Nov 20, 2011

Another move, but this time with a baby

I'm really not a stranger to moving. I know that I've done it more than 20 times in my life ... that's an average of every 2 years or so. Some have been little, like the university student moving from one hall of residence to another. Some have been massive, like the move from the U.K. to Singapore or from Switzerland to South Korea. 


In every case, I've always made it a point to get my new home in order as quickly as possible. I think this is partly due to my "Monica (from friends)" Personality to have a neat and tidy space, and partly due to the lack of any place I can truly call "home", and so "home" is where I lay my hat. That means whenever I have a new home, I make it as nice, comfortable and homie as quickly as possible. Usually, that means a maximum of two days from the moment the movers have dumped all my boxes in the space, to the last picture hanging on the walls. I know: I'm an over-achiever.


This time, it has been a new experience. Moving with a recently mobile baby is no joke. I started packing boxes about 2 weeks before the date. I normally would have some men come into the house and pack the boxes for me. But this time, we were paying for our own move. I figured we could save about a thousand dollars by simply packing our own stuff. Plus, it meant that I could really sort through everything, be selective, and throw a bunch of stuff out. I.e. if we never use it, don't pack it but pass it on.


We were mostly successful in the passing it on. I told my hubby that if we don't really love it, it goes. So I made a bunch of people in the facebook mommy group I'm part of very happy with free or cheap things. Even the dog lost her cage, which was substituted with a nice pillow (we figure that at nearly 8, she's old enough to hang out in the house without destroying everything).


Of course, packing while watching a baby isn't easy. I leaned on lots of friends to help watch him while I packed. They were great, although baby-boy is getting stuck on separation anxiety, and for a while it was difficult for me to even step out of his sight for a second. But I found that one of my girlfriends, who's a mom to two and an auntie/nanny to dozens more, was able to keep baby-boy happy and entertained. So I got some stuff done.


Even after the move, it really has only taken us three days to get somewhat settled. There remain only two small boxes to be unpacked, labelled "junk to sort". These are the tricky things we hold on to like a deck of Tarot cards. Never use them, but reminds me of my teenage years. Hard to let go. We also still have some furniture and baby things earmarked to pass on but the new owners either couldn't take it now, or the products haven't found new owners yet. I can always give them to the Salvation Army, but for now, they're safely in my storage area.


The baby room, as of today, is entirely finished, and I think baby-boy really appreciated it. We even bought him a horrible PVC roll-down blind for this week while we wait on our nice wood blinds to arrive. Just to make it dark enough in his room that he knows it's night and ought to be sleeping. The rest of the house is mostly done. We bought a new bookcase from Ikea (our old one lasted some 10+ years! Not bad for 150 bucks). All that remains is a towel rail for our bathroom, and the pictures to be hung on the walls.


The baby-boy is doing well today, after about two weeks of a horrendous cough and sniffles. I think the move threw him off on top of it all, and he spent the first two nights in our new home screaming at the top of his lungs at 1 a.m. The first night it took us two hours to settle him down. Yesterday, I managed in about 15 minutes, although it did take me getting up several times for the next hour. Tonight, he refused to go to bed by himself (usually not a problem). I'm hoping that it gets better soon, since I'm not a fan of sleep training. Mostly, I am trying to be there for him as much as possible now that the bulk of the move is done. The last few boxes can wait. It's more important that baby-boy is happy.


For the rest: I'm at least two weeks behind on my paper - my co-author even asked me if I was doing ok. I hope to get it done next week. Hubby promised me some down time.

1 comment:

  1. I've learned that I've come to rely on moving to help purge the accumulation that occurs. The issue now is that we haven't moved in five years. I am on the verge of a purging now....can't stand the accumulation and it multiplies with kids. We don't even buy toys for our kids, they all come to them as gifts and hand me downs. Ack.

    Congrats on the new homestead, great to see you back on the blog. :)

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