Why aren’t more people talking about the fresh hell that is moving with small children?
Long story short, our previous home (expected to take 4-5 months to sell due to a slow market) sold in 3 weeks and our new build wasn’t going to be ready for 5 months – so we sold sold/donated all of our “got this at a thrift shop for 4 bucks because we were poor university students” stuff, and packed everything else into storage and moved in with my inlaws. They have a small guest house on their property that they’ve graciously let us conduct our gypsy shenanigans in since.
Now we are 2 days away from not being homeless anymore and it is crunch time. I was trying to pack up some toys today and my 2.5 year old found a toy, covered in a thin film of filth and smelling like neglect, that hasn’t been touched in 80 years, and decided it was The Toy. The one that has to go to the potty with her. The one that has to sit beside her dinner plate. The one she takes to bed. This toy is embarrassing, and it is now her favourite. Cool. All the influencer blogs about moving said to just authoritatively talk to your kids about the importance of de-cluttering before you ditch their old toys but I am started to wonder if they were talking about human kids or fake kids because mine have taken de-cluttering as a blood oath challenge to protect what is rightfully theirs.
Then we have my almost 5 year old who is less concerned about her toys and way more concerned about the big picture. “Do the toilets work in the new house? Will it be warm? Can we bring all our clothes and blankets? Will the fridges have food in them? How will I get to school? Are we ever going to see Grandma and Grandpa again?” – she’s been inside our new house many times (that is 15 mins away from her grandparents) and yet still seems to think we’re moving away to start fresh in 1960’s Soviet Russia.
Then there’s me, wandering around looking for boxes, asking no one in particular if these are moving boxes for ants because they need to be at least 3x bigger, while my husband looks for imaginary tools to do imaginary things with – and our children just yell for more snacks. There are so many fruit snack wrappers in my garbage can right now I think I made an FBI watch list or something.
Thank GOD Past Rachel was smart enough to spring for movers to assist us (and enlist Grams to take the girls all day) because I am approximately 1 snack request away from an accident with a lighter and some extreme hold hairspray (to my stuff, not my kids – don’t call CFS on me).
I cannot be the only one in this boat – does moving with kids always suck this bad?
I knew this would be amazing but 👏👏👏👏👏 also packing tip from a person who has moved waaaay more times then I care to admit.. we buy totes from Walmart! Like $5 each, which ironically is the same price as a box if you buy those 🤷🏼♀️ That way you can always reuse them for storage if you are like me an ‘collect’ more stuff for the future .. that you’ll never use .. But you might use ..
That is actually brilliant – we did pack 80% of our stuff in rubbermaid totes in our storage unit – but all the stuff we currently have with us is stuff we use every day and aren’t really sure how to pack, nor we we want more rubbermaid totes….or do we? HELP.
No one wants more totes but you could always sell them/donate them after your done using them! That’s a lie.. we all secretly love our totes because we can use them for important things like Christmas decorations we’re hiding from our husbands