Bye bye, Durham!

If we actually kept all of our stuff
in our house, it would be unliveable.
But it would be fun to climb.

[Note: This post was written last week.]

Daddy got a great new job in St. Louis! Yay, Daddy! We found a nice, new home! Yay, Mommy! And we’ll be making the 800+ mile drive this weekend with a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old and two mice (but no cat, thank heavens) with everything we need to be able to sit “comfortably” in an empty house until our furniture decides to show up, which could be as long as 10 days, or more than twice that if you’re a good friend of mine who recently moved! [Awkward silence.]

Heaven help us, we’re moving. With young kids. Across the country. Can you tell it’s still sinking in? How do you even prepare for such an adventure?
1. Talk about it with the 3-year-old ahead of time, and stage “moving day” with her cathouse.
2. Put the 10-month-old down in a Pack-and-Play in her own room for a week ahead of time.
3. Buy a “family size” bag of M&Ms that you only plan to share in dire emergencies.
4. Speak in an even, calm tone to the hubby even if you don’t feel like it.
5. Get lots of help.
6. Make lots of lists and obsess over them. Add two hours a night to your “unsleeping” time to review them so you don’t forget a single thing.
7. Try to pretend it isn’t happening.
Our official preparations started a couple weeks ago when I began buying small “car treats” for the girls. This was fun: I enjoy new toys as much as the kiddos do. We also gave in and bought a DVD player for the trip that Matt, never being much of a TV person before, has adopted as his own. We promise to haul it out (for the kids, anyway), only for really long drives, and not trips to the grocery store. Our shopping list also included a cartop carrier, healthy convenience food, audio books and a bunny sleeping bag for Kalina. So far, moving was great!

We’re extremely blessed in the fact that Matt’s company offers a great relocation package, and commissioned movers to pack us up and send us on our way (they have yet to commission the teleportation device, however, that would really come in handy). Nevertheless, we still had work to do to prepare for the movers. Boxes had to be gathered from storage (i.e., Grandpa’s house), bottles of liquid needed to be taped and toys had to be collected from all corners of the house so that individual items wouldn’t get too lost.

And then the same toys would need to be collected again, because the minute Mommy picks up a toy, no matter how discarded, it immediately becomes fascinating again and must be paraded through every room and left, once again, in a really strange place. By either child, or both. Which means it needs to be gathered once again, this time after bedtime. And then the next day it’s inevitably found again, so the cycle continues. Times a million, because that’s how many toys you accrue with two little kids in a tiny house.

I put a lot of work into this task until I finally gave up. Any successful toy collecting was done Moving Day morning while both kids were eating breakfast.

Next, we had a couple of “work days” leading up to the official moving day. Which meant that I tried to keep the kids out of Matt’s hair as he finished up odd jobs, and he tried to keep them quiet while I packed. I’m not sure either of us succeeded very well, but somehow the work got done by 10:30 on Moving Day Eve.

During this time, we did a trial run of packing the car. We’re bringing, among many other things: camp chairs, an air mattress, a frying pan, cleaning materials, dominos, a jumperoo (safe place to put the baby!), a room-darkening curtain, lots of towels, high-quality toys, pillows, my nice jewelry and a few of Matt’s prized possessions, Stain Stick, our wireless router and all of our laptops, a potty seat, all the important family documents, a high chair, a well-stocked cooler, and every single one of Kalina’s most prized stuffed animals. Matt and I each packed a duffel bag for ourselves. (Incidentally, Kalina’s stuffed animal bag, which doesn’t even include the cats she hasn’t let go of for about four weeks now, is bigger than my duffel.) What I really wish we could bring but probably just can’t fit? A small vacuum. We both agreed that if the truck exploded into flame en route, heaven forbid, we’d be okay. After all, we could buy a new vacuum.
And then there were the goodbyes. Wanting to give Kalina as much closure as possible, I insisted we depart amiably from many of our favorite—and even not-so-favorite—haunts. Bye bye, craft store! Bye bye, cow at the museum! Bye bye, Aunt Nancy’s house! Bye bye, park! Bye bye, grocery store! Which seemed to affect Kalina not at all, as half the time I have to drag her out of the house, anyway. Home is where Mommy is. We also had bye byes to our friends, some of which resulted in hugs. We have yet to bye bye Grandpa, Aunt Nancy and Poky.

And this brought us up to Moving Day—when the packers came to box up our stuff, to be loaded by loaders the next day. The girls and I were to spend most of it with Grandpa, hoping Elise could at least catch her morning nap at home. That was the plan, at least.

Fortunately, of all of us, Kalina seems to love moving. “It’s Moving Day,” I announced on Wednesday when she woke up. She beamed as if it were Christmas, and hopped out of bed. Elise was already up and in the middle of breakfast, so I eagerly convinced Kalina to hop up and join her as I finished last-minute preparations with no children underfoot. Kalina was too excited to eat her oats, but happily entertained Elise, who’d probably been in her chair nibbling and simply waiting patiently for a good 30 minutes, as I wasn’t about to take her out if she seemed content (she was in an “I must be held at all times” mood, which is not conducive to last-minute preparations).

Holing up in Kalina's room.

The movers arrived while Kalina was finally munching, and she showed no fear whatsoever. Nevertheless, the girls and I quickly headed upstairs to get Kalina dressed and Elise down for her nap. Much to my dismay, at least one mover followed and proceeded to rip tape really loudly as Elise listened from her Pack-and-Play. Shortly afterward, my hopes of a nap clearly dashed, I sequestered us three to Kalina’s room, where we hid out fairly contentedly from all the ruckus in the household. We would have high-tailed it to Grandpa’s house, but Daddy needed a ride home later in the morning from dropping off his car to be shipped to Missouri.

Soon it was time to scope out a snack for everyone. I edged my way into the kitchen, which was somehow both incredibly cluttered and devoid of much actual food (some was already packed in the car). Rounding up a few healthy options, I pitched the idea of a “picnic snack” to Kalina, who joyfully accepted. We headed out to the humidity and waved away hoards of flies which, apparently, also liked the idea of a picnic snack. At this point, I gave myself the following pep talk:

“This is a bad day. It will get better. Think of the nice, new house. Persevere.” Or something like that. I smacked on a smile and muttered something no doubt upbeat and chipper to the girls, an attitude I managed to maintain throughout much of the day. After all, if Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. As the saying goes.

Unexpected fun at the grocery store.

After another hour spent in the safe haven of Kalina’s room, it was finally time to get Matt’s car loaded up onto the truck and head to Grandpa’s. As we were waiting for Matt at the drop-off location, we wandered through the Harris Teeter I’d been in all of one time during my eight years in North Carolina, enjoying the racecar cart, the free cookie and the dragon ride. I wished I could go back.

Finally, finally, finally we were on our way to Grandpa’s, and not too late to be a disaster as far as lunch and nap were concerned. Once there, I unloaded the car, fixed lunch, changed a diaper, waited on the girls as they ate, and probably cleaned stuff at a frantic pace as the adrenaline slowly left my system.

And then, just as I was about to relax, Kalina decided not to use Grandpa’s toilet without her potty seat, which I’d forgotten to bring with us, and Elise decided not to nap, again.

Thirty minutes later, Kalina had won her battle, but Elise had lost hers (she was too tired to fight long and settled down okay!). The rest of the day was rather nice and calm. Kalina toured Grandpa’s garage multiple times, both girls played rather nicely with Grandpa’s toys, and I was able to bring two fed and cared-for kids back home just in time for bedtime.

“Everything looks new!” Kalina cheered when she saw all the boxes, much to our relief.

Both girls went right to sleep. Matt and I, too. In fact, I believe this last night in our old house was one of my best for weeks--and Elise's, too! (This trend did not continue)

Elise in pursuit of a butterfly, or at
least a leaf.

The next day, Matt hung out with the loaders while the girls and I headed back up to Grandpa's. We enjoyed a relatively "normal" day, complete with a trip to the museum, which Elise is just beginning to absolutely love (ask her about the butterflies sometime). At one point, I believe I even breathed.

And then the next day, I cleaned the house top to bottom while Matt and Grandpa took care of the girls. It was almost fun to clean an empty house, my only regret being that I can't hire a team of movers every time I want to do a deep clean.



Me and my book!



I also made a quick trip to Barnes and Noble with Aunt Nancy to look for my book, which came out on the fourth (I'm just the ghostwriter, so don't look for my name on the cover). It was not yet on the shelves, but we managed to snag a copy from the back room, and take some pictures. (Thank you, Grandma Jan and Grandpa Les, for the shirt!)

After another nice evening, it was time to pack the car (again) and get ready to get on the road first thing Saturday morning. We should arrive at our new digs on Sunday evening. I’m already looking forward to doing a giant Target run on Monday morning. In some ways, that’s what’s getting me through the next few days. If I can only make it to Target, and get us well stocked in everything from pasta to paper towels, everything will be okay.

Bye bye, Durham! It’s been a wonderful eight years. Time for a new adventure, I guess. But first, a 14-hour car ride…

To be continued…