The Small Family     

…it was the worst of times. Yup, that Dickens quote pretty much sums up our week! This was by far the easiest move I’ve done because someone else did much of the work for us. (Thank you, Genentech!) But at the same time, moving is always stressful, and this one was no exception. As a relatively minor annoyance, the company who came out to crate our clock and our TV accidentally blew out an outlet--but we didn’t know it before they left. So there we are, Wednesday night, sitting in a house surrounded by boxes, with only our beds left out, and we have no electricity in two bedrooms. The movers were due to arrive to load the truck in 12 hours, and it was too late to have an electrician come out. Compounding that, the buyer was coming for a final walkthrough at the same time as the movers, early the next morning. We tried tripping the circuit breakers, to no avail. We went to bed and figured we’d deal with it in the morning….

The next morning, Theo and I took off early for Grandma Diane’s to miss the chaos. (Theo had a really hard time with the move--more on that in a moment.) So Chris was left to deal with a semi-irate buyer who was not happy with the fact that the electricity was blown out in two rooms, plus five moving guys who were so darn efficient that it almost made your head spin to watch them rushing around to load the truck! Chaos!

The buyer’s agent said they needed to hold up the closing documents until we fixed the electricity--but luckily, she referred us to an electrician who came out that morning and fixed the problem. It was a relatively simple $95 fix (for which I’m now submitting a claim--but if they don’t pay on it, we’re not too worried about the relatively minor charge), but it definitely required an electrician to fix it. So, our sale recorded later that day, after the buyer’s realtor got confirmation that the problem was resolved. But what timing, eh?

But Theo… That little guy is such a good traveler that we figured he’d have little problem with the move. Don’t get me wrong--a move is a big adjustment for any kid, and we didn’t think he’d necessarily breeze through it, but we didn’t expect him to have too much issue with it. We had prepped him ahead of time for a new house with a neat new room for him and all his stuff around him, etc. etc. etc., and he seemed to be handling it well. But apparently he is like his mama and internalizes his stress--and it all came tumbling out in about a four-day span leading up to the move. He was just pretty out of control--like a different child. On Thursday evening (the night we stayed in a hotel, as our stuff wasn’t being delivered until the next morning), Chris and I both sat shell-shocked in a restaurant, unsure of how to proceed. Theo was just out of control, and no amount of distracting, talking calmly, chastising firmly, or anything would snap him out of it. People at the next table were staring at us--a fact that was not made any better by the fact that their two-year-old was sitting like some calm little angel, happily eating his dinner without so much as making a peep. I really wanted to snap, “Wipe that smug ‘I’m clearly a far superior parent’ look off of your face--you have no idea what our kid has been muddling through the last couple of days!” (I should also point out that later, outside the restaurant, I saw these same smug parents make a parenting choice that I personally find rather appalling, so it was my turn to feel smug at that point!) By the end of that meal, I was fighting back tears--half frustration with my extremely cranky child and half hurting that he was clearly so upset. So what did we do? Drugged him. Seriously. We gave him a small dose of Benadryl before bed, knowing that he needed as good a night of sleep as possible--and it worked. (The night before, he wouldn’t go to sleep until almost 11pm--three hours past his normal bedtime--and we did not need a repeat of that!)

Part of what was really bugging Theo was the fact that the movers “were going to take our stuff!” We kept explaining to him that they were just going to carry our stuff for us--it’s very heavy, so they’d bring it to the new house and set it all up for us. But no amount of telling him this would convince him of the fact that we would see our stuff again, and that had him really upset. So, Friday morning was a blessing--our stuff arrived! Chris took Theo out for breakfast while I waited at the house for the movers. (I’d had Theo most of the previous two days and was fried because he had been so upset and crabby, so I readily volunteered to supervise the move and let the boys spend the morning together, puttering around.) And later that morning, we traded, and I took Theo to see his new preschool while Chris hung out with the movers. (More on preschool in another post. I’m actually going to do a separate post about preschool, because Theo had his preschool evaluation from his old preschool this past week, and I want to mention that--but I suspect I may get on a soapbox! So we’ll keep this post lighthearted and about moving, and I’ll go into the deeper preschool topic in a separate post that you can read if you so desire. It’ll be the post before this one on the blog…. I’ll keep this one the most recent, since I suspect people will be most interested in this one.)

By the time we got home, the movers had a lot of the truck unloaded and were starting to unpack boxes. Theo saw all his beloved “stuff,” and our more content little boy started to emerge for the first time in days. We took a cue from his old preschool and set up a CD player in his room for him to play with on his own, and he stayed content for the better part of the afternoon that way. (His preschool evaluation revealed that the teachers have found that music calms him significantly--Dorothy said it almost seems to trigger something in his mind that settles him and refocuses him.) By the time he emerged from his room, the movers were finished and the house, though a mess of stuff, was looking more familiar to him. And things have continued to improve since.

We spent Saturday and Sunday unpacking and doing a bit of shopping. Chris has long wanted a recliner, but we had no room at our old house. Now we have more room than we know what to do with (we went from 1,250 square feet to almost 1,900!), so we figured we could finally get his recliner. We got a pair of them in a neat shade of red, which I think will go well with the dark-blue wall in the family room and the white tile floor. Chris thinks it’s going to look like an American flag, but I don’t think so. We even found an area rug with dark blue, light blue, red, and brown that will tie everything together. I think it’ll look really nice when the chairs are delivered and set up!

We also got two twin beds--one for our office/guest room (we finally have room to have guests!) and one for Theo. He has been expressing more interest in a big-boy bed lately, so we figured it’s finally time to start the transition. We let him pick out new decorations for his new room--a space theme, with stars and rocket ships! We got a lamp, wall decals (his walls are already blue, with blue curtains, so they match), and a bedspread/sheets all in the space theme. I think it’ll be really cute when it’s set up!

And for the record, yes, I know he’s pretty much the oldest kid on the planet still in a crib. But he loves his crib and for some reason has never tried to escape it, so we’ve just left him in it. Frankly, anyone who knows Theo will tell you how very much he fights sleep, and our number-one priority has always been to make sure he gets good sleep. We didn’t mind putting off the sort of “rite of passage” of a real bed for a while if it meant he’d continue to sleep decently in his beloved crib. But now that I’m six months along, it’s getting harder for me to lift him into his crib, and we’ll need it for the baby before too long anyway, so we figure it’s time to start the transition.

The other chaos surrounding the move was that my email server/email program decided to try to take a dive right in the middle of everything. I need to jump back into work with both feet Monday morning, so I needed a working email account. So a HUGE thanks to my friend Janeane’s husband, Jason, who spent 90 minutes on the phone with me Saturday morning, talking me through setting up a new email server and all that good stuff. Ah, it’s good to have knowledgeable friends--all the CNS/DNS email server stuff was above my head, but Jason handled it all for me and made my life nice and easy!

I have to say that although leaving Sacramento definitely has its downsides, so far we’re loving our new neighborhood. As you’ll see in the pictures, we now live in a pretty, hilly region with lots more trees and even some fall color. Clayton is technically a suburb, but it has a rather rural feel to it--lots of open space and trees, which I love. It has a really homey, family feel to it, and I think we’re really going to like it. Chris, of course, has to deal with a yucky commute, but when he is at home, I think he will really like it here. And I know Theo and I will, too. We’re viewing this as a one-year trial (as our lease is one year)--if the commute is too much for Chris, we’ll consider whether we want to renew our lease a second year. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we will want to stay longer than that--it just seems like a really nice place here. And the house is fantastic--so much space, and the layout is great! I don’t think we’d ever actually buy it, just because the backyard isn’t terrifically usable as the kids get older and want to play ball outside or whatnot, but for a rental, it is perfect. And the layout of the house itself is actually really great--just the sort of thing we would buy if we were in that position. Plenty of space, but not too big--and the space is used well, with good separation between the bedrooms and the living areas.

So that’s the move news! The unpacking is still a work in progress, but I’m taking is slowly but surely. No point in overdoing it while I’m pregnant--it will all get done.

Speaking of being pregnant, we had our 24-week appointment early this week. Garbanzo’s heartbeat sounds good--and this time, we took Theo along to hear it, which was very cool! Supposedly the baby weighs about a pound and a half now and is growing more hair (though if he takes after his brother and his mama, he’ll be born nearly bald). I’m measuring exactly right for my gestation, so all seems to be going well. Garbanzo is in the process of fattening up now--as am I! Ha ha, just kidding--actually, I’m still surprisingly small. I’ve gained a little weight, but not much. Not for lack of trying, though--I’m eating like crazy. :-) Don’t hate me, though--I’m usually one of those people who gains weight just by looking at food. This is the only time in my life (that I can remember) that I’ve actually been slow to put on weight. Go figure….

Anyway, hope you all have had a good week!