House-moving and a Helpful Toddler
We’re moving house. Again.
I haven’t lived longer than two years at any one address since I moved out of my parents’ place. And I’ve lived at eleven addresses since then. In mocking poetry, we’re moving our stuff out of this house two years to the day since it had been moved in. I desperately hope we can stay in our new home for more than two years. I’m beginning to feel hexed.
We simply outgrew this place. It’s not toddler-friendly. There’s nothing for Timmy to do inside because the house is so small, so we don’t have much in the way of entertainment (we don’t even have a TV, but that’s deliberate, and a different issue), and we can’t let him loose outside because our ‘lawn’ is a silly grassy moat wrapped around the house, so Timmy just takes off down the driveway…which is shared with two other homes, five other cars, and has several blind spots to it.
The new house has a fenced backyard, so whenever Timmy starts his characteristic screeching (I think he’s proud of how loud and shrill his voice can go, and likes to demonstrate it) we can turf him outside to use up his energy, without my having to hang over his shoulder like a helicopter parent in the name of safety. I also like that the side panel of the pantry is a blackboard…and Timmy got a duster and some coloured chalks for Christmas, so we’re all set!
But before all that excitement, and improvement, and better life…I have this one. Drowning in boxes, and boxes, and boxes. It’s depressing (my demeanour is directly affected by light, heat, and space — and there’s no space to be had in this house right now), cumbersome, and so much harder when done around two small children, one of whom unpacks boxes as fast as I can put things into them.
It’s overwhelming to think of everything that has to happen in the next week. I’m hoping that if I just sit here for a week, drinking coffee with my eyes shut, when I open them I’ll find everything’s magically been done and I’m in the new house.
I’m hoping Timmy’s barbaric behaviour will settle when he’s in a home with space to run around, and can enjoy his Christmas presents of bouncy balls and a paddling pool. The good news is that he seems to be more accepting of Daniel now — he doesn’t regard him as the impostor who steals his mother’s attention.
Nowadays, it seems he even tries to help. When Daniel was hollering in hunger (I was preparing his bottle at the time, but apparently being too slow about it), Timmy pulled off a piece of his own jam sandwich and put it in Daniel’s mouth. Daniel’s first experience of solid food. He looked confused, but not horrified. He didn’t swallow it, but at least he was quiet and occupied as he rolled the morsel over his tongue while I finished getting his bottle ready.
Timmy finds ways to help in other matters, too. We’ve been having monstrously hot weather, and Daniel was miserable, as despite my having all the windows and doors open, I couldn’t get the house below 30 degrees. (That’s 86 degrees, for you Fahrenheit folk.) When Daniel’s crying suddenly stopped, I looked over to see Timmy standing over him, shaking a sippy cup so drops of water splashed onto him.
I’m hopeful that Timmy next demonstrates skill in changing a nappy.
I wanted to get this blog entry posted before the house move, because I expect we’ll be well into 2014 before I have the time, space, and energy coinciding in which to post another one. But since my mother has kindly taken Timmy away so I can get some packing done, I suppose I should actually get some packing done…rather than sitting at my computer, writing a blog entry while eating M&Ms and thinking of coffee.
We hope you all had a merry Christmas! The next entry will be coming to you from an exciting new place! Well, no it won’t. It’ll be typed at the same computer. In a house that’s in the same town. But I expect the person typing it will be much happier and more relaxed, which is an exciting prospect in itself.
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