(no subject)

[rivka]

It's been a long slog of a weekend (and I should be packing right now, not posting to LJ) but we've made fantastic progress. It's quite satisfying to watch everything come together - to look around a room and think, "Well, there's not much more I can actually pack in here."

We got the keys to the new house on Friday afternoon. Friday evening I ceremoniously carried the first box over (Christmas ornaments - light, but bulky and fragile and incredibly in the way) and put it in the basement. We've loaded some other things directly into the basement, moved some of Alex's toys so she'd have something to play with when we're at the new house, and put a dozen boxes of books onto the built-in shelves in the master bedroom. A few hundred books sure make a room look lived-in, even when it doesn't have any furniture in it.

Astounding progress on the Old Home front: we (mostly Michael) totally cleared out our crawlspace storage area, which had been packed to the gills. We've thrown out ungodly amounts of junk. Another carload of stuff went to Goodwill and to The Book Thing, a free-book giveaway. Michael recycled a huge pile of ancient computer components. We disassembled the bed and wardrobe in the guest room. And box after box has been packed: baby toys and blankets, framed photos, booze (cartons 1 and 2), piano music, manuals for all our electronics, candles and candleholders.

It's kind of amazing that we've given or thrown so much away, and still have so much stuff left over. SO MUCH stuff. Even after we've packed the rational collections of possessions into boxes, there is so much left that's just... misc.

Alex is the healthiest sick kid I've ever seen. She's clingy, and congested, but not notably ill-appearing. We have still chosen to follow our normal sick-kid rule of unlimited TV, because it makes moving much more convenient and because we are bad parents.

It's hilarious to watch her try to game the rules. She's ostentatiously sick when she wants to watch videos or have her pacifier at sometime other than bedtime.[1] On the other hand, she isn't sick when she wants to help cook dinner and get her germy hands all over our food. She got her signals crossed yesterday and insisted at length that she wasn't sick in order to get a glass of milk... which I would've given her just for the asking, given that her stomach isn't affected this time. I guess she remembers that milk was prohibited when she had that stomach bug.

She's taking the move really well. She likes going over to the new house, and helped me unpack some books and scrub down the pantry shelves. (Either the new landlord decided not to send a cleaning crew because time was short and we really wanted to get in there, or he needs to fire his cleaners.) She doesn't seem at all concerned about leaving some of her toys there. We'll see how she takes the actual transfer of all our possessions, and the part where she actually has to sleep in her new room.

Me, I'm so excited about sleeping in my new room. As long as the curtains I ordered get here before Thursday, which is moving day. Yaaaaaay, new house!

[1] I know, I know, she should've given up the paci long ago. See "bad parents," above.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

You're the best bad parents I've ever met.

Good to see things are going so well. May it all continue to be so.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

my sister had a pacifier, i didn't.

i am thirtyfive and still bite my fingernails.

she never has.

i say, don't let her take the pacifier to college.

also, my mother says that watching electric company and sesame street while she was on bedrest were how i learned to read at the ripe old age of two.

i say make that kid watch more television.

[carbonel]

I sucked my fingers (index and middle) until I was an adult (in private, mind you, once I became old enough for it not to be socially acceptable), then one day realized I'd given up the habit without ever being aware of it.

As a result, subsequent children in my famiy were allowed to keep their pacifiers, on the theory that at least that was an external object and therefore not as likely to be kept as a long-term habit.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Be interesting to see if moving so close makes things easier (same neighborhood, same parks, same stores) or harder (seeing the old house all the time and saying "why can't we go home _there_".

[ailbhe]

Breastfeeding until self-weaned == good thing, so surely pacifier use until not needed == good thing? Unless this is the "she only does it for comfort" argument, which I loathe. Babies and children are entitled to comfort, also not to do all their growing up at once, and heaven knows Alex has done a lot of growing up.

But you are, natch, still a bad parent, what with being still a parent and all.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

So when you do the big move, are you actually close enough to carry the couch from one house to the other? Is it next-door, or just in the nearby neighborhood?

I’m glad you’re a bad momma. It’s the “good” ones that are insufferable.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It's literally next door. See the top photo in this post? (http://rivka.livejournal.com/410041.html) That's our current study window visible at the extreme left.

That said, even though it's so close, we're still hiring movers. At our age (and our friends' ages) it doesn't seem the Done Thing anymore to just put out a call for strong backs and have your friends carry all your furniture. Plus, (a) I'd like to have our nicer pieces handled by people who know what they're doing, and (b) there's a strong chance that some things will have to be hoisted on ropes and brought through the second-floor window. Which is totally a job for professionals.

[(Anonymous)]

Bad parent schmad parent. You do what you gotta, and I'd be doing the same thing, so I support you wholeheartedly!

--Nara