THEN AND NOW

I had plans for several posts this week but none of them transpired because it has been an absolutely hectic week. Frenzied, busy, overwhelming - are all appropriate words to describe what it's been like over here while packing up our entire house, managing both kids, planning for being in between homes for three days, cleaning, and trying to get as many work hours in as possible. 

In the midst of the chaos last weekend, we managed to snap a photo of us together so that we could compare it to the one we took three and a half years ago when we first moved in. So many things have happened since then - we learned how to be parents, hosted many family and friends, strengthened our marriage, put together a garage gym, celebrated many good things, took refuge during the hard things, learned how to be parents of two, and learned what it meant for us to make a home. 

On Wednesday morning, before leaving for daycare and work, I told Sloane that we should go around to each room to say goodbye to them, knowing that it was going to be her last time seeing the house. Before I got a chance to do that with her, I got caught up trying to finish up a myriad of other things, and noticed Sloane saying her goodbyes on her own: "Goodbye guest bedroom...good job," she would say, patting its walls, "I will miss you...goodbye bathroom...goodbye laundry room..." And on and on, trotting from room to room, patting doors and occasionally kissing a wall. She did each of the rooms and I listened and watched with amusement, while echoing her sentiment: 

Goodbye, dear house, good job. We will miss you...and thank you.