …

This beautiful sight was only slightly marred by the sound of Huck wailing as he held onto the back of his head in front of a brand new hole in our living room wall.  In hindsight I probably should have asked “Is that a HOLE in our wall?” a few less times and “Are you ok?” a few more. The week before he spilled a gigantic bucket of water all over our new kitchen floor, and as we were leaving I broke one of the blinds.  Huck walked up to me and said, “Hashtag I need a hug.”

The school year’s winding down, the weather’s incredible but does cause at least one of us to be miserable on any given day, I’m doing a play, the farmer’s market has returned, we own a house, every now and then Sunny goes number two on our living room rug, double birthdays and an anniversary are fast approaching, I haven’t had a day off in a long time and may drop dead any minute now, we’ve been brushing our teeth with travel size toothpaste for a week because I keep forgetting to go to the store, and two of our favorite human beings on the entire planet are moving to our town this summer. Sometimes you have to look away from the hole in the wall and keep your eyes on that fireplace you’ve been dreaming about your whole life.

(But seriously, anyone know how to fix a head-shaped hole?)

Huck and I have started knitting together while listening to the “Invisibilia” podcast, and I’m sure to passersby we look like a couple of elderly women from the olden days gathered around the radio. Huck’s working diligently on my birthday present, which will hopefully be a beautiful multi-colored infinity scarf. I’m currently creating an uneven black rectangle that never seems to get bigger.  It’s a beautiful example of enjoying the process while having no hopes for the finished product.

But we also know all about longing for the finished product. Since the day after Huck’s birthday I’ve been happily rehearsing a play at TheatreSquared with a tremendous group of actors, stage managers, designers and crew, with director Shana topping the list. Thanks to a supportive workplace, I’ve been given lots of paid time off in order to do this, and my fingers are crossed that I keep surviving once I return to working by day and playing by night for the next month.  An added sweet touch to this experience is that my huband in the play has a daughter ten days older than Huck who spent her spring break (and ours) in Fayetteville. Since she and Huck are likeminded little souls, this meant lots of fun knitting, hiking, playing cards, sharing a babysitter, watching “School House Rock,” and surviving a tornado threat in our cellar together. Plans are in the works to meet up at the St. Louis Zoo this summer.

And finally, our home buying journey culminated this afternoon in the final 450 signatures and the handing over of a rather large cashier’s check. The three of us aren’t sure what you’re supposed to do when you officially own a house, so we did what we think you do and immediately hung up our beloved hammock in the back yard and enjoyed the rapture of it all. We won’t officially move in till May, what with April being jam-packed, but still. Home sweet home!

April first has been much anticipated in our hearts and minds, and we joked that opening night and the house closing weren’t enough so we had to add Huck’s parent/teacher conference to the day.  At least I thought we were joking.  Last weekend during my dinner break from day two of 11am-11pm tech rehearsals, Huck and I were cuddling on the couch. As sincerely as possible he said, “Oh, I’m feeling so nervous!” I asked why, and he said in all caps, “WE’RE BUYING A HOUSE! YOU’RE OPENING A PLAY! AND MY STUDENT LED PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCE IS ON THE SAME DAY!”

Two down, one to go.

Sometimes it seems our life has changed drastically over the years, and then Huck’s birthday arrives and I realize practically everything of importance is the same as it’s ever been. Aunt Jeni comes to town, just like she came to town when Huck was born and when he turned one and two and three and four and five and all the others. There’s Russell and Cheryl helping light his birthday candles & John and Shana giving him another amazing book. There are gifts and phone calls from Shannon and grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and old friends from around the country. There’s his familiar band of 11 year old soul-mates laughing at his nerdy humor. There’s the “Happy Birthday” banner I bought at a New York dollar store when he turned four. Even the ribbons on the presents are recycled from past birthdays and Christmases. And as always, there’s me and Troy with a few more crow’s feet around our eyes and the same old smiles.

These days when I walk and drive around, I can hardly handle all the spring beauty around me. I feel drunk on the sunshine, and I have a crazy desire to take in every single flower on every single tree, but there’s too many. Just like I look at this growing up boy and try to take in every comment, every joke, every insight. But this is nothing new; I do it with every new season of the earth and Huck. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Last week my little green iPhone fell to the ground and shattered right before Jeni arrived to make our lives even sweeter. There went all my life information, my pictures, my messages, my to-do lists, my emails and calendar.  But within an hour I had a brand new phone twice the size, and through some miracle of technology everything was right back there where it always was.

It was the same old-same old, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Didn’t we all just live in New York together?

Ozark Escape Room Bank Heist Birthday Party

Huck’s people

Don’t these two live in Brooklyn?

Straight from the airport to the theatre

Saving the world from disesase

One of our favorite pastimes

The Annual Kissing-Huck-Goodbye-at-School-on-Monday-Morning Picture

Five days before turning 11, Huck experienced a fifth grade Northwest Arkansas rite of passage by having an overnight school trip to the Ozark Natural Science Center about an hour away.  One week prior to the trip, he began spending the nights in his brand new sleeping bag to get used to it. Not only that, but each night he systematically took something away (other blankets, extra pillows, me tucking him in) in order to be fully prepared for that one night in a cabin far from home. He’s such a mama’s boy homebody with a mild dash of OCD that the morning of his departure included repacking his duffle bag, reviewing his packing list, frantically making his famous eggs and eating them in under a minute, combing his hair, and a series of kisses and hugs that might have bordered on the clinically insane.  ”I’m a little nervous,” he confessed.  I resisted shouting a sarcastic “DUH!” and whispering a genuine “me too.”

Someone once explained to me that toddlers and tweens are experiencing the very same growth development. That is, you never know which they’re going to be at any given moment: a dependent baby who needs you for everything or an independent human trying to break away.  Huck is usually 50% one and 50% the other at the very same time. I think parents of both these groups behave similarly.  Aside from sleeping with his duffle bag next to him in order to protect his belongings, he had a good experience on the school trip and returned with stories of four hour hikes, amazing food and campfires.  Aside from glancing into his empty bedroom more often than necessary, I too had a good experience and enjoyed a rare mid-week date night.

Today is the first March 7th since 2005 that I’m not spending with Huck from morning till night.  He’s finally decided to attend school on his birthday, which means I will be attending work. He talked himself into this plan by deciding that the entire weekend before (which included his birthday slumber party) and the entire weekend after (which will include Aunt Jeni’s annual visit) would be treated as one long birthday.  Let’s face it: when you’re an only child everyday is a birthday celebration. But for me, mom, nothing compares to March 7th.

Happy birthday to my brainy, argumentative, funny, bossy, sweet, impossible, perfect, one and only boy.

The other day we were at the Aldi check-out and Huck said something serious that made me smile and chuckle.  I wish I could remember the details, because I feel like I’m leaving out some really important evidence in the case against me. My giggles were clearly the wrong reaction and he said in his most abrupt tone: “MOM.” His eyes became red and his breathing heavy as he transformed into an angry man trapped in the body of a skinny ten year old.  I accidentally chuckled again, now feeling like I was going to die if I couldn’t start howling with laughter.  Suddenly we were back in time, 1981, my dad and a little me battling it out to the death. Tears welled up as he quietly yelled at me to stop laughing at him, that it felt like I was making fun of him.  All I could think to say while my inexpensive groceries were delicately being tossed into the cart: “Then please stop being funny.” He stared out into nothingness as if he were Romeo at the end of the play.

Then last night before bed he said he wished he could wake up to the sounds of Edward Grieg’s “Morning” from Peer Gynt played on the piano, though the darkness of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is more his style. (He and his beloved piano teacher have the same taste in music, he tells me.)  I smiled.  ”Are you serious?” He was. I did a top secret Google search and found just the thing to wake him up.  After breakfast he sat at the piano with his legs crossed and played “Ode to Joy” for the first time before heading off to school. Not all days start off as good as this one did.

I think this is going to be the hardest thing about the hormonal tween years: knowing if he’s being funny on purpose or on accident.

a walk on the trail near our future house

In the last month Huck discovered Adele, grew six pimples overnight, enjoyed more than a week off from school (ten days if you count both sets of weekends), won a chess tournament, became pretty fluent in piano, dissected a frog and gave up arguing for Lent (though I’ve seen no sign of this). We had Prison Stories VI and a sweet visit from our niece Lauren and her beau John, which made me wonder when she became old enough to drive, attend college and date. We lost our heat for a week (thank heavens for my lifesaving adult footsie pajamas) and discovered a leak in the roof, both rehearsals for the home ownership show. Troy got strep for the first time since his tonsillectomy ten years ago, doing his part to make sure that at least one Schremmer is sick over February’s holiday weekend. We waited for a snow day and got spring instead, danced with coworkers at a fundraiser gala, made each other valentines and grew ever closer to owning our yellow house on Anne, adding to our list of Fayetteville streets named for girls. And finally, I began the slow process of memorizing lines for a show that will open on the same day we plan to close on our house, which is April first.

I think it’s considered good luck when doors open and close on April Fool’s Day.

It’s been an exciting year.  After celebrating the arrival of 2016 with an adorable pig being lowered from a firetruck crane amidst fireworks and kissing Fayettevillians, Huck started piano lessons, it snowed for a few minutes, and we accidentally fell in love with a house. Thankfully we have a friend-realtor who held our hands and helped us make an offer and set up the house inspection, each success feeling like we’ve made it to another episode of “American Idol.”  Now onto the financing portion, which is as terrifying as Elton John Week.

When movies get too sentimental and mushy, Huck calls them “brown bananas.”  This most recently happened during a Kansas ice day viewing of “Elf” in front of the fireplace with his twin cousins.  Every time Will Ferrell got a sweet look in his eyes Huck got closer and closer to his imminent departure, and as soon as he realized a love story was developing he was outta there. Troy and I took him to see the brownest bananas of them all, our beloved “It’s a Wonderful Life” on the big screen at the Walton Arts Center a few days before Christmas, and I thought he was literally going to die, possibly by my hands.  At one point I found myself hunkered over him whispering very non-wonderful-life threats in my lower-than-normal voice.  One of our favorite scenes in the movie is when the future Mr. and Mrs. Bailey are in front of the old Granville house and Mary says she wants to live in it someday. After 11 homes together in our 23 years of marriage, most of them small apartments, Troy and I are now feeling very mushy at the thought of settling down into our own 320 Sycamore, minus the draft.

The other day I found a piece of paper in Huck’s sloppy handwriting that asked the question: “Was he surprised because $20,000 a year was a lot or a little?”  It took me a minute to realize this was written in the dark during a Mr. Potter scene and shown to Troy in an attempt to understand a complicated financial situation from the 1940s.

We’re related after all!

Here it is, the last day of the year, hours before the first day of the year, a recipe for nostalgia and regret and hope.  Most of my memories of this past year center around new full-time jobs, my ear problems, and our home upheaval with the funny sights and loud sounds of a ten year old surrounding me.  Come to think of it, 2015 was a very loud year.  Along with celebrating 23 years of marriage & our niece’s wedding, finally making it to the beach again, many special visits from family and friends, starting middle school, taking second place in the spelling bee and enjoying the benefits of paid vacations, we also felt some pain.  It feels like we all lost too many people we loved this year, through death or Alzheimer’s or refusal to forgive. Donald Trump somehow entered the race for president and I began reading a book that takes place at the start of World War II.  We like the church sign in Canada that declared “Christmas: A Story about a Middle East Family Seeking Refuge.”  Black lives matter. Prisoners deserve compassion. Some of the Schremmers’ favorite people are Muslims.  When I get a headache these days I’m not sure if it’s allergies to the air or to this loud and sometimes hateful world we live in today. Thank goodness for ibuprofen and grace.

As we four prepare for a brand new year with my brand new ear that still has a little hole in it, we spend our spare time driving by humble houses for sale.  Troy has discovered Instagram, Huck will start piano lessons next week, and I will continue my hourly online house searches that years ago paid off with the find of the century on Rebecca Street.  Sunny will keep teaching us lessons on fear and overcoming fear as she maneuvers her way through this scary world full of strangers and children with the occasional reward of a family hike.  Personally speaking, I will keep trying to reflect before I react, seek first to understand, and also stop hitting two spaces between sentences. Lifetime habits are tricky.

As we laze around our beautiful temporary home that somehow fell into our laps with our computers and books and Chex mix, soon to venture out into our favorite town full of Christmas lights and good cheer and wonderful friends, we hope you, whoever you are (unless you’re one of my blog spammers of late) can drink a cup of kindness yet and have a very, very, very happy and quiet new year.

my first home, christmas eve

… in Arkansas!  (And Kansas, where we’re spending the most wonderful time of the year) Merry Christmas, everyone!

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