Did you hear we were moving? After nine years together in this house, Danny and I made the decision to go bigger and better... and in less than two weeks, we become new home owners (again)! It's crazy how much this house has shrunk in the last nine years. When we first bought this home, four bedrooms seemed impossible to fill. And yet, here we are, having completely outgrown our first house! Knowing that we're here in Greenwood for at least another four years made the decision to move on so much easier. I really wanted to be in a subdivision, where we could walk, bike, and play without fear of being run down by a car going 90+ km/hour. We bought a 5-bedroom house in Ravenwood, which means we'll have room for my parents to visit, and a designated playroom. Although it was not our first-choice house, it quickly became our top choice after losing out on our first love. And we now love it. We cannot wait to move. In fact, have you seen that Scotiabank commercial about the couple who bought a house? No? Here it is...
Yeah, that's us... we drive by the house probably every day. We often go out for drives, and we find ourselves passing by our house, picturing the kids out front, seeing what it looks like in the rain, in the 10 a.m. sun, in the 4 p.m. sun, at midnight with the lights off (kidding!). We are totally stalking our house. And since it's in a cul-de-sac, I'm sure that our car has been reported to the police. So if you live in Ravenwood, and you see these weird people and their three kids driving around day after day, it's just us! And we're falling in love with our subdivision, thank you very much!
So of course in order to buy a new house, we had to sell this one. I thought that living with three kids in a house you're trying to sell was torture... everybody told me that once we sold it, we could relax. We could stop living in complete cleanliness (not an easy task with kids!) and just live our lives. Yeah... nope. I have to say that living in a house that has been sold has been a thousand times worse!! Because after you sell, you have to move. When you're hoping to sell, everything is in it's place all the time! Now that we're smack dab in the middle of packing, there is shit everywhere! And I have three kids. Not regular, grown up, helpful kids. But toddlers. Three of them. Three f'ing toddlers. One of whom has a vocabulary that consists of "wa-duh?" (what's that), "dat!" (that) and six different versions of a grunt; one of whom has to be asked (told) to do things at least a million times before she'll even consider listening to you; and one of whom is 4 going on 14, and has been opposed to change since the moment she was born. So packing has not been fun!
Today I packed a box of kids' toys. When the girls came up from their nap and saw that I had packed their toys, they very suddenly became attached to every. single. thing. that was in that box. Things they haven't looked at in months, they decided needed to be play with immediately. And the fact that I refused to unpack the packed box... holy shitballs, ma!! Gracie flung herself onto the floor and screeched, "It's not faiiiiiir! I really, really, really wanted to play with that random playdough toy that I couldn't care less about but absolutely need to have right now." Okay, so she didn't say that exactly, but seriously. A playdough toy.
I packed up the kitchen last week, and since then we have single-handedly been causing the destruction of the planet. Every meal is served on a paper plate or plastic bowl, with a plastic cup, and plastic cutlery. Breakfast, snack time, elevensies, lunch, afternoon snack, supper, after-supper snack, and late night snack... all with throw-away dishes. It's horrible! And not to mention incredibly annoying! The plastic garbage bag fills up every day or so, and our paper plates stack the counter waiting to be taken out to the big compost bin. There is crap everywhere, all the time! Not to mention that I have decided it's easier to live off of chicken nuggets and chicken noodle soup for the forseeable future. Cooking? Ain't nobody got time for that!
I have yet to attempt packing the girls' room. I'm hoping to get rid of them somehow for a day and pack everything up while they're gone. They've made packing incredibly difficult, and every time I mention packing up the six-million stuffies on their beds, there is a meltdown of epic proportions. I told them to pick their three favourites to keep with us, and Ella brought me 13. Gracie brought me four, but one was a life-size Elsa doll (thanks, Nanny!) so apparently that didn't count.
Time doesn't mean a whole lot to my kids right now, and so when I try to explain that it's only a couple of more weeks and then we'll be back to normal, it might as well be months from now. It's a rough time for them, seeing their whole lives packed up in a box, and thinking it's vanishing forever. It's a tough time for me, packing all this shit we've collected over the last nine years, whilst attempting to entertain three toddlers. Ha ha ha. Entertain? Keep alive! That's my goal for the next two weeks. Don't kill the kids! Get the house packed, and remember to feed the children. Oh, have I told you Jax's new favourite obsession? The toilet. He now sneaks into the bathroom, closes the door, and plays in the toilet. Have I told you Ella's new disgusting habit? Forgetting to flush the toilet. This is where my "attempt to keep the kids alive" comes into play. Their two disgusting habits have yet to meet... and I'd kind of like to keep it that way. But, no promises!
So if you see me out in public over the next couple of weeks, and my eyes look a little hazy (or crazy), the kids are a mess and smell a little funny, and I'm slightly incoherent, at least now you know why. Moving is crazy! Moving with three kids is crazier! But I know that 3 weeks from now, when the new house is all unpacked, and we're settling into our new home, it'll be totally worth it... as long as I can manage to get us all there alive!! :)
