Although I am over-the-moon excited to be moving to our new house in just under six weeks, I am also starting to feel the bittersweetness of leaving this home, where I have lived now for ten years (minus ten days). Today was one of the best days in recent memory, and the old neighborhood did its level best to make good and sure there is plenty I will miss about it.

The day began with a call from Joie and an invitation to join her and Davy for a walk to Cultiva. I always forget how close it is and am kicking myself for not walking there much more often. And later in the afternoon, Jason took Simon and Clara on an errand, and Ian and I decided to venture out on a walk. What started out as a simple walk around the block ended up being an epic, and altogether delightful, tour of the neighborhood. It was good to remember that Ian by himself is a different kid than he is with his siblings around — not better or worse, just different — and I hope to make a habit of getting some one-on-one time with him (and with Simon and with Clara).

We stopped first at the “party,” also known as the Gong Show, a fundraising event for the Everett Community Nonprofit Organization. Ian was fascinated, and I was so proud of my neighbor Heidi for putting it all together. It looks like everyone had a great time. We headed down the street to Cooper Park, and then Ian decided he wanted to see where the sidewalk led. We practiced crossing streets for a while (No cars coming this way! No cars coming that way! Safe to cross!) and then chatted with a man about his apricot tree (I had no idea you could grow apricots in Nebraska).

At each intersection, I let Ian choose which way to go, and we played I Spy along the way, which is always entertaining when Ian is involved. We ended up at Everett Elementary, where we first played on the big kids’ playground and then found a really cool mural across the street. I could have taken pictures of the colorful mural all day, but Ian was ready to set off again.

I suggested we try to walk to the capitol, so at every corner Ian would look for the capitol and decide which way we should go to get closer. He actually did a really good job, and we got all the way to 12th and H before Jason arrived to pick us up. I was on a serious neighborhood love high and feeling kind of weepy about it. Our plan when Jason picked us up was to break in Simon’s new booster seat by driving by the new house. And, I’m happy to say, that was pretty good too.

We’ve been watching westerns from the 1950s on Netflix, particularly Roy Rogers films. Yesterday, after I had laid Clara down for her afternoon nap, I made some peanut butter popcorn and settled in on the couch with the boys to watch Twilight in the Sierras (1950). I dozed off, and when I woke I asked Simon to catch me up:

Me: Ok, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

Simon: Well, I don’t know, but I think the guys who are shooting at the good guys are probably the bad guys.

Me: Yeah, that’s probably a good guess.

Today as the boys played, Simon was Roy Rogers, riding his horse Trigger. Since Simon had already claimed the cowboy hat, Ian had to be a little more creative: donning his builder’s hat — which, he told me, he was pretending was a cowboy hat — he was Jack, riding a horse also named Jack.

My intention each week is to post these pictures in simple sets of seven. More often than not, I get behind in posting, and this installment to the 365 project is no exception. What strikes me particularly this week (or this 11 days, I guess) is the balance between what I can capture with these daily shots and what is not represented here, deliberately or not.

I am glad to have a record of the simple joys — Rowan and Ian sweetly sharing Rebecca’s iPod, for example, or Clara sharing a laugh with Papa Carlson — and of the mundane moments like Simon coloring inside the lines. But I am also keenly aware of what is not shown at all or is only hinted at in these pictures — Easter, my trip to the ER and the help we’ve received as a result, a visit from a too-far-away friend, and my dad’s birthday, for example, not to mention the packing and moving stuff I haven’t really mentioned on the blog yet.

Most heavy on my heart, though, is the devastating news that our little friend Priya, fourteen months old and the youngest daughter of my close friends Kacy and Chad, was diagnosed this week with cancer. It is almost too much to bear, and yet we worship and serve a God who is good all the time, and who still performs miracles, which is what we are earnestly asking him to do in Priya’s life and body. It seems odd to drop this news in a post so focused on the everyday, and yet I’m so aware that this is the new stuff of every day for my dear friends. Please do pray for them whenever they come to mind. You can follow Priya’s story on her Caring Bridge site.

Apparently this is a thing now. A few weeks ago we took Ian in, and this past week, also on Tuesday, it was my turn. While the outcome of my story is ultimately “everything is fine,” the beginning is pretty ridiculous. There’s really no way to start but “I was giving Simon an underdog . . .” Yeah, ridiculous.

It was a gorgeous day outside, and we had planned to go to the park for an hour, come home do laundry, go to the park for an hour, come home eat lunch, and so on. We were nearing the end of the first hour, and the kids wanted to swing. I had put Ian and Clara in the “baby swings,” and Simon asked for an underdog. To be honest, I didn’t want to do it, but I also thought it was the “good mommy” thing to do, so long story short, I did it half-heartedly, lost my balance, and ended up plowing my shoulder into the gravel.

I rolled over, but when I tried to get up, I absolutely couldn’t, and I could tell there was something wrong with my arm/shoulder/elbow/something over there. I fumbled for my phone and asked Simon to call Joie, who I knew was home just a block away, and Jason, who was much farther away, but, you know, he’s my husband and it just helps to have him know these things. At this point, I was really thinking I would be able to just shake it off if someone could only help me up. A woman who was picking up her son from the junior high stopped and asked if I needed help. I couldn’t deny that I did. After some hemming and hawing from me, she called 911, and once again a fire truck, and this time an ambulance too, made its way to our little corner of South 8th Street.

Joie arrived a few minutes before the paramedics, and Jason got there just as they were getting equipment off the trucks. About 5 or 6 paramedics swooped in (it very much reminded me of a football huddle, everyone bending over me in a circle, blue sky behind); they cut off the sleeve of my sweatshirt, put my arm in a makeshift sling, asked about a billion questions I don’t remember, and loaded me on to a stretcher. I ended up riding in the ambulance even though it seemed like overkill because I was in a lot of pain, and we couldn’t really figure out how to wrestle all the kids and get me there quickly and safely. Jason got the boys settled with Joie and, with Clara in tow, joined me at the hospital a half hour or so later.

The next couple of hours passed quite quickly for me — a blur of pain meds, really painful X-rays, a CT scan, a diagnosis of posterior shoulder dislocation (rare as shoulder dislocations go and a huge credit to the ER doc for catching it and identifying it correctly), and eventually being put under briefly while a team of doctors and nurses (9 at one count, though I don’t know if they all were in the room when I was out) yanked my shoulder back into place. Rebecca and Joie (and Davy) were there when I woke up and brought me food and got me home, where I slept for most of the next 16 hours.

I’m not in a lot of pain, and my family and friends have been so gracious and helpful. I have a sling that makes pretty much everything awkward and inconvenient. I will start physical therapy sometime this next week. I’ll probably have to wear the sling for a month or so, and things will not be completely back to normal for four to six months. Ugh. I think the real moral of the story here is just say no to underdogs. Clearly.

I have really been enjoying the conversations we’ve been having in the car lately. This is a recent favorite.

Simon: Air Force One is in a movie and it’s a real airplane. You can ride in it. You really, really can.

Me: Well, honey, you can ride in it if you’re the President of the United States.

Simon: Or somebody who helps the president. But I don’t really want to be the President of the United States. I want to be a pilot who flies Blue Angels. [Pause] No, I want to be a daddy who just watches the Blue Angels.

Me: What do you think you might want to do for a job?

Simon: Make websites.

Me: How about you, Ian?

Ian: I want to be somebody who protects trees. Who protects trees?

Simon: Oh! You mean like a woodsman. Well . . . they cut down trees, I guess.

Ian: I changed my mind. I want to be someone who protects horses. Mommy, who protects horses?

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This reminded me of another sweet conversation the boys had about their future career paths. I think I only posted it on Facebook, so I’ll share it again here. (And, for the record, I accidentally typed “shard” instead of “share” just now — a Freudian slip if ever there was one. Ha.)

While we were watching a documentary about NASA:

Simon: Ian, do you still want to be an astronaut?
Ian: Yes.
Simon: How about you just be a pilot of regular planes?
Ian: I want to be an astronaut and a pilot!
Simon: Can you change your mind and just be a pilot of regular planes? Please? Please, please, please?
Ian: Why?
Simon: Sometimes the spaceships explode on blast off, and the astronauts don’t make it. How about instead of being an astronaut, you just watch them take off. How about that, Ian?

High on the boys’ to-do list today was a snowball fight on the balcony. As it happened, they more threw snowballs off the balcony, trying to hit various targets — all the better, as far as I am concerned. Clara gleefully watched and stayed nice and dry inside.