Swan Song, Laughing.

Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to get through this thing called life 
Electric word life it means forever, and that's a mighty long time, 
but I'm here to tell you there's something else.... **

A new site.  I mean, I'm in the process of building a new blog, a different sort of place all together, and so it's time to put NilsenLife aside for a season.  What a wonderful season it's been here!  We started when Lars was brand new - 3 months old maybe? And now we have the most gorgeous family of growing-so-fast kids, all 3 of them, and as they look forward their mom looks up and says what next?

Me, wondering What Next?

Who knows what next.  But it will be something new, something creative, something that asks me to think, explore, and grow.  Because that's the point of this thing called Life, isn't it?

As a last post, I'm giving you guys a list of things that make me laugh out loud.  Not LOL, not ha! but seriously, genuinely, laugh out loud.  In no particular order:

• the sun, after days and days of cold grey rain
• the logic of preschoolers
• a 10 year old's budding attempts at irony
• photographs involving angry dwarves
• terrible puns
• my husband - daily
• every single one of my close friends - we can't be tight *unless* you make me laugh
• Beastie Boys videos

Not even a Top 10 list, but enough to get me through the day.  Laughing out loud is as holy a thing as I know, and I am profoundly grateful to find things to laugh about every single day.

So with that I leave you.  NilsenLife will abide here as long as Blogger will let it, with its gentle posts on babies, and growing, and a parent realizing that so much good awaits.   On to the next. You will always be able to find us, and all of our laughing, here: at The Yellow House.

** total extra credit points if you finished that little riff at the top there, and then dove right in to enthusiastic air guitar.   For those who didn't, it's Prince and, the first cool song I ever memorized:  Let's Go Crazy.   Yes in fact it IS on my running playlist to this very day.

my boy

he is my second-born.

he is my boy, sandwiched between two high-intensity girls.

he prioritizes peace over all things - handing over toys to his sisters, offering to read his book last, quietly disappearing in the midst of psychic storms until the thunderclouds pass.

he wrestles manfully with his emotions, pressing small fists into his eyes until he can control the tears.

he is the one still creeping into our room in the small hours, tucking his small body next to mine. when asked, all he'll say is 'i was a lil bit 'fraid. tha's all.'

he is a watcher, a studier, a builder.

he is profoundly shy - he never understands an adult has addressed him, assuming instead that they must be speaking to his charming older sister or his adorable younger one.

he is the one - my one - who owns my heart simply because he's never assumed it was his to own. (girls, when & if you ever read this, always know you own your own versions of my heart. this one, though, is all his.)

i don't buy the pomp & circumstance of preschool 'graduations' - not really. but this kid, the kid who has hated preschool almost every day he's gone for 2 years, who crowed 'I AM SO GLAD THIS IS THE LAST DAY OF PRESCHOOL!!!!!!!!!' - when i saw him walk with his class into the chapel, he gave me his shy smile and i knew.

i saw in an instant how he would go out into the world and charm it - make it his own. in his quiet way he will navigate the shoals of testosterone filled competition, he will be embarrassed by the attentions of girls, and someday he will show his teachers his bright quick wit.

in this small loving preschool graduation i saw all of his years ahead of him - i saw the teenager he will grow to be, the strong young man right there in his small five-year old body. in his small shy way, this was his Moment, whether he knew it or not. this was his moment to launch.

And I'm so proud I was there to see it.

love you, Larsie boy.  may your future be as rich as your mommy's dreams.

Annika Goes Large

Our house is a total shambles. Open IKEA boxes all over, mattresses on the front porch and in the upstairs hallways, and Torbjorn in the midst of it all, up to his ears in laminated MDF.

Big changes afoot in the Yellow House: Baby Annika's gotten herself an Official Big Girl Bed.

So yeah, of course there is that draft post in the folder all about how we finally moved the girls in together, way back in October - October!! - and how we'd shoehorned all the furniture in to make a very sweet room.

A dresser for the girls to share

Cecilie's bed, under the window 'for dreaming,' as requested

Annika's crib (for memories' sake)

But even as we spent an entire Saturday reorganizing the kids' rooms, we knew that in a short time we'd hit the big TWO YEAR milestone, and a short time after that we'd be looking to put the Smallest Nilsen of All into a big girl bed.

This weekend was that moment.

Maybe some kids stay in cribs until they're five or six.  I don't know.  Sadly, Nilsen kids come in the Rather Large variety, which limits their stay in the four-walled sort of bed.  Cecilie made her big transition soon after her 2nd birthday, and poor Lars had to switch into his 3 months before he turned two, just because I'd gotten a deal on a twin bed and had no space to store it.

So Annika's happily ensconced in her IKEA Hemnes daybed tonight.  (We, I mean, Torbjorn finished building it so late we didn't get any photo ops. Tomorrow, I promise.)

I have my doubts that on the first morning of Big Bed Life she'll do what Cecilie did -  surround herself with stuffed animals and begin telling them the story of how once upon a time, a very big girl got herself a very big bed... but I do know that she is thrilled to be in the Big Leagues.