"New House!"

Oooooh, where to even begin?!? The move? Our vacation? My brother's latest saga? The Great Preschool Search?

I think I'll start with the move and go from there.

We moved on Thursday, June 12th. I struggled with sending Jordyn to school as usual or keeping her home for even just part of the day to witness the move, which was my dad's idea. I ended up sending her to school, and I'm glad I did. I'd prepared her in the weeks before the move by talking about the new house and what moving means, having her "help" with packing, making her a little house out of a big box complete with windows and a skylight cut out that she colored on and decorated with stickers, reading the Berenstain Bears' book "Moving Day" (or rather just talking about the pictures since it's a long book for her), and visiting the new house several times. She got pretty excited about it and would yell "new house!" every time we pulled in the driveway. Moving day morning, before bringing her school, we walked around the house saying goodbye. We said goodbye to her room, to my room, the kitchen, the den, etc. I reminder her that while she was at school, moving guys were going to come put all of our things in a truck and take them over to the new house, that my mom would pick her up at school that day, and that she'd bring her to the new house where all of our things and I would be.

The move itself went about as well as could be expected. I'd done a good amount of research and hired a great moving company - nothing was broken or lost, at least not that I've discovered yet. They really did a great job. I told my dad, who was with me all day, that I wanted to focus on getting Jordyn's room as unpacked and settled as possible before she got there. We were able to get all the furniture arranged, a few things hung on her walls, some books and toys on the shelves, and Minnie Mouse (her lovey) sitting in the glider. It wasn't perfect, and there was (and still is) no rug on the floor (the old house had carpet in the bedrooms; this one has hard wood floors), but it was enough. My mom and sister picked up Jordyn and brought her home, she looked around the first floor briefly, and then I took her upstairs to show her her room. The whole thing was sort of anticlimactic. She was like, "ok". She slept fine that night, aside from waking up very early in the morning because she didn't (still doesn't) have blackout shades on her windows.

Soon after we moved I think Jordyn had a nightmare where she was left alone, either at the old house or the new one. She woke up really upset and crying in the middle of her nap and was almost still half asleep when I picked her up. She said a few words, but the only one I understood was "nobody", and I couldn't get her to repeat the others. I calmed her down, and I think she even went back to sleep, but she was clingy the rest of the day, and she kept saying "nobody nobody nobody" and reaching for me. This actually continued for several days, until my mom and I finally asked her if she was worried she would be left all by herself with "nobody" with her, and she said yes. Assuming she understood the question and answered accurately, that's what led me to believe that was her nightmare. I wasn't convinced it had anything to do with the move until a couple of days ago...

She continued doing the "nobody nobody nobody" thing on and off for quite a while, but then it got less frequent and finally stopped. I figured it was over. And as often as she said "new house!" when we pulled in the driveway, the subject of the old house never even came up. But then she started to occasionally say "other house". I explained that we didn't live there anyway, that we live here now, and that soon other people will live in our old house, to which she replied "no!" emphatically. I'd go through the whole, "our toys are in our new house, our clothes are in our new house, our beds are in our new house..." and say that our other house was empty. She knows what empty means because she certainly knows when her bowl or plate is empty! I'd purposely not taken her to the old house, or even driven by it with her, to avoid confusion. I figured a clean break made the most sense. But with the closing looming (it's today!) and her still saying "other house", I started to wonder if maybe I should show her the old house empty, since she hadn't witnessed the move, and maybe it would help her understand. I struggled with whether or not to do that, but decided to go ahead.

So on Monday, we stopped by the old house after I picked her up from school. Again, it was sort of anticlimactic. I showed her that the house was empty, and I was trying to show her her old room and that her crib wasn't there because it was at our new house, etc., and all she kept saying was "basement!". For some reason, she really likes the basement, go figure. It's totally unfinished, we never spent much time down there as it's really just storage, but she likes it. Whatever. So we were going to go out and go into the basement through the garage, but when we walked outside, we saw the two kids (F and E) from across the street, and ended up at their house for an impromptu play date. We never made it back to the basement and Jordyn forgot about it, so hopefully that doesn't come back up. But anyway, all of a sudden the whole "nobody" thing started back up after we went to the old house. Oops. I don't think it's a huge deal, and I think it'll just stop again after a while, but it does kind of make me wish I hadn't brought her over there. I don't think it helped, and it may be a negative thing in that it brought up the "nobody" thing again. So I think she may have had a nightmare related to the move, but otherwise, she's really transitioned well.

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On a related note, when the old house went on the market, my realtor had open houses both days of one weekend, and we'd decided to have offers, if any, due the following Tuesday at noon (this is just how the market is around here right now). There were three offers!! All good, and two of them were the exact same offer price with different conditions. We went back to all three and told them to come back with their "best and final" offer, and there was a clear winner. They went up the highest in price, and they had the best conditions, including "inspection for informational purposes only"! Plus, I liked their letter the best. All three couples wrote letters with their offers, and while all were nice, one had forgotten to change the name of the town from another offer they'd apparently made in a different town, and the one I liked the best happened to be attached to the best offer with the highest price! Yay! Closing today, probably already done. :)

Our new house.