February 11, 2011 ~ Day 64 Embrace the Crazy

One of my closest friends who also has three small children likes to say, "Embrace the crazy!" I love the way she says this because it so describes how I feel about my life all of the time these days. Here is a good example of what I mean.

We moved to a new house yesterday (well, 80% moved in) on the day of an local city event which drew over 120,000 people to the neighborhood we were leaving. The roadways entering our town were like a parking lot for hours in the morning, while the roadways leaving our town were like a parking lot for hours in the evening. Despite this, my son and I managed to get through the throngs and back to our old house for a few hours at dusk to gather more boxes, bedding and kitchen items. We spent an hour using my old skateboard to roll the heaviest of boxes to our truck, since neither of us were able to lift them.

It took another 45 minutes to get back to our new house and by this time it was 8pm and we were famished and exhausted. We entered to find the other children covered in beans and rice, screaming their little heads off. The screaming was apparently infectious because shortly thereafter the oldest son (who had been sweet and helpful to me for the preceding 4 hours) started to shriek loudly as well, racing around crying and (unfortunately) hitting.

By 9pm I had managed to feed the children and get them bathed (after discovering that we'd also forgotten the shower curtain) but we discovered we had left the night lights at our our old house. This caused another hour of distress as my sons wept with dismay when they understood that they would have to sleep without their special lights. At 10:30 I began cleaning the kitchen and unpacking boxes and by 12am I realized that I was too tired to think straight so I finally got into the blessedly hot shower and almost fell asleep standing up.

Thankfully we have no working clocks yet in this house because I would surely have bawled my eyes out if I knew exactly what time it was when my husband accidentally woke me up in the middle of the night and then began to kick me in his sleep. It seemed like I had only just managed to fall asleep again when (still pitch dark outside) I began to hear the first morning hysteria of the new day - shrieking and screaming and crazy laughter from the bedroom that two of our children are now sharing. The new house is so small, they seemed to be screaming from either side of my head!

Before I knew it they had rushed into their brother's bedroom and were dragging him out of bed. "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" he wailed, "I'm sleeping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Bleary eyed, my husband wearily stretched and announced, "Ugh. Time to get started again with another long day. I NEED coffee."

We've now been awake for almost five hours and in that time I have broken up seven fights, given two time outs, iced my younger son's head from where his brother hit him with first a ball and then a door, unpacked boxes, somehow managed to get them all bathed, fed and dressed, researched a new electric dryer (as many of our old appliances will not work for the new house) and sadly forgotten to eat breakfast. It's time to leave now for my nephew's birthday party and we still have at least 5 more trucks full of stuff to bring from the old house today, not to mention 60 Valentines to make for my two sons' classes.

I still haven't found the box with my clothes so I've had to recycle most of yesterday's moving outfit, but I am thankful that we now have a dial tone. I'm thankful that tomorrow is a school day and I will have a break from the fighting between my sons for a few hours.

Before signing off though, here is a list of the top 5 best things about this weekend so far:

5) Beautiful glossy backed crows live in the large tree behind our home and land on the garage roof periodically. Like the neighbors, they have been warmly welcoming.
4) It is a beautiful sunny day and there are no massive city-wide events today, so moving should be easier.
3) Today is my nephew's birthday party and I am so grateful that my sister's entire family made the three hour drive south to help us move this weekend and even scheduled his party here so that they could be with us.
2) We have a brand new mattress for the first time in our nearly 9 years together! So far it seems pretty comfortable! Nothing like a good night of sleep (or at least a few pleasant hours...)
1) Despite all of the many things that are falling apart in this old house, we all love our new home and neighborhood.

More soon...