Roots

For so long, we have resisted the trappings (literally) of people who will stay in one place for a long time. We lived the nomadic life of the fledgling academic, flitting from one post-doc position to the next, without acquiring too much stuff, without putting down too-deep roots.

But there's something about having small children that pushes out tendrils and digs them deep into the place you are whether you like it or not. One day you're seeing familiar faces at the library and enrolling for baby yoga; the next (it seems), you're finding those same people are now in his nursery school class and you're inviting yourself over to their houses for playdates. (Thanks to the joy of Facebook, that is. For people like me who are a little scared of the phone, it's wonderful. I don't like calling people because (a) they might be busy eating dinner or putting the baby to bed or, I dunno, having sex, and (b) they might not instantly know who I am, and that's just embarassing all round. With the lovely Internet, they can look at it whenever it suits them, they can ignore me if they want to and I'll never know, and if they can't remember who I am there's a whole profile there to remind them. But I digress.)

There are things we never bought because of the tenuous notion that we might get to up sticks and move back to Ireland at any moment, or somewhere else less desirable. We have a tiny stereo system, no stand mixer, an ancient TV, the crappiest furniture (except my beloved leather sofa), the smallest, oldest car. All our wedding china is still in my parents' house, together with a room full of other presents, photo albums, and assorted shoes, pairs of. I have an envelope of gift tokens for shops in Dublin where we still hope, one day, to buy stuff for our Irish house.

And it's not that we've given up on that idea, nor is it the case that a fully permanent, tenure-track position has been attained here: but somehow it's just become time to stop and live where we are, properly, like a family of four. So today we bought a second car, with plenty of boot-space for all the flat-pack only-fairly-crappy furniture we'll be buying from IKEA for our huge new house. We're going to get a fancy flat-screen telly to go in our fancy new living room. We might even look into shipping over the Denby Imperial dinner service. But every Christmas I'll fish out the envelope of vouchers and make sure they're all right, and probably not just go and spend them on shoes.