Moving With A Child

Moving is rarely a fun thing.  You try to pack ahead of time making sure to put like items from the same room into the same box.  You take the time labeling them with what’s inside so when you start to unpack you’re not wasting time searching boxes for that pair of shoes you need for work the day after the move.  You make sure not to overload boxes with too many books so it’s too heavy to carry and the boxes you put dishes in are marked fragile.  This is always the idea when moving but rarely is the case.  Instead you start scrambling the night before the movers are coming, throwing whatever you can grab into half taped boxes.  Cramming socks and underwear into the spaces between the crock pot and food mixer, you hope nothing breaks or comes out smelling like your feet.  And you can forget about labeling the boxes with any type of system whatsoever.

The rushing, scrambling and grabbing is exactly what it’s like when trying to pack with a 3 month old child the entire time.  Our son would cry in fear every time we stretched the tape across the seams of the boxes.  He wouldn’t stop crying until either my wife or I would stop what we were doing and cradle him letting him know it was only the tape dispenser making the horrific noise.  One of us would pack boxes once home from work while the other made sure our son was occupied so he wouldn’t cry every time we finished a box.  It was a slow process as we put together about two boxes a night starting the week before our move.

The view from our back porch.

Of course his room was the first to get done so everything of his was neatly packed, nicely labeled and organized in his room awaiting moving day.  Meanwhile my wife and I had packed our desk and that was it.  Two nights before the move we decided crying or no crying we had to get things done.  Items started flying into boxes and boxes were filling up.  We didn’t know what was going where and didn’t care as long as everything made it into a box and got to our new place we were happy.  The morning of the move arrived and the movers began and all I had to do was stand back and watch.

Now here we are one week later and still trying to wade through boxes and find things we don’t remember putting where.  The essentials have been unpacked, but until last night I still hadn’t found the book I had been reading because it was packed in some random box and the dining room is still a danger zone only the dog ventures into.  We moved because we wanted a better place for our son.  We wanted to live in an apartment where the roof didn’t leak every time it rained and we didn’t have to lug our laundry to the building next door and have it come out of the dryer smelling like cigarettes.  Now I’m still building his new furniture in his bedroom while digging my clothes out of unpacked boxes and having to order every meal because we haven’t had time to shop let alone unpack most of our kitchen.

The river in the park near our new apartment.

So far though, it has been worth the hassle.  There is an amazing park along the river just a block away where we can take walks on paved paths and since we have had to eat out so much we have been able to explore the great ethnic restaurants in our new neighborhood.  Plus, now that we have the extra bedroom that doesn’t over heat in the summer and the winter my son can finally enjoy his own bedroom once his mother allows him to sleep in it.