We are moved. I guess. The house is full of boxes, but we're all here and living in this new space as best we can. The last two weeks have been absolutely insane, and it's all caught up with me today. Wes and I have slept a lot in the last 24 hours. Wes, after his first shift as an attending, went to bed at 6:45pm last night and slept about 12 hours. I clocked in with ten, though broken up by Oliver, who called for me at 12:30am and 3:30am. Ollie had a normal night (save for the excessive wakings) but then napped from 9:30am until almost 1pm, took an afternoon nap, and now is down for bed. This after nights of staying up late to visit with in-laws, upack boxes to find x, y, or z, prepare for interviews and first meetings at work, attend an ED event (that's emergency department, not...the other ED).
Moving was easier on the leaving end than the arriving. The movers came and packed and loaded us in about four hours on Tuesday. Ollie and I sat in the park and napped and read, respectively, while Wes kept Lucy out of trouble. We spent that afternoon cleaning the condo to the best of our ability (um, yeah, we'll be losing some of that deposit...), then took off the next morning after packing a very tight car and buying some dry ice to transport 276 oz. of breastmilk (yes, it made it!). The drive was mercifully uneventful, followed by a dip in the pool at the La Quinta where we stayed and dinner at the Cracker Barrel next door. On Thursday, we did the walk through and closed on the house in the morning. I took off for Georgia to spend some time with my sister-in-law and my two nephews, and Wes met his mother and took off for North Carolina and Virginia, where they, along with his father, visited some storage lockers to bring back furniture for the house.
We all reconvened at the house very late on Saturday. My trip back to Nashville was fraught with near disaster. The baby went down for his nap just as we took off, which had been my plan. Then, about 90 minutes from home and in some of the more mountainous parts of the drive, we hit a downpour. I could hardly see, and everyone was going about 30 mph. There was a truck ahead of me with his flashers on, so I decided to follow him at a safe distance as a way of guiding me. We made it through the storm unscathed, though I was very tense through the experience. Welcome back to driving, especially in the South, I guess. Just past the deluge, we hit standstill traffic. Someone else had not been so lucky in the rain and had spun off the road and hit a tree. The accident must have just happened as the emergency vehicles came right after we stopped. This, unfortunately, was right when Oliver woke up from his nap -- wet, hungry, and not interested in sitting still with no company in the back seat. We sat long enough that I felt comfortable pulling him out of his carseat, changing him, and trying to nurse -- at which point the cars started to move. A lot of people pulled across the median and got on the interstate in the opposite direction. But I wasn't confident that the car would make it across the soaked grass and didn't know where I would go if I got across. So we sat. We were there about an hour before traffic really got moving. Oliver screamed at least the last fifteen minutes of it, and by the end, I was crying, too, and making deals with him if he'd stop. He calmed down once we got through the standstill and was fine the rest of the way home. Then I almost hit another car getting onto 440 on a left-lane entry ramp and got so low on gas I wasn't sure if we were going to make it off the exit to a gas station. Upon arriving home, I found that the garage door openers wouldn't work, the air had been turned off (thanks, hon) so the house was around 90 degrees, and the water wasn't working (the water company had, for reasons still unclear, shut it off, though it had been on Friday when Wes and his mom left). I couldn't sleep and stayed up until after midnight, when Wes and his parents rolled in.
By Sunday afternoon, though, the garage door openers were working (they had been locked from inside), the air was cranking, and the water problem had been resolved by a water tech, who evidently came and went without announcing himself. We'd also had all our goods delivered, which meant we could enjoy our dinner -- conveniently from the local pizza place -- with plates and glasses on the kitchen table retrieved from the storage locker.
A week later, we're still unpacking. We bought a new vacuum that would be gentle on our hardwood floors, worked out the cell phone/home phone situation so we can reliably make and receive phone calls in our house, and got a new washer and dryer. Wes has started work, and I interviewed for a research assistantship to help pay for grad school. I've visited with an old friend who lives in Nashville and another who was traveling through as she visited family and some nearby friends. I know where the grocery store is and the closest gas station, but I'd probably still need a map to get to Target or Home Depot.
Wes and I keep reminding ourselves that it will take time. Time for him to feel comfortable in his new job and with his new responsibilities. Time for us to get completely unpacked and do the things we want to the house to make it completely ours. Time to meet all the neighbors. Time to get used to the speed at which things happen down here (the trip to the vacuum store alone was nearly 45 minutes). Time to just -- be.
This is the first move I've done as a mom, and it has its challenges and merits. It's hard packing and unpacking with a little person underfoot. It's hard stopping all that "needs" done to play with him and give him my undivided attention. It's hard to remember that even at his age, he senses the changes and might have some anxiety about all the new places he's been in the course of the move. But it's somehow more exciting, too. It's fun to show him his new house and show Lucy her new backyard, something she's never had before. It's fun to take them both to the park or show them off to neighbors. It's fun to see other little people in the neighborhood and envision them as Oliver's future playmates.
More than anything it's weird to realize that this is now our home, a house that we own. We bought a mower, and Wes mowed the lawn -- the first time that's happened in probably eight years. We're picking paint colors for a few rooms and talking about which windows might need replacing in the next few years. This isn't an assignment. It's not a program. It's just life as we now know it. Marriage, house, and kid. And here we are.
Moving was easier on the leaving end than the arriving. The movers came and packed and loaded us in about four hours on Tuesday. Ollie and I sat in the park and napped and read, respectively, while Wes kept Lucy out of trouble. We spent that afternoon cleaning the condo to the best of our ability (um, yeah, we'll be losing some of that deposit...), then took off the next morning after packing a very tight car and buying some dry ice to transport 276 oz. of breastmilk (yes, it made it!). The drive was mercifully uneventful, followed by a dip in the pool at the La Quinta where we stayed and dinner at the Cracker Barrel next door. On Thursday, we did the walk through and closed on the house in the morning. I took off for Georgia to spend some time with my sister-in-law and my two nephews, and Wes met his mother and took off for North Carolina and Virginia, where they, along with his father, visited some storage lockers to bring back furniture for the house.
We all reconvened at the house very late on Saturday. My trip back to Nashville was fraught with near disaster. The baby went down for his nap just as we took off, which had been my plan. Then, about 90 minutes from home and in some of the more mountainous parts of the drive, we hit a downpour. I could hardly see, and everyone was going about 30 mph. There was a truck ahead of me with his flashers on, so I decided to follow him at a safe distance as a way of guiding me. We made it through the storm unscathed, though I was very tense through the experience. Welcome back to driving, especially in the South, I guess. Just past the deluge, we hit standstill traffic. Someone else had not been so lucky in the rain and had spun off the road and hit a tree. The accident must have just happened as the emergency vehicles came right after we stopped. This, unfortunately, was right when Oliver woke up from his nap -- wet, hungry, and not interested in sitting still with no company in the back seat. We sat long enough that I felt comfortable pulling him out of his carseat, changing him, and trying to nurse -- at which point the cars started to move. A lot of people pulled across the median and got on the interstate in the opposite direction. But I wasn't confident that the car would make it across the soaked grass and didn't know where I would go if I got across. So we sat. We were there about an hour before traffic really got moving. Oliver screamed at least the last fifteen minutes of it, and by the end, I was crying, too, and making deals with him if he'd stop. He calmed down once we got through the standstill and was fine the rest of the way home. Then I almost hit another car getting onto 440 on a left-lane entry ramp and got so low on gas I wasn't sure if we were going to make it off the exit to a gas station. Upon arriving home, I found that the garage door openers wouldn't work, the air had been turned off (thanks, hon) so the house was around 90 degrees, and the water wasn't working (the water company had, for reasons still unclear, shut it off, though it had been on Friday when Wes and his mom left). I couldn't sleep and stayed up until after midnight, when Wes and his parents rolled in.
By Sunday afternoon, though, the garage door openers were working (they had been locked from inside), the air was cranking, and the water problem had been resolved by a water tech, who evidently came and went without announcing himself. We'd also had all our goods delivered, which meant we could enjoy our dinner -- conveniently from the local pizza place -- with plates and glasses on the kitchen table retrieved from the storage locker.
A week later, we're still unpacking. We bought a new vacuum that would be gentle on our hardwood floors, worked out the cell phone/home phone situation so we can reliably make and receive phone calls in our house, and got a new washer and dryer. Wes has started work, and I interviewed for a research assistantship to help pay for grad school. I've visited with an old friend who lives in Nashville and another who was traveling through as she visited family and some nearby friends. I know where the grocery store is and the closest gas station, but I'd probably still need a map to get to Target or Home Depot.
Wes and I keep reminding ourselves that it will take time. Time for him to feel comfortable in his new job and with his new responsibilities. Time for us to get completely unpacked and do the things we want to the house to make it completely ours. Time to meet all the neighbors. Time to get used to the speed at which things happen down here (the trip to the vacuum store alone was nearly 45 minutes). Time to just -- be.
This is the first move I've done as a mom, and it has its challenges and merits. It's hard packing and unpacking with a little person underfoot. It's hard stopping all that "needs" done to play with him and give him my undivided attention. It's hard to remember that even at his age, he senses the changes and might have some anxiety about all the new places he's been in the course of the move. But it's somehow more exciting, too. It's fun to show him his new house and show Lucy her new backyard, something she's never had before. It's fun to take them both to the park or show them off to neighbors. It's fun to see other little people in the neighborhood and envision them as Oliver's future playmates.
More than anything it's weird to realize that this is now our home, a house that we own. We bought a mower, and Wes mowed the lawn -- the first time that's happened in probably eight years. We're picking paint colors for a few rooms and talking about which windows might need replacing in the next few years. This isn't an assignment. It's not a program. It's just life as we now know it. Marriage, house, and kid. And here we are.
