The Move

Well you may have noticed a gap in my posts.  It's tragic really.  My computer died and Brian takes his to work.  I usually blog during the kids' nap time, but when Brian's home I don't want to spend our few hours alone at night ignoring him by blogging.  And there's that other thing too.  We're moving!  It's kind of a time consumer.  Riley woke up at 3:15 and while feeding her I heard Ella go into our bedroom.  Well there's no way I'm going back in there.  When I go back to bed (if I go back to bed) Ella's tree house has my name on it.  I know she's sleeping on Brian's side, but I can't sleep knowing she's there.  It's 4 am now and I find myself wide awake and practically starving.  While eating my bowl of cereal I looked around at the mayhem that now surrounds me.  Boxes, yard sale junk, toys, unfolded laundry.  Is it possible that I could just close my eyes and when I open them that this will all just go away?  No such luck.  But it got me to thinking.

It's funny how moving makes you throw away things you once thought you could not live without.  For instance:  I threw away practically everything from our wedding.  It was in a box under the house and everything inside smelled like stale moldy cardboard.  Going through our wedding stuff went about like this, "(pictures)Oh, wow, look how skinny we were!" *toss in trash box* "Hey, this is the pattern to my dress!" *toss in trash box, take it back out, and reluctantly toss back* A folder with all of our flowers, cake and colors that we had ripped out of magazines *set aside to keep, only to toss it 5 minutes later*  Although I may regret this decision later, it's gone now.  I've moved on.  This time it's a box with keepsakes that my parents so prudently kept for me.  Old baby clothes, pictures that I colored and school reports.  I have to admit, all of my children have their own keepsake boxes too.  Yes, I chunked the baby clothes and some pictures.  But I'm not ready to throw away my entire childhood.  I actually managed to salvage some old toys for the kids to play with.  Ella has hit the Barbie jackpot.  I don't even think they make furniture like that anymore.  I mean I have a kitchen sink with a dishwasher that squirts water!  The Polly Pockets (the real ones that are about 1/2 in tall) may have to wait.  That kind of poses a choking hazard for Riley. 

The kids are getting more and more excited about the move.  At first Ella wasn't sure she wanted to move.  She was under the impression that her toys were not coming with her.  After clearing things up she's been OK. They have enjoyed being involved in the packing.  I'm not sure they are getting the concept of 'keep' or 'toss' when it comes to their toys though.  They are tossing things that I'm pretty sure they don't want to get rid of.  I'm planning on building them a huge fort as all the boxes stack up.  Maybe this will distract from the fact that most of their toys are packed and I've left them with only a few things to play with.  They've proven to not need the toys though.  They are thoroughly enjoying the empty boxes that I had so valiantly hunt for.  Note to anyone looking for boxes:  Shoe Carnival.  There's a dumpster in the back.  All you have to do is get a Wal-Mart buggy, turn it on it's side and hoist yourself in.  If someone happens to be taking their smoke break and happens to see you, just pretend you don't see them.  You're not doing anything wrong!  The boxes are yours for the taking, they were dumping them anyway and hey, it's recycling!  P.S.  They get their shipments on Monday, so Tuesday is your day to dive.  This is all just hypothetically speaking of course.  I definitely did not do this on Tuesday.  OK, maybe I did.