The Practice Move

We moved this week, and it wasn't to Mexico. With just 7 weeks until we go international, we boxed up all our possessions, well, the ones not in storage anyway, and moved across Oakwood's campus. Believe me, it was not by choice. The last thing I wanted to do was to cram an extra move into this year. Three moves in one year is a lot, even for us.

I contemplated putting the chain on the door and refusing to budge, but since Chris isn't licensed to practice law in Virginia and therefore isn't up-to-date- on our "squatter's rights," I sucked it up, and we moved our 700 lbs or so of stuff from the B building to the D building. And when I say I sucked it up, I mean I pitched a huge fit first. Scratch that. There were three fits actually.

It all started on Monday, Mom's last full day with me. You see, those lovely orange pipes that were installed a couple of weeks ago needed to be covered by boxes and then painted. In order for that to happen, we received notice via the dreaded note in the door that we had to be out of the apartment from 9 to 5 on two consecutive days, but, for our convenience, a day unit would be provided upon request. When I sent Chris to get me the key to the day unit at 6 p.m. on Monday, he came back with only a business card. And I guess that's when the week started to fall apart for me.
 
My exasperation over not having immediate access to my day unit led to the unhappy revelation that we would be asked, well, more like forced, to move from our apartment in early November, so they could turn it into a three bedroom unit. Apparently the young guy over renovations didn't realize that this is not the best thing to tell a postpartum mother of three who is about to move out of the country for the first time. Let's just say I wasn't as enthusiastic over his newly renovated unit "offer" as he was in making it. I think his exact words were: "I'd like to offer you a brand new renovated unit." My response: "I don't want one." His face fell. His boyish charms weren't going to work on me. I wasn't going to be easy. He said, "Well, this move is going to happen." And then I kicked him in the head. Okay, so I didn't, but I thought about it. Don't tell Jacob. I'm trying to teach him not to say violent things. You're only allowed to post them on the internet.

In the end, Oakwood won, but not without a fight and not without hearing every single complaint I've been mostly keeping to myself for the past eight months, like the big green spot in our television and our lack of autonomy over our thermostat. So maybe Mr. Davies didn't deserve the brunt of my frustration over an incredibly hot apartment and noisy work crews everywhere plus my sheer exhaustion of having nursed sick children for the past two weeks, but it was his timing that sucked. He tried so hard to reason with me, but I just kept telling him, "I don't care. Do it better." Poor guy. I think I need to bake him some cookies.

Because in the end, he did do it better. Yes, we still had to move, but we moved sooner rather than 3 weeks before the BIG move. He had his moving crew arrive promptly as scheduled, and they did a wonderful job moving all of our stuff. They need cookies too. And half of our blackout curtains have been installed already. I probably shouldn't have told everyone I have those, since apparently they are a hot commodity at Oakwood. Oops. You didn't hear it from me...

I'm trying to think of this as a great opportunity to go through all of our things before I have to pack it all up again for Mexico. Oh, the power of positive thinking. I'm almost there.

Our "fancy" (Jacob's words) new apartment. It currently does not look "fancy," since we are up to our ears in boxes. I tried to hide as many as I could for the pictures.



The crystal lamps. Notice what we did with one of the boys' lamps.