Chronicles of a Suburban Commune: Day 1

It was New Year's Eve when we popped the question.

We'd previously discussed the idea for about 47 minutes during the drive home from my parents' house, tired and batty from the holidays -- from the baby tug-of-war that only got worse when our teacher moms were on break; from rushing clumsily around our cumbersome work schedules, scrambling to finish well-intentioned homemade gifts and surrendering to second choices and rush shipping.

Even wedging in our family's budding traditions -- decorating a Christmas cactus, piling into the car in footie pajamas on Christmas Eve to look at lights -- had been near- impossible to pull off. We were chauffeuring Charlie to Rowlett or Fort Worth to pacify family, and out of necessity with Fabulous Nanny gone. Working on Christmas Eve was a new thing for me, as was having a one-year-old at home for the holidays, exclaiming "BALLS!" at the sight of seasonal decor and hobbling on stealthy legs to answer the door in a velvet Santa hat.I was exhausted. The season for hearth and family drove home how much I needed to nurse my own; to somehow have more time with Will and the baby; to stop running frantic and get a life. Cutting my hours at work wasn't an option. We needed to pay off debt and save money. But we also needed to tend the yard, to work out, to eat healthier, to give Charlie the opportunity to be social, to hang out more as a couple ...

So, out of nowhere, I asked:

"What if we asked the Brynards to move in with us?"

The idea immediately appealed to Will: Splitting our 1600 square feet with a family of young parent friends and their daughter, who happens to be the same age - to the hour - as our son. Ralph Brynard had lost his job in October and, with the drone of economy-induced bad news at newspapers everywhere, who the hell knew what would happen with mine. The Brynards are fond friends, but not longtime friends with whom you have expectations and issues that would impede a healthy housemate relationship.

They'd get two rooms in the front of the house -- the office, and Charlie's room. Lending the nursery I'd poured my pregnant apprehension and hour of loving wait into would feel a little sad, sure, but we'd be able to switch off tending the kids after bed time and going out (!!) to shows and movies and dinner parties, without payment in guilt or dollars. We'd be able to finally join the local produce co-op. Will and Ralph could build that deck out back. We could garden together, carpool to storytime and swimming lessons, and energize each other with the considerate responsibilities of roommatedom (read: I'd have to do dishes more often, or there'd be none to eat on.)

As we talked about the onslaught of pros that came to us so quickly as easily, I started to feel as if the would-be joint venture were a cause we were advancing. After all, wasn't this the implied answer to the go-it-alone American parenting crisis Judith Warner writes about in Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety? And wouldn't we find the diamond in the rough times our country was going through; the fuller dinner table, the shared space, the hand lent?

Ralph, Naomi and Jocelyn came over for a low-key New Year's Eve, with pizza, Wii and champagne on the menu. We'd canceled plans to go out, as did they, due to weather and general exhaustion. Trying to be nonchalant, or at least not pushy, we brought it up after chatting about our jobs.

Ralph later told us he thought we were joking. But Naomi immediately took to the plan, and convinced Ralph to step over doubts he had about sharing a house with anyone after they'd had a rough run rooming with her parents as a new family. They'd be ready to move in, as soon as a month from now.

The first fruit of our decision was the zen of downsizing. Tim Gunning closets like crazy, I packed my car to the brim with every outgrown item of Charlie's wardrobe I could part with and pairs upon pairs of shoes I hadn't worn in a year. I'd set aside so many of my clothes to donate that the rack in my side of the closet dwarfed my stuff; the clothes left took up 1/4 of the once-cramped rack space.

Today, when Naomi came with her first trip of clothes for the closets, I was repaid for my faith with a perfect calf-length, creamy beige wool coat, vintage 1940s, worn once. Too small for her, she said. A black jacket, too. I passed on some chunky bracelets I'd set aside for gifts, just her style.

And a sense of restraint is seeping into other parts of my day. I reached for yerba mate tea on Saturday, even when I was completely zonked, craving espresso and chocolate. After work, I've tapered off with the snacking. Still haven't managed to work out in any rhythm (but soon, soon this will be feasible!)

Since our busy lives couldn't stop for the move, we had to crunch pretty much everything in today. The babies both spent the night away last night as we prepared our respective nests for the change.

Charlie's set up in our walk-in closet, a perfect little nook with storage aplenty and curtains to cover some of it on their way. Our pantry is slammed with food -- a lot of it canned from the Brynard camp, but we'll get fresher with our first jumbo batch of local produce in a few weeks (they were psyched to join the co-op.) Naomi and I spent some time coordinating kitchen tools; she packed away what we already had.

Both babies got to sleep in their new habitats -- eventually. They were ecstatic at Jocelyn's heaping collection of toys -- Charlie saw more lights in three hours today than he has in his little life. We've gone more minimal with his collection; more piano than keyboard, if you will. We'll see what he gravitates to when his stuff blends with hers as they play.

Jocelyn seemed to be most affected by the move. She was a bit weepy and seemed very confused, alternately crying at the sight of me when I went to check on the group and clinging to me when I tried to leave. Charlie was hard to bed as well; he just seemed excited, though, that there was so little travel time between the bathtub and his adjoining bedroom.

The one hitch so far is a lack of storage for Will's and my things. We have a makeshift rack and a shelf mounted in a corner of our room; it's not enough to hold even our newly shaved repertoire, and it's making my head hurt. Ever had a two-hour conversation about storage options on four hours of sleep in a room with laundry and shoes strewn everywhere? Bleh. We scoured the IKEA catalog for wardrobe ideas, thinking we might build one, and settled on an idea I had for curtained-off corner "dressing rooms," a way to soften our bedroom with grand, sweeping curtains off to both sides of our bed.

Will's fallen asleep reading Watchmen, and I should sleep ... could try a bath, but I'm still not sure how loud it is on Charlie's end. I'm anxiously chewing on the details of the setup. Confident we made a down payment on some peace, just wondering how long it'll take to deliver.