Thursday, March 25, 2010

Moving Day


Happy Fatherhood Friday everyone! After you've finished reading this post, be sure to drink your ovaline "move" on over to dad-blogs.com to visit the great bloggers over there.

So last weekend was the big moving weekend. After many, many late nights of packing (I was puttying a small crack in the ceiling at 2:30 am on moving day), a bazillion phone calls, and a 2 week delay due to water leakage, we took the "plunge".

We were very fortunate to have the assistance--and extra hands--of Gramm-E and Grampap. Without them, I'm sure Mom-E and I would've both spontaneously combusted by now.

We took some extra precautions on moving day to ensure the happiness of small children, including 1) having brought over most of the toys to the house before the big move, so that the boys would have plenty to play with, and 2) a semi-planned picnic lunch on the porch from Subway, the semi un-official restaurant of Big and Little Brother.

All-and-all, the day went pretty smoothly.

Pupp-E was transported to the groomers for the day. Having to deal with his "Hey, where'd my house go?" was much easier than constant barking and having to corral him from the movers.

The boys didn't freak out at all of their stuff being loaded onto a big truck. In fact, they rather enjoyed watching an 18-wheeler up close. Big Brother had his usual 10,000 questions about the process.

Of course there were a few little scratches and dings, and a few grease spots on the carpet (NOTE TO MOVERS: perhaps it wasn't the best idea to carry the grill THROUGH the living room), but at least nothing broke.

Big Brother had also prepared himself a backpack of his favorite toys. This came in very handy when the two of us stayed behind to do a little vacuuming/sleeping/ grease-stain removing/etc. Okay, so I did the cleaning and he played with toys, but he did a TREMENDOUS job of entertaining himself.

And so eventually we all made it to the new house, and the truck was unloaded by lunchtime. (They estimated 7 hours total, but finished in 5, which is nice when you're paying by the hour.)

Then began the arduous task of starting to unpack.

And again, to my amazement, the boys continued to play and have a good time, enjoying seeing things set-up in their new rooms.

***
But then dinner time rolled around. In retrospect, it's clear that dinner time is synonymous with "meltdown time" at our house. Small children are tired and hungry, sometimes too hungry to eat. And when small children are tired they get HYPER.

This was made worse by the fact that the kids started to go into "TV WITHDRAWAL"!

Let me make it clear that overall we restrict TV watching at our house. But the boys really like to watch a cartoon or 2 in the morning over breakfast. It just helps them morph from "zombie" into "human."

But obviously the night before the move, the cable was disconnected and the TV was packed up, so they didn't get their morning fill of cartoons.

*At this point, think about how you'd feel without your morning coffee/tea/caffeiene.*

Then the boys saw me unpack and start to set-up the TV.

The only problem is that small children don't understand that just because the TV is plugged in, does not mean that Dad-E can make Wow Wow Wubbzy appear until the cable man sets things up.

"HONEY, DINNER'S READY!"

As always, everything happens at dinnertime. The baby is hungry. Another child poops. Yet another child wants to change into jammies. Then the child who pooped wants to put on jammies, too. A load of delicate-needs-to-be-folded-immediately-or-it-will-be-wrinkled-forever laundry is done. AND I WANT TO WATCH WUBBZY! NOW!

And so, dinner starts with your choice of the above, plus screams for "I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE OLD HOUSE (TO WATCH WUBBZY!")

(We didn't even try to explain that their wasn't a TV at the old house.)

And so, we took Belushi's advice from Animal House, "I suggest you start drinking. Heavily." (Okay, so we had one drink with dinner--the adults that is--except for Mom-E, to avoid Bab-E Brother drinking by proxy.)

Eventually, the meltdown moments passed, and we enjoyed the rest of dinner.

All said, I'd be very content to not have to move again for A LONG time!

Have a good weekend,
Busy-Dad-E

13 comments:

  1. Moving with three small children sounds delightful! Actually you seem to have kept your sense of humor, which is a very good thing! I only want to move once more (God forbid) and that is into my dream house . . . or a one level townhouse so I never have to go up and down stairs to do laundry ever again. I hope the TV is hooked up soon. :)

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  2. moving is stressful enough WITHOUT kids...i probably would have had a meltdown right along w the boys. LOL

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  3. If I am remembering correctly moving day causes me to have dinner time melt-downs too. Thank goodness for the Blues Brothers' motto!

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  4. Nice post. We moved last summer. Still unpacking boxes.

    James (at www.doodadblog.com)

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  5. I'm glad that this day is behind you. Moving day is so exciting and stressful and tiring and the list goes on. Good luck in the new house. I hope you have many years of happiness and great memories there.

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  6. Moving is SO CRAZY! I'm glad you guys survived and that you had some good help. Here's to love, happiness, and laughter in the new home! Love, aunt-e

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  7. I haven't had the pleasure of moving while we had our daughter. Kudos to you for making through the madness.

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  8. I agree with my sister-in-law. When we helped them move 4 years ago, she explained to me, in no uncertain terms:

    "The next time somebody moves me, it's going to be in a coffin."

    We moved to OR 8 years ago. 600 mile long move with 6 (at the time) kids, the oldest of which was just barely 12. Yeah, I'm with her. Coffin ... or Straightjacket. Other than that, I'm good where I am!

    Glad it went as smoothly as it did for you!

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  9. That is an epic undertaking moving and cleaning the old place. Well done making it through with some semblance of sanity

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  10. Grammy and Grampap had more than one drink :) It was that hour of fussiness that usually lands at about dinner time, and it made for a good excuse....haha. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with the bus-E moving family. Great bonding time with the boys too. Got to help Mom-E construct her valances on the mounting boards for the piano room. She did a great job of sewing those. They look GOOD!! Couldn't believe you and Grampap got the whole garage moved and organized in the new garage in one evening. I thought it was pretty amazing that by the time we left, there were only a handful of boxes left to unpack.

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  11. I love the "laundry that must be attended to NOW or it will be forever RUINED!!!" We have those moments at our house all the time - courtesy of my hubby, interestingly. I somehow manage not to let laundry cause me to jump over hurdles. Heaven knows there are enough other hurdle-jumping happenings to deal with!

    Just linked over to your blog from Weaselville. Enjoyed the read! And good luck in your new digs!

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  12. @Surprised Mom: We had the laundry room placed on the second floor of this house, right in between all of the bedrooms, which is really nice.

    @Ciara: Wine prevented my meltdown.

    @Seashore Subjects: Yes, thank goodness for Belushi.

    @SAHD PDX: Epic is truly the right word.

    @WM: We love it already.

    @DooDad: Yes, those last few boxes just linger and linger and linger.

    @Aunt-E: Thanks.

    @EdathomeDad: Thanks.

    @Goofdad: Funny but true. I'm thankful we only moved 20 minutes and not 600 miles.

    @Gramm-E: Couldn't've done it without you.

    @MandE: Glad you enjoyed it. Appreciate it.

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  13. I loved the: We had a drink with dinner ... OK, just the adults ... well, not mom. Haha. You mean YOU had a drink with dinner! Great post, mate. I read it closely, as I'm about to move with my family (albeit with just one newborn). We are moving 3,000 miles across the country. How stupid are we!?

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