THE END, Los Angeles: Uprooted and Unplugged At Last.

My eyes are barely open, my fingers nearly unable to press the weight of the keys. It's a little after 1 a.m. the day of departure and we are now going to try and catch some rest before our long journey north--toting 1 toddler, 2 cats and 1 pregnant belly--early tomorrow morning.

I had so many things to say today, so many laments about leaving sunshiny California--especially on a day where the sun set in brushes of vibrant color over the park we found ourselves playing at with Noah in T-shirts and flip flops. I have found that this day has passed with lightening speed and has left little time for writing reflection despite the occasional tears.

I won't be back up and blogging (or doing anything on a computer, for that matter) until our car arrives at our new home as our desktop computer is going to be shipped in the trunk of our car--we are opposed for both philosophical and health reasons to laptops--which is departing L.A. a day after us.

For now, I am off to a short albeit sweet slumber land session and will hopefully connect again on the great world wide web in six-ish days or so. We will have cell service, however, and our California cell numbers will remain active until we establish new service in London in a few weeks.

In the meantime, wish us luck during our first week at a very empty house in our new very snowy, frigid and foreign new home.

Good bye, Los Angeles. You and everyone that we know and love who lives under your sun will be ever so sorely missed. Good bye, and thank you for an unforgettable decade.

Gearing Up And Ready To (For) Go (Snow)!

The day of departure is closing in upon us like a vice, a noose, a looming dooming day for mayhem and mania. "Hmmm...sounding a wee bit gloomy about this move," you're thinking? Well, perhaps I am. But it seems as if we have been planning for this great diaspora for a really long time.

In real people time, I guess it's only been a few months and strategizing an international move for a family in a few months would seem not only normal protocol, but even necessary for such a grand feat. So it is perhaps because of our living situation that these last few months have seemed so achingly long and d r a w n out--because in Surette-Nelson time it has felt like ages. Ages since we decided to move. Ages since we applied for the Visa. Ages since we found our cozy little soon-to-be new home. Ages since we began the process for shipping our stuff, our car, our cats and us. Ages, just ages, since all of this first began.

So, today with only T minus 5 days until departure, I am feeling overwhelmed by all of the both little and big things that still need to get done before our Delta flight leaves the dusty earth that is Southern California this Sunday. While at the same time I am overcome with feelings of giddiness and euphoria at our departure's mere closness in proximity as it has never been so far within reach.

The strife, concern and bitter distaste that I have for the current discrepancy in weather conditions between our now and future homestead--currently 21 degrees and snowing in London, Ontario versus a sunny 74 degrees here in Los Angeles--will have to be the whines and complaints of another post. The fact that the freight company is meeting us in Malibu at the crack of dawn tomorrow to pick up our stuff from storage that we still need to box is all I can handle at the current moment.

And, in the meantime, Noah Finn and I will continue to pass the time in between the time we are out flying around town in erranding-madness to try on and model our new snugly family of snow boots.

Up In The Air.

I have always been inpatient, antsy, unsettled even, anytime the status of major life events are up in the air. So, the idea that a major move is lurking somewhere out there in our immediate, and then not so immediate, future is nearly driving me insane.

It seems that our move status changes by the minute while our time spent waiting in between these changes drags on at a snail's pace. A major contradiction, I know, but so goes it in limbo land.

The draft for a post that I had written yesterday had to be scrapped as we received visa approval this morning--which changes so much while at the same time so very little. Now that we have the visa, our car can be picked up in Los Angeles and shipped. Our stuff, once it reaches Canada, can be claimed and continue it's voyage to our home in London. What it doesn't change is perhaps the most important part--when we can finally head to our new home. While our car will only take six days to ship, despite options of extra fees and 48 hour pick ups, the things that will eventually fill our new home will not ship out of Los Angeles until next week with an estimated arrival date of 14-21 days. This means that our arrival to our home anytime around when we were planning to arrive. . . um . . . this weekend!? . . . would be to a very, very empty house surrounded by plumes of newly fallen snow. Throw into the equation one pregnant Mama, a tireless toddler, two terrified cats, a tired Papa and no pots, toys, towels, beds or blankets, and you have a real d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r.

This time I can't blame Beck for finagling Dean into staying a bit longer to finish projects at work, nope, this is due to circumstances beyond our control--beyond the reach of a balking and cross pregnant wife.

So, what to do? We've mulled around many an idea but for one reason or another have determined that the most feasible of those means we hold out in the City of Angels yet another week. The 12th is our new date of departure. We can only hope that the kindness of the friends we are staying. . . and waiting with . . . doesn't run out.

I just somehow can't help but think that all of this (the expense, the hassle, the mental toll) would be worth it if we were moving to say . . . Spain, France, Tibet, Estonia . . . but, Canada, really? And, two hours or so north of the U.S. border no less. That really stings this mama's gaping international moving wound.

Illustration credit: Phil Wrigglesworth.

All In A Good Day's Play: The Disneyland Edition.

We visited Disneyland last Thursday with the mamas and babies from our Pasadena commune. One of the mamas used to work for Disney in her pre-baby days and scored us free tickets. I quickly jumped aboard the Disney train thinking it could be the last time for a long time that we visit the land of magic.

We conquered only a few rides--"It's A Small Word", "Dumbo's Flight", "Peter Pan's Adventure" and the carousel, of course. We stayed until close to experience the Christmas decorations, fireworks and snowfall in true twinkling-eyed style. By the time all was said and done, we had snacked, we had gazed, we had oohed and awed, we had met characters with huge hugs and the days end with dreary, weary eyes.

I unfortunately didn't get many great shots because we only had a wee hour or so of daylight left in Mr. Sunshine before he settled down for the night. And one hour or so at Disneyland with three toddlers and huge crowds, doesn't leave much time or available hands for photography.

API Article: "Numero Dos: Sharing The Love"

Another one of my articles appears today on API Speaks, the Attachment Parenting International blog. The title is "Numero Dos: Sharing The Love" and you can find it on API Speaks here and on my blog here.

Enjoy!

Malibu, I'm Going To Miss You Old Buddy, Old Pal.

So it may come as no surprise to most that we are going to miss living in Malibu--sorely, deeply, longingly, miss it. Just finding these "lost" pictures this evening taken from just before that doomed summer vacation makes my heart pang with loss, with mourning, with sadness, for what will be missed.

What will be thought of most often is probably not what you are imagining though. Malibu is a truly special place. But as I have mentioned here before, envisioning it's sand-crusted shores as a beach-side Beverly Hills is way off mark. Yes, there is a small smattering of fake boob, bikini-clad, baked and gold-bangled blondes about here and there. But, in reality, that's not the real Malibu at all.

Located in Los Angeles at the very northern tip of it's county line is an oasis from the smoggy city innards. It's rural, natural and rugged. Dusty ranches perch upon largely undeveloped hillsides. Coyotes, vultures and bobcats comb the brush for easy eating. Cowboys ride their horses down the winding scenic highways to the local country mart--as there are only three grocery stores in town and only two of those are chains. Most locals are salty, have beach-locked strands and tarballs on the bottoms of their feet. The mornings and evenings are always, always cold and dense with fog rolling in off of the Pacific as thick as pea soup. The water is never ever tolerable for entrance without a wetsuit--even during the dead of summer. Dolphin and sea lion spottings are frequent as are starfish and lively colored sea urchin. Dark colored rock formations scatter the beaches creating no shortage of caves and coves for exploring. Shark spottings are occasional and rattlesnake, scorpion, sea rat and tarantula visits come with the turf.

This is Malibu, my friends. And I am going to miss the hell out of it.

Now those of you who are regular readers of Mama Milieu may be rolling your eyes at my sudden change of heart--"forget the pain and remember the pretty, eh?" you are mumbling to yourselves. It's true that we had our fair share of struggles and strife on Milagro Ranch. Malibu and its raw roughness wasn't always batting for our team. I have not forgotten the sleepless and fully-lit nights on 10-inch centipede watch, or the mouse in the house, or the two rattlesnakes on the patio, or the tarantula in the living room, or the scorpion in the sliding glass door. I have not forgotten about the dust and the hard, hard work and the outdoor laundry facilities. I have not forgotten about any of it.

But, I will miss the coos of owls and wild quail and the scampering of cotton-tailed bunnies munching alfalfa down at the horses' haybarn. I will miss the silence and breezes and front row view of the milky-way and all of its sisters and brothers and cousins. I will miss the carsickness brought on by the 5 miles of hairpins and switchbacks to and from the rocky coast. I will miss the breathtaking canyon views in the foggy mornings, the sunlit afternoons and fiery glow at sunset. I will miss the sparkle in Noah's eyes as he experiences the beauty of nature like all of us dream we could again--like a child--for the very first time. I will miss the stillness that results from no neighbors, not even one, for miles and miles. I will miss all of this and I just can't leave without saying so.

* * *
To read all about our adventures in Malibu and at Milagro Ranch, follow this link.

And, for our life in Malibu in pictures, click here.

Numero Dos: Sharing The Love.

As the date of the big move approaches and we shuffle from one generous friend's abode to another, this pregnancy, the little growing one all snug in my tummy, often seems to take a back seat (not in the back of our Volkswagen, but in the back of a very long bus)--which makes me a little sad. Aside from the slowly, and finally, dissipating constant nausea and fatigue, my little tummy buddy hasn't gotten much air time in any sense of the word over these last 13 weeks.

I can remember the last time I shared my body. It was a little over two years ago. From the day that joyous pink line appeared across the plastic pee stick, little Noah Finn was all that I could think about despite the fact that I was working everyday. I woke up and thought pregnancy, I peed (a lot) and thought pregnancy, I taught and thought pregnancy, I ate (a lot) and thought pregnancy, I slept (very little) and dreamed pregnancy. My growing abdomen was always on my mind.

This time is definitely different. Running after a bouncing, bounding, boisterous toddler while volleying between temporary living situations has certainly captivated the time that I don't spend eating and sleeping. The fact of the matter is that constant urges to snack and slumber aside, I often forget that I'm pregnant.

What does all of this mean? Is it normal? I am betting so. But it certainly does recall those initial pangs of subtle trepidation I first experienced when pregnancy test number two revealed yet again that solid pink line: sharing the love. How does a mama who has experienced everything about mommying--pregnancy, birth, mothering--with one child not feel guilt about sharing such sacredness with another? It feels almost like cheating on the first.

Melodramatic? Perhaps. But, these are real anxieties, that while slowly fading as the months tick away, remain present nonetheless.

So, how does a mommy share the love--that smothering, doting, gooey love that's gushed all over the first with the second and subsequent bundles of joy? Will my little Noah feel shortchanged and left out the decision making process--after all, he had no vote here!? Will he harbor feelings of abandonment and isolation, regress and insist on learning the alphabet Z thru A?

Think I'm being melodramatic, again? Perhaps. But these are tangible fears that I sometimes think about. That is, when I remember I'm pregnant anyway.

London, Ontario, Here We Come.

Downtown London, Ontario in the fall.

It doesn't have the fancy metropolitan flare of say, moving to London, U.K.--where we were seriously considering taking up residence before Noah Finn was born. My how things change when children come into the picture. Don't get me wrong--we'll always be city slickers--and perhaps even move back to Los Angeles after our great northern adventure peters out, if it does--but there has come a time, now, when we're yearning for a little slower pace and this job offer couldn't have come at a more useful time.

Everything that has occurred since Dean and I moved out to California in 2001, has seemed to happen serendipitously: Dean's initial job offer at a little studio in Burbank, my ditching the Peace Core to join him, our subsequent three homes (with the exception of our most recent Malibu madness), the timing of our wedding, the pregnancy and birth of Noah Finn, the new pregnancy, this new job offer and, now, the move to London. We feel lucky, fortunate even, to have had such a rosy decade here in the City of Angels. It feels strange, unfaithful even, to be considering any other place to call home. Lest we venture on to our next stop in a little less than month. I hope it treats us as well.

Falling Into Fall.

It feels like we're falling a bit around here--from place to place, from friends to friends, with no home, from summer to fall. Our time spent with Caro and family in Pasadena has been wonderfully refreshing and at times overwhelmingly exhausting in the best of ways. It's not just us here in this Bungalow Heaven abode. Another family and mutual friends who also have a toddler and tons of transition are passing through too--they are transitioning back into L.A. from a stint spent in Oregon and we are transitioning out of L.A. to a cold a wintry Canadian wonderland after 10 toasty years spent pacific-side.

Five adults (one of the Papas is filming in Detriot for several weeks) and three toddlers makes for lots of crazy action--tears and tantrums, spills and screams, running and hopping and colliding and chaos--most of the time--from 6:30 a.m. until around 8:00ish at night. But it's lovely to be among friends and mamas and babies and love, lots of love. While one of the Papas cooks incredibly delectable and wholesome meals, we otherwise eat together, clean together and run after the wild wildebeests together. I've always yearned for the communal camaraderie of group living and it's more fun than I ever had imagined.

As for how we have been passing our time here, well, October passed like a spook in the night. We pumpkin patched and pumpkin carved, we tricked and we treated; we fell into fall. And, geesh, now it's November. With less than a month or so to go before the big move, my belly is progressing into the second trimester much quicker than I'd like it to. It is already time to go shopping for the ever beloved maternity pants. But wherever will I find a snowsuit in my size?

Sea Change.

A sea change indeed, my faithful friends and followers. The absence has been long and hard and rocky and winding and wily and well, really, really l o n g. It seems that I had hopes of returning with a post and many pictures sometime in late August or early September with recollections of our beach vacation in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, where we frolicked seaside with family and friends. But now, at this time in late October, those warm summer memories seem just that--distant tales of long ago. Since then, our seas have been a'changin.

I try to keep my blog as drama free as possible--I rather spare the minute details of non-baby drama to avoid seeming petty or even boring. But this tale will be told in a shortened yet still somewhat full version, if nothing else than to explain why I have been gone so darn long.

It all began days before we were set to leave for our three week vacation visiting friends and family on the east coast this past August--the first week on the same little island where we were married (our families vacation there together every summer) and the remaining two weeks jumping back and forth between grandparents' houses.

The Sunday before the Thursday we were to set sail, we received an abrupt and very unexpected 30 day notice from the landowner of Milagro Ranch to vacate our home. I will spare these details because I may break into a rant that never fizzles--but long story short...her separation from her husband forced her to sell, she couldn't find a buyer so she leased to people who wanted her out a.s.a.p. This all meant that she needed to find a place for her and her daughter to live until they found another home--and it seems that our cozy little guest house that we had just so stupidly sunk way too much money, time and labor into seemed like just the place.

Dean returned to Malibu from the vacation early to pack and move us into storage while Noah and I remained behind in North Carolina to stay with family while all of the details worked themselves out. In the meantime, Dean stayed with friends in Malibu and went back to work.

Now backtrack a little to before we left for vacation...around the same time we received the e-mail from the landowner, we received an e-mail from the recording school that Dean attended in London, Ontario more than 10 years ago. It was inquiring whether he knew of anyone possibly interested in taking a teaching position that had recently become available at the school. E-mails about salary, benefits, immigration, etc. bounced back and forth for weeks while the job opportunity became more and more of an appealing option for us.

Over the phone, from North Carolina to Los Angeles, Dean and I schemed and plotted and planned. What if? Dean officially expressed interest and after a phone interview with the school's Directors went incredibly well, we decided to accept their offer to fly the whole family to London for 10 days worth of Canadian fun--further interviews, guest lectures, meetings, negotiations, sight seeing, house hunting, and more. So, after spending all of September on separate coasts, Noah and I met Dean in Canada on October 1st.

Now backtrack a little again...to when Dean was living with friends in Malibu and working while Noah and I were grandparent house hopping for all of September. Just days before flying to meet Dean in Canada, a little dip stick in a Durham, North Carolina Target bathroom revealed that we were pregnant--again!

So here we were--exhausted, homeless and nauseously pregnant--in London, Ontario wondering if leaving a job with Beck in Malibu to teach in the snowy neighbor to the north was really what the Dr. ordered. The 10 days passed like a whirlwind as we met people, saw places and determined if this was to be the next stop on our map.

The town was just okay; the people were super. What really sold us was all of the quality of life bonuses. At the end of our stay, we took the job.

Let me explain why. Dean has worked 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week for 10 years--that's right a decade--with a week, or maybe two, or this year the most ever maybe three weeks, of vacation hidden somewhere there in between. Before Noah it was hard, since Noah it is impossibly exhausting and plain and simply an unacceptable pace to keep with a growing family. Sure he's worked with and for the best of the best in the music industry, and the money is okay--but it's just that, okay. It's not living well in Los Angeles, or Malibu for that matter, on one salary, well. It's not, own a house, travel several times a year, send your kid to private school because the public ones are not an option, hire a nanny because Dad is never home and a second kid is coming kind of well.

This new job? The salary is great, the bonuses are even better...but the hours, they are still hard to swallow. Dad will be home for dinner for the first time in a decade--every night. Dean will work 9:00-5:00--WAIT--what's THAT?! Add on to that: 5 weeks of paid vacation, incredible public and private healthcare coverage with no out-of-our-pocket cost (I have already spoken with the midwife who will deliver our next baby at home in the water), affordable housing and coverage of all relocation and immigration/visa costs. How could we say no?!

After we signed on the dotted line, we returned to Los Angeles on October 10th homeless while we wait for immigration to clear and Dean to finish pending projects with Beck. We stayed with friends in Malibu for one week and are now staying with yet more friends (three families in one house--that's another post all together) in Pasadena...we just call it our cozy little commune. We will remain here until November the 13th when we will then move yet again back to our old neighborhood in Los Angeles with yet more friends. We will be house-sitting while they are in Japan.

If all goes well with immigration--and we should know by mid-November--we will move to London, Onatrio, Canada on December 1st. We are currently looking for a place to call home there for when we, and our stuff, arrives.

In the meantime it's a crazy, whirly twirly topsy turvy kind of purgatory that we are existing in. I am still absorbing it--especially the part about moving to a really cold place. There will be snow there when we arrive--lots and lots of it. How will a Los Angeles loving family from Southern California with no winter clothes and another baby on the way ever cope? That story has yet to be written.