On Moving and Other Tortures

Do you know what I realized while driving to the Southland? We have moved THREE TIMES in the past five years. And I have done all the packing each and every time. And my stuff just keeps accumulating exponentially, even though I throw out and give away unused stuff ALL THE TIME. Ugh. And I'm pretty sure that by the time I unpack it all again the stuff will have doubled itself again and be found to be overflowing with mismatched tupperwear, parts of toys, random socks and little used household items like vegetable choppers and toenail curlers and the like.

During the first of the three moves, I was six months pregnant with Gabe and we hadn't even collected all the weird baby paraphanalia (that we never used) like cribs and what not. I didn't yet KNOW about the babywearing devices (I now own three), car seats (five so far), bath seats and tubs (two), beds and chairs (Bouncy seat, check. Baby Moses basket, check.) And all this before the children ever develop preferences of their own. That is when the trouble begins in earnest. Each mini (or major) obsession is accompanied with a minimum of three books and a series of action figures, coloring books, stickers and so on.

I have experienced just a handful of these obsessions with my young brood so far. There was the Baby Einstein (otherwise known as Baby CRACK COCAINE) period, followed closely by Bob the Builder and then Dragon Tales. We also have endured brief love affairs with Spider Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all things John Deere and farm implement related and a short but sweet train obsession. We have most recently seen a lasting appreciation for Scooby Doo and Batman and a sibling shared appreciation for freakin' Dora and her do-gooder cousin Diego. Quin has already developed a scary appreciation for Hello Kitty and all things baby related. She received THREE dolly strollers for Christmas last year. She wasn't even two yet! I have seen (and thrown away) more character driven marketing rubble than I think I saw in ten years of my own childhood. It's a sad state of affairs when your child recognizes Sponge Bob Square Pants' weird starfish friend Patrick before Max from Where The Wild Things Are. Damn those child marketers and their insidious ways!

Anyway, we did it. We made it to Georgia. We loaded the 28 foot truck. Then we loaded another seven feet worth of another truck (told you we have a lot of stuff!) and then we put the three kids and the dog and all my plants and all our personal stuff into the van (whew!) and began the 800 plus mile drive to Georgia. We endured 27 nursing sessions, one parental argument, one exhausted mama crying jag, one midnight search for a cheap but clean hotel room, one middle of the night vomiting spree (courtesy of Gabe, who was coughing prodigiously and has the most sensitive gag reflex EVER!), one extensively poopy diaper changed on the road, one viewing of Finding Nemo and just 20 hours after we left Iowa, we arrived "home" to Georgia in time for Brian to watch the Sunday Ticket Football all afternoon.

And now we wait. The Stuff won't arrive until Friday they tell me (boo!) because it must sit and wait in various warehouses and truckstops along the way. They torture me, the moving people, because they can. But life goes on. Gabe began kindergarten in the Southland on Monday and got to RIDE THE BUS. He hasn't said "fixin' to" yet but his new best friend, the next door neighbor boy says "ya'll" about every other sentence, so I know its coming.