Making the move

After several months of living in a new town, we have finally made the move to a new home. It has taken longer than any of us expected, but the time finally arrived to pack up, unload and unpack what we’ve been living without for the better part of the last year.

We’ve been very lucky, having a place to stay with family. It’s not every child these days who has the opportunity to grow up with their grandparents so close by. But we knew when the two year old started telling perfect strangers that “mommy doesn’t have a house anymore” it was time to do something different.

So with the help of a trio of volunteer movers, we spent Valentine’s Day cleaning and hauling and unloading the last 13 years of our lives, wondering how in the world two people could collect so much junk.

The first day or so was not too bad. Aside from the whiney little one, still snotty from his cold, who just wanted “to hold you” most of the day, things went fairly smoothly. With the help of my mother, we were able to organize the kitchen and empty plenty of boxes in the process. I forced myself to downsize my wardrobe, feeling quite certain that if I hadn’t needed these clothes in the last eight months, I could probably live without them now…well, most of them anyway.

Our first meal in our new house was pizza. Cardboard box included. But pizza is always a hit for us, so it didn’t really matter that we were drowning in packing boxes and wadded up newspaper. We were sitting together around our own kitchen table, and as Someone far greater than I once said, “It was good.”

Our first real curve came at bedtime. The boys are quite used to going to bed alone, so this “sharing a room” thing really gave them a reason to act crazy. More than just sharing a room, they were sharing a twin sized bed, at least for the night. Grandmother got them both ready for bed, but it seemed pj’s and goodnight kisses weren’t going to do the trick on this night. After almost an hour of laughter and giggling and high pitched squeals, the oldest came out with his arm held high and a look of shock on his face. “Bisco just bit me!” he said with a whimper. I decided it was time to get serious. “That’s it. I’m getting your daddy.”

Within a few minutes, things had settled down, and the boys were off to sleepy town. When Randy and I finally called it a night, I looked in on the boys and although they were both sawing logs, I could see in the near future a four year old crying out in the night that he was hurt after falling off the bed. So we decided to put the two mattresses in the floor and move the boys down to safety. It didn’t do much good, however, since we woke up at 1:30 a.m. to the oldest climbing into our bed, and again about 3 when the baby came crawling in after.

After being sandwiched between the two little thumb suckers for most of the night, I wasn’t so sure how this new house thing was really going to pan out. But Dad solved our problem like the man of the house should: the next day we went to the store and ordered a bigger bed.

As day two came to a close, the idea of a night like the one just before was making us both a bit nervous. “We’ve got to get some sleep,” we both stumbled around saying, so we decided to try things a little differently. We put one kid in the bed and one on the floor and hoped this would manage our problem, at least until the new bed arrived. And after the initial “I don’t wanna go to bed” fiasco, they were both sleeping soundly when I turned out the light and climbed into my own bed around 11.

But after only a few hours of peace, perfect peace, I heard Cooper whispering on Dad’s side of the bed. I started to just roll over and let Daddy deal, but something about the words “Brisco”, “bed” and “stuck” caught my sleepy-eyed attention. Sure enough, my ears hadn’t deceived me, and I walked into the boys’ bedroom to find that Brisco was stuck under the bed.

I was too irritated to ask how it happened and too tired to care. All I could gather was that he had evidently fallen off the bed, and then somehow rolled underneath it, almost all the way against the wall, and he didn’t know how to get out. Heaven only knows how it happened, or how is gigantic head was able to fit under the bed frame, but he’d done it and there I was at 2 a.m. lifting the bed one-handed with my supermom strength and pulling my baby to freedom with the other. He was relatively calm despite his traumatizing mishap, but he did decide a night light was a good idea. After this little incident, I agreed.

So on the morn of day three, with two long days behind us, I’m wondering why we made this move at all? Things were rolling along smoothly, and Cooper had a bed partner, and there was none of this all night long madness.

And then I remembered the adjustments we make every time there is a big change in our family. It’s just part of life and raising kids, and let’s face it, they’ll adjust far sooner than we will. So I decided to stick it out one more day. What’s one more night with out sleep? They are my children, after all. Besides, if it gets too tough, I know a grandmother or two who would take them in a heartbeat…at least for a night or two.

And that’s All in a day’s work!