5 am

Not sure when or why this one popped into my head. It's been raining here since yesterday afternoon. Off and on, just a soft rain. Nice, calm, soothing. I awakened to the sound of the rain falling through the maple tree that's in the backyard outside our bedroom window and I had the first part of the following poem resonating in my head. Indulge me. It's not often anymore that I do poetry, neither the reading nor writing of it.

5 am

I lie awake in our bed
hearing the rain whisper
through ancient oak
on its descent
to inescapable
fate.

Around me the house slumbers
and I aware and listening,
hear each drop when
upon meeting fate,
utter softly
“oh!”

Our House in the Woods

Since I've started this post, I've meant to write about the differences between living here and in Chicago. The most obvious place to start would be with the size of the cities. But I'm not typical.

Robbie awoke the other morning thinking he was in some "damned Disney movie, what with all the birds and stuff making a racket outside our windows." Here, we hardly have had them closed. When it's been so hot and humid (the equivalent to two or three weeks, I think ) that we needed to turn on the air conditioners have we closed them. Even when the temperature has fallen into the 50's at night we've kept them open.

In Chicago, we rarely had the windows open. And never at night. We lived at the corner of Halsted Street & Roosevelt Road which has to be the busiest intersection for ambulance, firetruck and other rescue traffic in the entire city. Roosevelt Road is the fastest way to get to the Illinois Medical District and Halsted is only one block off of the Dan Ryan Expressway. Noise. 24 hours a day. I also don't think there is a single driver in Chicago who isn't emphatically in love with the horn in their vehicle. So, yeah, the windows were shut most of the time.

It's easier to get together with friends here. But it was easier to walk to restaurants (gawd, I miss Hashbrowns restaurant) or grab public transportation if we were going out of our neighborhood. I don't think it's humanly possible to experience just half of the great places to eat in Chicago. Everything from the bistro right off Michigan Ave. to the breakfast and lunch diner on Roosevelt Road that seemed like small town restaurants the way the waitresses remembered us on our second time there.

When the people I worked with in Chicago heard that we were moving back, they couldn't imagine why on earth we would do such a thing. After all, there is no culture outside of Chicago - well, maybe in New York. As luck would have it, The Chicago Tribune did a piece on Indianapolis that same week. I took it to work to show people and they were surprised that there WAS more here than a two and half mile oval racing track. There are theaters, restaurants, libraries, museums, festivals - everything you can find in Chicago, just on a smaller scale. Except, we do have the largest children's museum, the largest cultural event with Black Expo, and a hospitality and warmth that truly is an institution unlike anything found in Chicago.

Yes, there's more than corn here. But we Hoosiers have known that all along. It's a one of the best kept secrets about the Midwest.

If you havent' been to the bottom of the page, I've posted two pictures there. They dramatically show the contrast of our lives in just a few short months. From towering architecture, to towering maples. Chicago is a great city and I'm glad we took the chance to live there. We have Riley because of that choice, and Indianapolis will always be home.

Dad? Daddy? Pops? Father? Dad One? Dad Two? What's a girl to call her two dads anyway?

One of the most asked questions of us about our daughter is "What is she going to call you?" My answer is usually "anything she wants as long as she doesn't call me late for dinner." Badum bump. Thank you! I'm here all week.

It's a good question. Until recently we didn't really have an answer except for "we'll leave it up to her." Well, the question now has an answer and from none other than the girl herself. She's calling me Da-ee and Robbie is just Da. I'm sure that those are the toddler equivalents to Daddy and Dad. However she came up with them, they're our names now.

I'm not surprised that she came up with different names for us. Since we first brought her home she has been very attentive to her surroundings. Put her in a new situation and she'll just watch for a while before opening up to people. If she has a choice during those times, she wants Robbie to hold her. She's decided that he's her protector.

Fiercely independent most of the time, when she's not feeling well or wakes in the middle of the night, she wants me to comfort her. I love those moments (few that they are) when I can hold her across my shoulder, rubbing her back, humming softly while swaying slowly back and forth. After a few moments I'll ask if she's ready to go back to sleep and she'll just go limp in my arms. I place her back in her bed, she throws her arms over her head and drifts back to sleep.