Moving preparations are fully underway. This weekend is our last chance to get things done around here with all 4 of us here. Then professional cleaners and photographers will be here next week and we will finally officially have the house on the market. The following weekend Travis will fly to Colorado and start work, living in temporary housing for a bit. In other words, a hotel. My dad (who will have been enjoying a quiet retired life for a full 5 days) will fly out here and help me with the kids and pets for a week and a half. Then movers will be here for a couple days, Travis will fly back and take the animals in one car and my dad and I will drive the second car with children. Travis is driving in 2 days so he can drop the animals off at my parents house and get back to work. My dad and I are opting for a 3 day drive. That will average to about 5 hours driving a day plus I figure an addition 3, realistically, for stopping and changing diapers and feeding babies. The kids and animals and I will be staying with my parents for a bit. So that will be a mad house. 4 adults, 1 toddler, 1 infant, 4 dogs, and 1 cat.
Trying to plan for what we need to take with us for an unknown number of weeks/months is stressful. Baby swing, diapers, baby carriers....so many decisions to make. Do I take the stroller? That eats up soooo much space. Not to mention the clothing situation. I'm still in weird postpartum limbo, half in maternity clothes, my old stuff doesn't fit yet but I'm tired of maternity clothes and I don't want to pack it all. Oswin and Lyra are both growing. I need a cooler for breastmilk I pump while I travel. We need a cat box for the trip. We will need to have space for the extra liquid food items, lotions, shampoos, assorted things movers won't pack that we want to take with. Also I need to pack the weird stuff I'm don't want to explain to movers. I'm talking things like the leftover "team penis" buttons and vagina candy molds from the sex party when we announced Oswin is a boy. Or the weird collection of tiny penises my best friend buys me. I have a wind up one and a stone carved one. Seriously. The normal weird stuff like the storm trooper lifesize cutout and assorted sasquatch paraphernalia is fine, I'm not embarrassed about those.
My advice is, don't ever move over the holiday season if you can avoid it. It slows down scheduling movers, getting the house on the market, etc. I'm kind of a type A, hyper organized person. I like to have everything lined out and love lists and having everything settled. So I'm kind of a big ball of stress. And to be completely honest, I think I have some postpartum anxiety/OCD going on. I'm planning on taking a combination of my own advice and the advice of other mother friends and see if things calm down in the next few weeks until I can get to Colorado and set up with a primary care doctor there. It's hard to tell where to draw the line between normal holiday/young baby/moving stress and "this isn't really rational" stress. In all my internet research and bonding with mom pals I've seen it's actually a really common but not often discussed openly topic. Even with my openness about a lot regarding birth and babies and pregnancy, it makes me uncomfortable. But anyway, there's this thing that happens where you get some obtrusive thoughts. By the way, it's totally different from the postpartum psychosis level where you hear voices or want to hurt yourself or your child. Just to clarify straight off the bat. It's more like worry taken to the next level in a creative way. Like just a thought pops into your head about whatever various ways your child could be harmed.
Some are the more (for lack of a better word) normal and common worries.
"What if I drop him him?"
"What if he just doesn't wake up from his nap?"
Then you get into the more irrational or elaborate territory. Things that would never happen or are so rare you really shouldn't be worried about them.
"What if all the glass disappeared and I dropped the baby out the second story window?"
Never mind this isn't Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone.
"What if I had a seizure or something and smacked his head on the corner of the table when I fell?"
And they can be very uncomfortably graphic thoughts. I think that's what makes people hesitate to talk about it. This is where I want to say again, it's not postpartum psychosis where you might act on those thoughts. It's more the opposite feeling, where you're horrified by all the dangers out there and semi panicked about preventing them. Intrusive and bothersome thoughts is what they are. That's the line I'm less sure of though, where it goes from being fleeting thoughts to worry that interferes with daily life.
I'm putting it out there though because I mentioned it in a mom group and got an immediate chorus of "You have those thoughts? Thank goodness, so do I."
And let's be real, while kids are hearty little things, there's a lot of real danger to worry about and common sense things you have to teach them. Running with a toothbrush and stabbing through your cheek, legitimate fear that need attention to prevent. Toddler drowning in the tub if you don't pay attention, cutting off circulation to appendages with rogue hair or string tourniquets, hot food on the counters and stoves, all other scenarios that are not unlikely and should be kept in mind.
On a lighter note, I'm teaching Oswin to speak wookie. He's got it 95% down and makes a valiant effort to conversationally chit chat back and forth with you. He also laughs hysterically when you say, "Woo woo, quack, ribbit." Kids are great.
Anywho, this post is actually incredibly late, movers come tomorrow! See ya later, Nevada.
