The move was... a move. Lines at Goodwill Donation sites are reported to be hours long so we pretty much moved everything I ordinarily would've purged. And I'm impressed with how few boxes we actually still have sitting around our main areas. Tons of debris and junk and stuff everywhere, but not that many boxes. Our movers were very nice and professional and efficient. They did have masks, but those masks mostly hung out somewhere between "well under nose" to "jaunty ascot" so it was good enough that we were largely encouraged to sit outside out of the way and just tell them where things went.
This was not easy for Andrew, who is used to doing the work himself. He kept leaping up to check on something in the house, or move a box from one part of a room to the other. But eventually we got to get active again after they left. All the boxes. So many boxes. It's been a long month. We had all the packing (and our own pre-move move the two weekends before). The move itself. And now we've managed to get a car back in the garage, so I would call it a victory. But Andrew hasn't had a break in like a month and every inch of my body is still a bit sore.
Note, one vital change to our ongoing Wright narrative:
Our sweet little kiddo has done some soul searching and made some serious self-discoveries. Namely, our Chaya is actually Allan. Andrew and I support Allan and are desperately trying to remember this chosen name for fear of being screamed at with incredible volume.
Also Allan is a bunny. A magical bunny and a big sister to baby bunny (who happens to be me when I'm not brother bunny).
I'm also "Terrible Mamma Bunny." This started as a way of defusing a tantrum (namely ha ha aren't I such a terrible mommy and then we made jokes about the terrible terrible things I do like eating all the candy and popping balloons and waking the bunnies up in the middle of the night). It's elevated so now Terrible Mamma Bunny repeatedly fails to care for baby bunny so sister bunny Allan comes and does it all for her. Which is cute. And I'm gonna get a call from CPS one of these days.
It gets a little weird when Allan gets sad or stressed and demands to know where Chaya's gone have we seen Chaya. Sometimes she sounds really worried. Other times she thinks it's funny. I'm sure her future therapist will have plenty of fun insights about all this!
I'm trying to respect this revelation so let's try keeping her names and pronouns right (lucky for my stretched brain her gender identity is locked down to full princess fairy bunny mode, so one less thing to constantly correct and the number of times you reference your child's species is actually pretty minimal)
Anyways Allan got to see her Gramma Pam for the first time since our trip to New Jersey brought the Apocalypse.
It was a beautiful reunion. And made the last push to get ready to move doable, because Allan likes to "help" in amazingly unhelpful ways typically.
Of course when she finally came "home" to the new house, she cried for a good three hours about wanting to just go back home with Pam. Pam is a wonderful grandparent. She also (as Chaya was unsentimental and honest enough to scream) has Dinosaur Train on a big screen tv.
But Allan reconciled herself to watching Puppy Dog Pals on mommy's little computer and all is well again. Her new room has this whole play nook right outside that she loves. And now we have a ton of stairs to run up and down all the time, so that's a treat for her and a giant pain in mommy's slowly healing knee. I have learned the going down the stairs backwards actually reduces a significant amount of strain and entertains Allan tons more than doing it forwards, so that.
The new house suits me pretty well. As predicted the GIANT island in the kitchen has proven a magnet for stuff and is totally covered in detritus. But otherwise it'd probably all be on the ground so good enough.
And I'm slowly learning how to survive the perilous drawer handles in the kitchen.
After two days in the kitchen, I was this battered (they stick out all pointy and i tend to lean into counters and cabinets a lot apparently):
But we have... balloons!!!
Now I feel the balloons and keep my distance and feel festive to boot!
Also, the stove tried to kill us all the first day by being - wait for it - actually functional. It heats faster than a gas stove and we'd been using an old electric coil stove, so I managed to quite handily char some latkes into little flame balls (with tons of oil splatter) and erupt the mac and cheese in giant boiling bubbles all over the floor. It was an experience. But bright side, cooking now takes less time than recipes anticipate. Which is pretty awesome.
Otherwise we're settling nicely. Keeping it cool for the holiday weekend (All Countries Matter, damnit!). I'll get out my traditional grumpy face and curse all the fireworks come evening and maybe we'll make s'mores. Mostly it'll be a working holiday that hopefully mirrors the trend in King County, because our case loads are going up again and I don't want to go back to Phase 1 (total lockdown and no Gramma Bunny coming to keep Allan busy so terrible Mamma Bunny can breathe!)
So glad to continue our staying-at-home in a nice new fancy home with plenty of space and a yard that will eventually be habitable (love to Andrew the yard master)
Happy Summer! Stay safe! Remember, when it comes to viruses and fireworks: outdoors for shorter periods of time with fewer people is best.
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