Tonight is the last night I'll spend in this house. We're moving tomorrow! Actually, we're only moving out tomorrow. Our "new" house won't be ready for another week. So we'll be staying with my mom until then.

Moving has brought me low in some ways...tonight, while cleaning out my pantry, I found a Reese's Peanut Butter Egg (as in Easter egg) way back in the corner of the top shelf. I assume it was from last Easter, but it could have been from the Easter before that. I debated for about 5 seconds, then opened it. I looked it over and broke it open. (I did this because one of my best friends swears that her mother broke open a Butterfinger once and it was full of maggots.) It looked OK. I found out seconds later that it most definitely was not OK.

I also found in the back of my freezer a popsicle wrapper that had not been opened and yet contained no popsicle. Only some gummy stains on one side. Like the Shroud of Turin.

I wonder if I'll be homesick when we move. I wasn't homesick when we moved from our first home to this one. But it seems to me that a house is consecrated by the life you live in it.

To this house, we brought Jonah when he was 15 months old, and put him in a big boy bed because he had leaped from his crib right before we moved. In this house, he learned the alphabet, and "The Night Before Christmas," and all the words to "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." In this house, he learned to pray, and on our front porch he would go alone if he needed some quiet time with God. In this house, every morning, every morning for 3 whole years he awoke and said, "I want to drink hot milk and lay on the couch with Mommy, " and we did. In this house, he loved Spiderman and Batman and Superman. In this house, he was Spiderman and Batman and Superman. In this house, he grew tall and thin, and went from being a baby to a boy.

In this house, I sat on the bathroom floor and wept when I found out I was pregnant with the baby who would be Finley. In this house, I prayed for her before she was ever born. And to this house we brought her after she arrived. And when she got sick at 7 days old, and she had to be put in the hospital, and we almost lost her, it was back to this house I longed to bring her. In this house, she crawled, and then walked, and then ran. In this house she lisped her first words. In this house, she fell in love with Ernie from Sesame Street. And in this house, she gave her first hugs and first kisses.

In this house, I fought with my husband and made up with him. In this house, I laughed with him, and I laughed at him. In this house, I cried with him and prayed with him, and burned his toast, and many times forgot to do his laundry. I stood with him in our living room and said goodbye to our best friends. In this house, I saw him do things that no one, not even Todd himself, ever would have guessed he could do, like hang a ceiling fan, or tile the floor, or fix the toilet. In this house, I've watched him become the best father I've ever known.

I've loved the life we've lived in this house. I'm about to spend my last night here. So, good night!

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT

FINLEY WHEN SHE IS 1

...the little rolls just above her knees.

...the way she jumps without her feet ever leaving the floor.

...the way her hair looks all puffy when she wakes up.

...the dimples in the backs of her hands.

...the way she wants to do everything herself.

...her profile. It's perfect.

...the was she says, "aahhh" and rubs

her feet when she takes off her shoes.

...that her love of clothes and shoes is matched only by her love of cookies and ice cream.

...that she belly laughs at peek-a-boo.

...the way she gives kisses with her bottom lip sticking out.

...that sometimes, when I put her in bed at night, she says, "Love you..." before I do.

Here are some things that have happened in the past few days:

I fell down in the kitchen. It was one of those falls where you're walking, then you think, "Hey! I'm on the floor!"

Finley has started stripping her diaper off at every opportunity. Yesterday I found "number 2" in various spots all over the living room. This set Jonah off, who repeatedly screamed, "I see poop!"

Finley refused to nap today (one of the only times ever) and during the whole brouhaha, pulled every toy off her shelf, to the point that could hardly walk in there. I went in to check on her to find her diaper leaking "number 2" which got all over my arm. Later, I went to check on her again and stepped on pee.

This evening I had to wake Todd up to go to guitar lessons, and he talked gibberish, and told me he had to put on his "belter."

Jonah has his first loose tooth.

We sold our house today. We'll close on Oct. 29.

We called my mother-in-law tonight, and could hear her shouting, "A.W., you need Febreeze, you need Febreeze!"

Today at Sonic, a girl named "NewNew" brought us our drinks.

Jonah asked me if people would have skin in Hell.