The Move

As many of you know, we moved! We packed up all our stuff, willed it to explode out the front door of our one-bedroom apartment, and then it all marched into a moving truck, and then that truck drove to our new house in our new city.

Our new house is an adorable old house. It is one of several houses that belong to a family who refuse to let the city tear down their childhood homes to make way for the light rail. We live in the aunt’s house, which is next door to our landlord’s childhood home. It makes me feel like I’m part of taking a stand for history. Or something. Since they refused to back down, the city altered the street instead, and built the light rail. We can walk out our front door, across the yard, across the street, to the light rail station.

When we first considered the house, I could not decide if I liked the idea of living so close to the rail station. On one hand, for a one car family, being so close to safe and comfortable public transportation could make for lots of fun day trips. On the other hand… well, at this point, the other hand can be in charge of holding my rail pass because I’m sold. And how memorable for Ezra to be able to look out the window and watch the train come and go, watch the funny people get on and off, and pack up his little backpack to spend the morning downtown with mommy or go to a baseball game with Daddy.

So we’re here.

I am not one of those people who is organized about moving. In fact, the morning of the move, I actually resorted to running my arm along various surfaces with a box to catch everything that was left to pack. Our friends showed up to help at 8, and we were loaded up by 1o. We might be disorganized, but we’re lightning fast.

Now we’re on the end of things where I pay for my disorganized method. So far, I have generated three donation boxes (large ones), and one box for consignment. We have a breakfast nook and a dining room, and neither one is arranged properly yet. So Steven and I had our pasta and wine in the living room tonight.

Gah I’m disorganized.

Sometimes I wish I was one of those bloggers who can list “Ten Ways to Conduct an Organized Move.” Not me. My boxes are mislabeled. I started throwing tissue paper everywhere thinking I’d found my mixer. Gingerbread men are in desperate need of baking. But no. The box marked “Mixer” was actually full of a bunch of glass and tchotchkes. My stuff is crazy. I am crazy. My baby is crazy–Bubba stopped sleeping through the night and now prefers to spend the early morning in our bed. Woe is me.

I actually threw a crying fit after Steven got home from work today, and I wish I could blame it on sleep deprivation, but mostly it happened because I do not handle change well. Our house is never going to be in order again. Ezra is a lunatic (yes, a lunatic). I hate the closest grocery store. Their produce is a joke. I miss my mommy friends. I still don’t have a &^%$ washer and dryer, so I resorted to handwashing diapers today since we’ve run out of disposables, and I thought I’d be brave. The hookups downstairs are mocking me. I know I joked about slapping diapers against rocks in the creek out back in a previous blog entry, but now the joke’s on me because I am just about there. When I finally do get my washer, no one on earth is going to be more grateful. Handwashing poopy diapers with a friggin bucket and plunger SUCKS. I know women in third world countries do laundry in the creek, but I am such an American.

Today was not a good day for me.

Grace is new every morning. But lucky for me, grace came a little early for me in the form of bedtime for the lunatic, a beautiful glass of red, and a husband who happily agreed to wash the dishes. I think he was looking for an excuse to escape for a moment… but, hey, the dishes got washed.

As dramatic as my breakdown was this afternoon, Ezra isn’t actually a lunatic. He’s really handling this whole thing pretty well, though I do wish he would sleep through the friggin night again. Grandma sent some fun new toys, a Little People Nativity. We spent the morning sorting through that. He is hilarious and adorable and thinks everything goes in his mouth (and please ignore my singing voice–singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider is the one surefire way of eliciting a smile my little monster).

After Steven finished washing the dishes, he sat down with me. I confessed to him my dreams for our home, and how disappointed I was about how Ezra’s first Christmas was shaping up, or deflating before my very eyes, as it were. We agreed to buy a Christmas tree and decorate it on Christmas Eve, and we might have Ezra unwrap his presents on New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t really matter because all he’s going to want to do is eat the wrapping paper. He’s six months old. He doesn’t know the difference, and he doesn’t care.

So here we are. This move has been incredibly stressful. My good friend prayed for us and described it as “tentacles” reaching out to hinder our movement. But I am glad we are here, and this house is so lovely and perfect for us, and Steven’s job is wonderful. I keep thinking of the Israelites, and how I used to say, “Oh, why couldn’t they just trust?” and how now that I am not a child anymore, I say, “I so get why you complained and wondered if you should head back to slavery in Egypt, Israelites. Because at least in Egypt, you weren’t slapping diapers on rocks and eating what-is-it that falls from the sky and wishing your infant son would just go to sleeeeeep.”

I so get it. But then I remember to take it a day at a time, to wait for manna, to not second-guess God’s call for us to go in and take the Promised Land. So here’s one day lived in the desert, in which everything is provided and everything happens under God’s sovereignty. And here’s one day that I am grateful is finally coming to a close because grace is new every morning.

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