Moving..with children
So, we did it. We packed up the entire contents of our home on the West Coast and somehow it was all transported to the opposite coast with a minimum of loss and breakage. The stuff was packed in these nifty boxes that were so heavy they could only be lifted by the two big burly men the moving company sent over. Their names were Bubba and Billy James.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, there was this time lag between when our household goods were packed in California and when they arrived in Alabama. It was this pseudo time warp where time as we know it ceased to exist and the days were punctuated with errands to exotic places like the utilities company and the lawyers office for something mysterious called the Closing.
First we drove from my parents place in Florida to Alabama. Yes, they're right next to each other, but we drove from the southern part of Florida to the northern part of Alabama, so it took awhile. Yet another of my cherished, "I will never buy my children one of those" fell by the wayside by hour 7 on the road. Darn, but those portable DVD players are handy. We got to Alabama with not one of those phrases so beloved of parents everywhere, "if I have to stop this car one more time.." passing through our lips.
We stayed in a Residence Inn for a week until all the details of our new house were finished and minor things like water, electricity and heat were turned on. For those of you not in the know, the inn is like a small apartment, with a small kitchen, living room, and bedroom geared for people like us who need to make themselves comfortable for awhile. Breakfast and dinner were served in the dining room if you didn't feel like cooking.
This was a great event for us, as the selections available at breakfast were much more varied than anything my kitchen was ever capable of producing on a typical morning. By the end of our stay, our six year old was voicing his desire that our kitchen resemble the hotel dining room more in the future, with bacon, eggs, waffles, and a selection of cereal available every morning, instead of just when Daddy cooks.
The really fun part was meeting our fellow temporary homesteaders every morning at 7 a.m. over the juice dispenser. Trust me, you do not want to get in the way of a 200 lb. man who absolutely HAS to have his o.j. in the morning when the dispenser is down. Luckily, I was able to brandish our sticky 15 month old in his direction and make my escape past the waffle iron.
When we finally moved in and said goodbye to the hotel, it was to be met by a barrage of paper the likes of which paper shredders can only dream of. I couldn't find our silverware for 9 days, but I did find our Tupperware, carefully wrapped in six layers of paper and placed in a box the size of a refrigerator. While wading through the sea of paper I managed to organize the pots and pans and put away cups and baby powder. We employed our oldest as the paper presser, an activity curiously reminiscent of harvesting hay in days gone by. We chose one box to toss all the used packing paper into and our six year old hopped up and down, pressing it down to make room for more. This activity served the dual purpose of keeping the paper contained and tiring the kid out.
Of course, we had to carefully watch our youngest, who displayed a propensity for climbing into boxes half filled with loosely wadded paper. Luckily, we heard him from inside one of the boxes before it was carted away to the dumpster. Our middle child, who is 3, amused himself leaping from the couch into boxes cushioned with paper. This was all well and good, until the box tipped over mid leap and gave him a lesson in physics. You know, the one about bodies in motion stay in motion and all that.
It's been 11 days, and I still can't find our silverware.
You might ask what on earth I've been doing if I can't seem to knuckle down and at least open all the boxes and take a peek inside. I had to rescue our fifteen month old three times from the top of our six year old's bunk bed before I hit upon the brilliant idea of locking the door. But then the little tyke proceeded to enter the second most interesting room of the house and push every button on the computer, printer, and modem that his pudgy little fingers could reach. And those pots and pans I managed to put away? Those wound up in a scattered path between the kitchen and the bathroom, where I found the little guy gleefully unrolling the toilet paper into the toilet.
But nobody's broken an arm (yet). And I haven't had the delightful experience my friend Jen had the other day when her little girl decided to warm up a roll in the microwave. Jen said it looked like a briquette in her microwave, but what with the smoke alarms going off and the neighbors breaking down the door to see if they were all right, she didn't have time to take a picture.
But the absolutel best part about moving is that somehow a dozen of my husband's 493 racing t shirts got lost in the shuffle. Ooops!
But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, there was this time lag between when our household goods were packed in California and when they arrived in Alabama. It was this pseudo time warp where time as we know it ceased to exist and the days were punctuated with errands to exotic places like the utilities company and the lawyers office for something mysterious called the Closing.
First we drove from my parents place in Florida to Alabama. Yes, they're right next to each other, but we drove from the southern part of Florida to the northern part of Alabama, so it took awhile. Yet another of my cherished, "I will never buy my children one of those" fell by the wayside by hour 7 on the road. Darn, but those portable DVD players are handy. We got to Alabama with not one of those phrases so beloved of parents everywhere, "if I have to stop this car one more time.." passing through our lips.
We stayed in a Residence Inn for a week until all the details of our new house were finished and minor things like water, electricity and heat were turned on. For those of you not in the know, the inn is like a small apartment, with a small kitchen, living room, and bedroom geared for people like us who need to make themselves comfortable for awhile. Breakfast and dinner were served in the dining room if you didn't feel like cooking.
This was a great event for us, as the selections available at breakfast were much more varied than anything my kitchen was ever capable of producing on a typical morning. By the end of our stay, our six year old was voicing his desire that our kitchen resemble the hotel dining room more in the future, with bacon, eggs, waffles, and a selection of cereal available every morning, instead of just when Daddy cooks.
The really fun part was meeting our fellow temporary homesteaders every morning at 7 a.m. over the juice dispenser. Trust me, you do not want to get in the way of a 200 lb. man who absolutely HAS to have his o.j. in the morning when the dispenser is down. Luckily, I was able to brandish our sticky 15 month old in his direction and make my escape past the waffle iron.
When we finally moved in and said goodbye to the hotel, it was to be met by a barrage of paper the likes of which paper shredders can only dream of. I couldn't find our silverware for 9 days, but I did find our Tupperware, carefully wrapped in six layers of paper and placed in a box the size of a refrigerator. While wading through the sea of paper I managed to organize the pots and pans and put away cups and baby powder. We employed our oldest as the paper presser, an activity curiously reminiscent of harvesting hay in days gone by. We chose one box to toss all the used packing paper into and our six year old hopped up and down, pressing it down to make room for more. This activity served the dual purpose of keeping the paper contained and tiring the kid out.
Of course, we had to carefully watch our youngest, who displayed a propensity for climbing into boxes half filled with loosely wadded paper. Luckily, we heard him from inside one of the boxes before it was carted away to the dumpster. Our middle child, who is 3, amused himself leaping from the couch into boxes cushioned with paper. This was all well and good, until the box tipped over mid leap and gave him a lesson in physics. You know, the one about bodies in motion stay in motion and all that.
It's been 11 days, and I still can't find our silverware.
You might ask what on earth I've been doing if I can't seem to knuckle down and at least open all the boxes and take a peek inside. I had to rescue our fifteen month old three times from the top of our six year old's bunk bed before I hit upon the brilliant idea of locking the door. But then the little tyke proceeded to enter the second most interesting room of the house and push every button on the computer, printer, and modem that his pudgy little fingers could reach. And those pots and pans I managed to put away? Those wound up in a scattered path between the kitchen and the bathroom, where I found the little guy gleefully unrolling the toilet paper into the toilet.
But nobody's broken an arm (yet). And I haven't had the delightful experience my friend Jen had the other day when her little girl decided to warm up a roll in the microwave. Jen said it looked like a briquette in her microwave, but what with the smoke alarms going off and the neighbors breaking down the door to see if they were all right, she didn't have time to take a picture.
But the absolutel best part about moving is that somehow a dozen of my husband's 493 racing t shirts got lost in the shuffle. Ooops!
posted by Kirsten at 3:52 AM
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