Baby talk

Taken more than a month ago at
the old house, but it
certainly hasn't lost its cuteness.

Have you heard Elise's shriek lately? I can't imagine anyone hasn't, as it resonates from one end of a Super Target to the other, or likely across our nice, new, quiet neighborhood.

I'm not even talking about a frustrated, angry or sad shriek, and in fact, many times it's a "LOOK NOW!!! UP THERE ON THE LEFT IS A DISPLAY OF LARGE, FLUFFY STUFFED ANIMALS, THE LIKES OF WHICH I HAVE NEVER SEEN. WHEEL ME UP THERE RIGHT NOW, I MUST BURY MY FACE IN THEM!" I think it's pretty cute (in these instances), but I'm not sure people on the other side of the store do. Rarely do I let her indulge, as taking away the large fluffy thing (or whatnot) produces a string of even louder shrieks, and not the good kind. (And there is no toy in my diaper bag that can distract her from that.)

[Kalina, by the way, has caught on to Elise's happy shrieks and mildly comments, "Maybe she wants to see those." Yes, she probably does, Sweetie.]

In fact, if we were to use alliteration to describe Elise, and even if we weren't, one good word would be "enthusiastic." I don't know if it's more her age or more her personality, or both, but Elise gets really excited at things like fruit, the bunny book, the puppy page of the animal book, anything soft, and anything remotely resembling a ball.

But what's really cool is that Elise is finding a new way to demonstrate her excitement: with words! If she likes something, she wants to say it (and not always scream it). And the whole household is right there with her, helping her along.

It started with "Mama." The baby may have been saying it for weeks without me believing it was the real thing, but eventually I got the picture. How sweet! I'm her first word! This word, however, soon became a catch-all for anything that had gone wrong. "Mama!" Elise would moan to say, "My cup got tossed off my tray again!" or "I can't reach that light bulb!" "Make it better, Mama!"

Aunt Laura and Uncle Chris visited
more than a month ago! I have never
seen Kalina so excited.

"Dada" soon followed, as did ball, duck, bear, dog, cat, book, and balloon.

Yes, that's right--the baby can say "balloon." It all began when the neighbors tied a couple balloons on the mailbox for one day to celebrate their daughter's birthday. Elise and I talked about that balloon for hours, until finally, she came out with a, "boo," instead of "bah." Close enough for me, as it's enough to distinguish the word from "ball." The balloons were gone the next day (I know because Elise sadly pointed out their absence), and the poor baby has been disappointed several times a day ever since as she unsuccessfully seeks them out.

Elise adds to her vocabulary every couple of days, and probably more often, except we're usually too busy cleaning up the tiny pieces of tissue Kalina has strewn across the house, or trying to get the baby to eat any protein at all, to notice.

It's a good thing Elise is already showing an aptitude for strong verbal skills, as she will have a careful teacher as she gets older. Kalina, who has taken on Elise's vocabulary as a kind of a mini-project,
has been working with Elise to teach her new words.

Lots of fun!

For instance, if Elise grabs her cup at the breakfast table and randomly mentions, "buh, buh," Kalina corrects her with, "Cup doesn't start with B, Elise!!" I can't not smile. I also find it ironic that while I was working with Kalina today to help her pronounce "drink" so that it doesn't sound like "krink," Elise was following right along. "Duh!" she proclaimed as I showed her her cup. Maybe between the two of them they'll get it just perfect!"

And then there are the "mystery" words. "Bah!" Shouts Elise joyfully in the library. "Where's the ball?" is my first thought. But there is none. Apparently, "bah" is a catchall that will be revealed specifically at a later time.



She's also wriggling her way into conversations. "Look, Kalina, there's someone walking a dog!" I commented on the way home from the library today. "Dah!" replied Elise, looking around. I believe Kalina ignored me.

The baby can even make requests. "Buh," Elise told me after finishing her bedtime milk. She was pointing toward a small stack of books, at the bottom of which was the aforementioned bunny book (she remembered it was there because we'd read it a few minutes ago). I could tell by her face that it was just the nighttime story she wanted.

We will miss the purple
dinosaur. Wouldn't you?

Nothing, by the way, makes Elise happier, and prouder, than to be understood at this young age. Because when I do hand her her toy "bah," after she askes for it, I'm rewarded with smiles and gurgles that surpass everything except, possibly, a good tickling by skunk puppet.

Also making Elise proud lately: setting her cup upright on the floor, sorting shapes in a shape sorter (with only a little help!), taking a few teetering steps in a row (she still prefers crawling), handing you anything and having you thank her for it, and stacking two objects. In case you hadn't noticed, this has the same effect on her mommy.:)

Excuse our mess

Our stuff arrived in our new house the Tuesday after we did. Which meant we only had one full day in our new house without any furniture! We spent it taking long walks around the family room and cleaning, and wondering if it could, in fact, be true that our stuff would be arriving so soon.

I knew Tuesday would be a bit of a challenge, as it was my job to wrangle the kids while Matt directed the movers. While child-herding has, in fact, been my "professional" employment ever since Kalina was born, it always becomes a bit more difficult when there are lots of strangers going in and out carrying heavy, non-baby-proofed things, and in a town I don't know my way around in. One could compare it to doing taxes while a band marches through, or cutting diamonds during an earthquake.

I decided to take my chances out on the road--and besides, the movers were hungry and thirsty and we needed groceries, too. I loaded up the GPS, which I've come to rely on after only a few weeks of use, took McDonald's orders, and headed out to the store.

Ten minutes later the GPS was still trying to get me out of our little neighborhood (which is, in my defense, quite twisty), and Kalina was openly questioning its every instruction and wondering if we were lost. Elise was hoping we'd be out of the car soon.

Finally, thanks to a road that I'd thought was only a service road for golf carts, we were on our way, for real. Second problem: the grocer the GPS was leading us to seemed to have misplaced its store--we couldn't find it anywhere in the residential neighborhood we were led to.

Now we'd been gone a good 30 minutes and were no closer to bringing home sustenance for our poor movers, let alone filling the fridge. I maintained a cheery attitude while I located a store--any store--that could help me cross at least one thing off my shopping list. We ended up at a gas station fronting a busy road. After I mispronounced the grocery store's name, and got actual directions to it as well as to a nearby McDonald's, the cashier took pity on us and helped me carry out my bag of ice and Gatorade, thus accomplishing mission #1: acquire cold liquids so the movers don't collapse.

By this time I had given up on grocery shopping, and managed to pick up lots of McDonald's food (mission #2), including Chicken McNuggets for Kalina for being so patient (plus, there wasn't much else for her to eat in the house, let alone protein), and I made it back home relatively safely. At least I had also fulfilled mission #3: keep the kids safe from the movers and the movers safe from the kids.

Fortunately, by now some of the toys were unpacked and we were able to carve out a place to play. Better yet: the movers were done and gone before naptime/downtime.

At which point Matt and I dug in and started the long process of putting our house in order. I began in the kitchen while Matt opened whatever boxes had ended up in the living room. We found some of the pairings comical--he found his PhD diploma packed next to his circular saw, while I kept pulling fine china out from in between Tupperware.

Several hours later, having found great places for an angel food cake pan, our blender and two sets of popsicle molds, I realized we still didn't have anything we could use to actually eat.  And that was when we began the process of trying to find the stuff we really needed, which is much more difficult than unpacking camping gear and decorative vases at random.

By this time, the kids were up so unpacking became a dance of "Don't grab that!!!" and, "We'll read that story right after I'm done with this box." Eventually we gave up on everything but kid care, and went out to explore the backyard.

The swingset is sound, we discovered, and both kids are fans of the slide. Which generally means there's one at the top (Elise being held by one of us as she climbs up) and one at the bottom at all times. This was fun in a sense, but soon wore on our muscles and our nerves as we tried to protect the children from each other and themselves.

We met some neighbors, and found that there are a couple girls next door just older than Kalina, plus a lot of empty nestors who think our girls are cute. Perfect.

As both girls were sleeping well in their pink bunny sleeping bag and pack-and-play, and seemed comfortable enough in their rooms, we actually didn't rush to set up their real beds. We focused on living quarters, including the basement, and Kalina cheered with each addition of an unpacked toy.

"My fish!" she'd declare. "Elise's exersaucer! Put her in it!" She was delighted. Elise was simply glad to be part of the hullabaloo. She, too, hooted with joy when some old favorites were unpacked. She then got a bit overwhelmed and stuck to me like glue for the next week. Endearing, absolutely. Conducive to unpacking, no.

Within a few days, we all had bedrooms that resembled bedrooms, a living room that resembled a living room, and a family room that lived up to its name. The kitchen functioned--and even cooked meals--and the basement was becoming every bit as fun as Kalina had hoped.

So we took a break went to the large local park. I'm not sure we got more than 100 feet from the parking lot the whole time, but that was okay: within that distance there was a little lake with ducks, a bridge over the lake and in between two tiny waterfalls that Kalina pointed out, steps up to a gazebo and, naturally, a gazebo. We were set. There was also a short trail outlining the lake that Kalina and I did eventually run around (yes, run, but that's okay, I was just glad she was happy).

Elise was elated to seek the ducks--so much so, that she decided to learn the word. "Duh!" she exlaimed at every opportunity. "Duck!" we'd always reply. We were glad, too, that we'd packed her shoes, as we hadn't packed her stroller. While Kalina and I ran around the lake, Elise explored at a slower, but no less enthusiastic, pace with Daddy.

We've also been on some neighborhood walks, even discovering a neighborhood park within walking distance. (How did I not know this ahead of time?!?) Most of the neighbors are chatty, which suits me just fine.

So, how are we settling in? For the true test, ask the 3-year-old. I asked Kalina the other day whether she missed the old house. "No," she said. "And what's your favorite part of the new house?" "The basement!" she shouted.

Kalina doesn't seem to be looking back. It took her a good (albeit hectic) week to explore the farthest reaches of the family room. She wasn't too sure about crawling on the stone kitchen floor at first, but has now ventured through it and beyond, and has not only found the living room and dining room, but has discovered two ways to get to the staircase. Previously, we weren't actually sure she knew that the stairs were part of our house. They seemed so far away. Now, they need to be babygated ASAP.

Elise has also taken quite a few independent steps in the house, and has added "dog" to her repertoire, ironically, before "cat." Possibly because although the baby owns a stuffed puppy, she's not allowed to play with Kalina's prized kittens, who have spent the past month or so tucked firmly under her arm at all times. A doggy person she will be, then.

In fact, the only downside to the new house, it seems, has been the brown recluse spiders. We killed close to a dozen brown spiders before we got the bright idea to look them up online (it also took getting internet hooked up), and we're confident that we've seen at least a few of the real deal here (the others being harmless house spiders)--several in our bedroom and one, caught in a sticky trap, under Kalina's bed. After a healthy amount of freaking out, Matt filled a few holes he thought they might be coming from, got rid of as much cardboard as he could (they enjoy cardboard), sprayed some pesticide and put out a bunch of sticky traps, and we haven't heard much from them since. Needless to say, we're still a bit on edge.

Incidentally, ridding the house of poisonous spiders is only one of the jobs Matt's taken on. Every time I see him, it's, "I caulked around the shower," or, "I just scraped mounds of mouse and bug droppings out of the outdoor storage," or whatnot. The garage is clean enough that we could picnic out there, and all the lightbulbs function.

We're now in the process of polishing off the final boxfuls, which are always the trickiest because all the momentum is lost. The only picture we've hung so far has been a calendar, but we hope to get to those soon, too. And we've made our first Craigslist purchase to fill in some of the gaps: Matt got a nice computer desk that will hopefully help keep us all more organized. I'm still blaming the mess on moving, and plan to for a while. After that, we'll revert back to our usual excuse of, "I have two young kids at home all day long."

And last, but certainly not least, in our book, anyway, Elise slept through the night last night, for the first time ever, at just over 11 months. And all it took was a couple nights of Matt going in to settle her instead of me. Incidentally, we tried this a few months ago and it didn't work. Better yet: I slept through the night, too! Probably the first time I've gotten 7 straight hours of sleep in at least a year and a half.

Stay tuned for more of our adventures as we tour our new home and city. So far, we like them. Maybe we'll stay a while.

Photos: Our house, very much in progress. About a week ago I took the camera around and got some snapshots of the rooms as we settled in. The dining room was full of boxes until this past Thursday.

A 14-hour drive

Elise has started smiling for
the camera!

When there’s something Kalina or Elise does not want to do, each of them finds a way to avoid it. Kalina might complain about being too tired (“Well, then, Sweetie, we’d better put you down for a nap!”) or her hands being too full (since she’s lugging around 5-10 small animals at any given time). Elise, on the other hand, employs the more desperate measures of twisty squirms (if she’s annoyed at being so rudely carried away from her attempt to climb up on a pint-sized rocking chair and rock it while standing up, for instance) or her infamous screeches (if she’s ravenously hungry but would prefer something other than avocado).

But there was no wriggling out of this one. Nope, all of us were destined to endure an approximately 14-hour car ride over two days, along with all the stuff mentioned in the last post. So we might as well make it fun, right?

Was it fun? You be the judge.

We began on Saturday morning. Grandpa was to accompany us for the first 3-ish hours, and then take us on a short tour of some family history sites in Virginia, not far from the North Carolina border. Kalina and Matt piled into Grandpa’s car, while Elise and I followed. Elise immediately fell asleep, while Kalina snacked and helped the guys find cows and horses and such along the way.

It poured rain as we headed out, but we eventually made it to sunnier skies. Just as Kalina was learning that when we go “through the mountains,” we actually go on top of them, we stopped for lunch.

Which took an hour, by the time everyone had clean diapers and clothes (Kalina spilled some milk on herself) and such. But at least we were fed.

In the 1750s, my ancestors
rescued a woman who'd been
captured by Native Americans.
This sign marks the vicinity!

We then wound through the mountains and the stomping grounds of my ancestors (and by this time Matt was driving Elise while I rode with my dad and Kalina), a jaunt that was punctuated by the leaping of a white-tailed-deer directly in front of Grandpa’s car. Kalina couldn’t have been more delighted, and correctly pronounced it a doe. Grandpa quietly wondered if she’d have been as happy if it had gotten splattered all over the windshield.

All too soon, it was time to say goodbye to Grandpa, and for the four of us to forge off on our own. We were faced with several challenges:

1. Space. From my spot in the front seat (there wasn’t enough room for me to sit between the girls), I needed to access: Kalina’s bag of fun, Elise’s bag of fun, the big bag of snacks, the bag of books, the diaper bag, the DVD player, the DVDs and the audio CDs. A good mommy gives up all of her footroom to keep her kids happy. I spent most of the trip cross-legged in my seat.

2. Elise is not yet coordinated/well-behaved enough to eat from a snack cup. We’d rigged up a snack tray for her, but within five minutes of its first use she’d tipped it all over herself and spent the rest of that leg of the trip, until I could free it, with it in her face. This meant that either we’d need to stop every 2-ish hours for her to spend at least 20 minutes eating, or I’d have to hand her food from the front seat. You can guess which option we chose.

3. This is when it hit Kalina that we weren’t going to be going back “home.” (Home being a very nebulous term at this point—was the car now our home?) “Kalina misses Grandpa!” she said as we pulled away, much to our dismay. Why can’t our kids have emotional breakdowns when it’s more convenient?

I spent the first hour answering the kids’ whims. Snacks, drinks, dropped toys, cheering up—you name it. By the end of the hour, the kids were only marginally content and my neck was killing me. Outlook for the rest of the trip was not good, and I mentally tabulated the amount of Advil I’d need to get me through. When’s that Target trip again?

But then Elise fell asleep and I unleashed on Kalina one of her “move presents,” a Magna Doodle I'd found cheap in a pre-Christmas sale and had had stashed away ever since. All was forgiven between Mommy and Daughter as Kalina first doodled happily away by herself (during which time Matt and I may have actually conversed for the first time since probably the Monday prior), then erased all of my doodles for me (it turns out, Magna Doodles are fun for all ages!) then anthropomorphized the triangle and circle stamps, who were best friends, and spent the remaining time before supper telling me stories about their adventures together.

Our supper stop took an hour. We wondered why. The restaurant of choice was Subway, and we went in, we ate as fast as we possibly could, and we left. Maybe it was the fact that Elise needed two diaper changes during this time? And the restaurant didn’t have a changing table? But seriously—an hour? Would all our stops be like this?

The girls were less than happy to be back in the car after dinner, as was I, as was Matt. But we were determined to press on to our intended overnight stop, in hopes that the next day we’d make it into our new home with plenty of time to explore.

The next hour and a half passed relatively amiably, as now I was pulling out new (hand-me-down) toys for Elise every 10 minutes, and Kalina was still relatively well entertained by her Magna Doodle and a free book I dug out of the side pocket of my door and read to her over and over again. I continued to offer snacks on demand.

We finally reached our intended, but not reserved, hotel. Before Matt could say anything, I hopped out of the car at the hotel entrance. “I’ll-go-get-us-a-room-you-watch-the-kids!” I sputtered before he could protest (much) as I ran into the hotel. After all, I’m every bit as capable of booking a room as he is, right?

Except the hotel only had a room with a single king bed in it left. And we really wanted two beds, so we could all be off the floor and away from the bugs. I’d failed. Worse, Elise missed me the entire time I was gone, and was not afraid to let everyone in the surrounding area know.

At the next hotel, Matt was the one to go inside. I got out with Elise and let her play with some potted flowers. And there was good news—they had a room for us! Matt busily loaded a cart with whichever pieces of his luggage he thought we needed and I headed up to the room with the kids.

Which was locked from the inside, so we headed back down again to the front desk. No problem! They had another room. I called out its number to Matt, who was still unloading and rearranging luggage, and went to check it out.

This one had the beds tipped up against the wall. Back downstairs we went. By this time, Kalina decided it was a fun game and was happily working the elevator for me.

Did I mention it was now almost an hour past Elise’s bedtime? You want to stress me out? You make my kid miss bedtime.

The next room was not made up. At this point, Matt called me out to the parking lot to see what all the fuss was about. I assured him that the hotel seemed good enough, and even the messy room was a clean kind of messy. In short, we were not getting back in the car again tonight if at all possible.

The fourth room was perfect, or would’ve been 20 minutes earlier. I suspiciously pulled back sheets and scoped out the bathroom, but everything seemed clean and in order. Matt arrived shortly afterward with his first load of stuff. It included everything Matt and I needed to put ourselves down for bed, as well as Kalina’s toothbrush, toothpaste and potty seat. Elise, who needed bedtime most of all, had nothing she needed.

I put Kalina on the toilet and brushed my own teeth and twiddled my thumbs as Matt went after another load. This one contained Kalina’s pajamas and Elise’s blanket and teddy bear, but no pack and play, pajamas, nighttime diaper, sound machine, or storybook for Kalina.

This time I went down to the car. I forgot the key and had to come back up. But…shortly thereafter, I’d acquired all the supplies we needed to put both kids to bed.

I’d been wondering this whole time how you actually get two squirrely kids to settle down to sleep when they’re in the same room. Won’t they keep each other up with their whining/crying/laughing? I suppose it helped that bedtime was 1 ½ to 2 hours overdue for each of them. At any rate, even though Elise seemed a bit confused about what was actually going on (her head kept popping up over the pack and play, which was about six inches from my face), and Kalina spent a good 10 minutes apparently burrowing into a little nest by the sounds of things, both fell asleep around 9:30 without much fuss. And soon after, so did Matt and I.

In the middle of the night, by the way, I noticed that Kalina was actually sleeping sideways on the bed. But she was sleeping!

We all did pretty well, actually, until the alarm, which we did not set, woke three of us at 5:45 the next morning. Which didn’t come as too much of a surprise as this is when Elise had been waking up, anyway, but we were still a bit disappointed. We hung out in the bathroom for a little while until Kalina woke a little after 6:00.

The next day’s drive at least had the benefit of taking us to our new house. Although this thought put some wind in my sails, it did nothing to improve our three-year-old’s mood, as she was now certain that returning to the old house with solve all her problems. I pulled out some sticker books to help cheer her up, as Elise took a nice snooze.

Our only stop was for lunch, and it took an hour. And after lunch, the blessed event we’d been waiting the whole trip for finally happened—both girls napped at the same time! For at least an hour! I spent the time doodling on Kalina’s Magna Doodle, and discussing with Matt the possibility of doing another long car trip at some point.

And then both girls woke up, and we had some car snacks, and just as Kalina was demanding I tell her yet another story about her kittens (and believe me, this topic had been more than exhausted already—plus, whenever I tell stories I seem to get everything wrong according to Kalina), the St. Louis Arch appeared in the distance.

“Look, Kalina, the Arch!” I practically shouted. “Let’s talk about something other than kittens for a while,” I didn’t say. I also handed Elise yet another new-ish toy so that I could help Matt navigate through the city.

And not too much longer, we were pulling into the driveway of our new home.

Our first meal in our new home! The
previous owners were kind enough to
leave the stools, which we're still
sitting on for all meals. (Elise was eating
all meals in her stroller at this point
because there was literally nowhere else.)

Our new home! In a much better mood than this morning, thanks to her nap, Kalina zoomed inside and began to eagerly explore. She was elated with her new, pink room, and also with the basement and the wide open spaces to run around in.

Elise, for her part, was just glad to be able to crawl more than six feet without having to be removed from anything dangerous.

Matt busily scoped out every corner and emptied the car (our stuff took up an impressive amount of the living room), and I actually made it to Target a day early.

For several days (okay, even once today) Kalina and I both occasionally got lost in the new house, which felt massive compared to our little “old” one (which is actually newer than our new one—does that make sense?). But would it still feel big when our stuff arrived? And would it begin to feel like “home," even to the three-year-old?

To be continued…

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…