Thoughts on moving with kids:
One word – don’t
OK, sometimes you have no choice. We had to move, and the place we’re at now is WAAAAY better for our quirky needs.
Accessible bathroom – check
Wheelchair ramp – check
Accessible bedroom – check
Huge backyard for the kids to play in – check that too
Office for me – absolutely
So we’re now in what could be our dream house, of sorts, a haunted 1930’s house with a modern addition tacked on set on a huge property in the middle of our town. And we can see the lake from the end of our driveway.
But honestly, the kids would’ve been happy moving into an RV and roaming the continent. (Requests included Florida, Mexico, and Hawaii😉
What we’re left with is dealing with stuff. And there’s SOOOO much of it. It feels like we’re living in an episode of hoarders – furniture, boxes and clothes scattered all over the place. The day after our move, Hubby set up my office for me, and three days after our move and we still haven’t assembled the kids’ beds. They’re actually pretty happy sleeping in a heap of sleeping bags on the living room floor. (TV and internet services were set up even before we moved in.)
Of course, there’ve been a few glitches in our move. Like the fact that we have no hot water. It’s truly not the landlord’s fault, just a service repair issue (something to do with the flood that filled our basement on the night we moved in) and a now dysfunctional hot water heater. And given the fact that it’s a weekend and service people seem to take a while about these things, we haven’t had hot water for three days.
So we make due. My stove works, so do the kettles, so boiling water for doing dishes gives a whole rustic feel to the place. Welcome to our halfpastnormal life.
But if you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know we had some MAJOR issues with Uhaul. Now, I don’t want to disparage anyone, but if I’ve booked a 26’ truck and they confirmed the reservation, and then switched it to a 9’ van that I had to pick up in another town half an hour a way, I have a right to be pissed off.
Can you imagine fitting all the crap six people have in a 9’ van? I think not.
So Uhaul tried to fix things, apparently. Last reservation showed a booking in a town over two hours away. A total of four hours of driving to pick up and drop off, plus loading all my stuff.
Uh, no.
Fortunately my local smalltown storage company came through; I got a small truck and did a few runs over a couple days with some heavy backbreaking lifting by Hubby.
In short, we made it work.
And this, my friends, is our halfpastnormal life – aka the land of special needs. Stuff happens, things don’t go according to plan, and some flexible thinking, hard work, and stick-with-it-to-itness (yes, it’s a word) are what carries you through. Some of my Christian friends might call it grace and perseverance.
But it’s what special needs parents go through every day.
Welcome to it. Halfpastnormal is who we all are.