We bought a house!!! A whole house!!! It has a yard!!! My kiddos have their own rooms! My husband has an office! I finally have a functioning kitchen table! I am so excited about this next chapter, but it has been so much work!
So it has been about 2 months since my last post. I honestly thought I would be able to be able to post a little sooner than this, apparently I was a little naive. Moving an entire family, who owns things and has furniture is not at all the same as moving a single 20 something, who owns one couch, some milk crates and a bed. This process was 10 times harder than I expected, and took way longer to get settled. Still one of the best decisions we have ever made.
I thought I would share some of my experience of moving with a toddler and a baby. It was so difficult, and there was a lot we could have done better, but also a lot that I think we did really well.
The above photo is from the early, more hopeful stages of packing up the old place. We were previously living in a 2 bedroom apartment. With the pandemic leaving us working from home and the addition of our second child, it was starting to feel pretty crowded. So this last spring we started our househunt.
We had been browsing the housing market for the last couple years so we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted. We were able to get a better sense of what we really wanted when we started looking in earnest. For example, it didn't take long to realize that a sizable yard was a must for us. I needed to have a place where the kids could play without having to go too far from home. Another must, was space for an office, it sounds like my husband (@oblivioncubed) will likely be working from home indefinitely now, and working from the kitchen table was just not going to cut it anymore.
Househunting was a little more complicated during the pandemic with occupancy restrictions in place at some of the places we looked. But in the end, we found a place we liked, in a little bedroom community outside the city we lived in. It checked all our most important boxes, so we put in an offer, and we got it!!
Thus began our odyssey. Dragging our children to meetings with lawyers and mortgage brokers, trying to prepare them mentally for the big changes we were about to embark on.
It took most of a month to get ready to move and finish the paperwork, and then almost 2 full months before we managed to be unpacked and restocked and functional in our new space. It was a lot of work! So without further ado, here are some of the things we did right, and the things we should have done better!
Packing up
This was madness, trying to live with kiddos in an already too small space while packing. Chaos ensued. With the pandemic restrictions still in place, and our youngest still pretty dependent on mom, childcare was not easy to arrange. Still we managed to do pretty well. Our sons room became box storage and he slept in our room.
We tried to pack as efficiently as possible, which meant that unpacking was a little more chaotic than it would have been if we had packed room by room. Every towel, small toy and blanket that was not in use was used to wrap glass items and act as "packing peanuts". Fisher price little people work incredible well for stuffing vases and other various containers, as do stuffed animals! We even used all of our winter hats and scarves for extra padding, it worked super well. We didn't have a single broken item!
One of the best decisions we made was to pack a couple of moving kits right of the bat. We packed a cleaning kit to move back and forth as necessary, a first couple nights kit, and some overnight bags.
The cleaning kit included some basic bathroom and all purpose cleaners, sponges, rags, papertowel, window cleaner, a mop and bucket, some rubbler gloves, dishsoap, handtowels, baking soda and vinegar. It was super handy to have this all packed in the bucket in one place so that it was easy to take with us from one place to the next and back again as needed.
The first night kit was also very handy, though I would make sure a few extras were added if we were to have to do this again. This included bed sheets, blankets and pillow cases, towels, washcloths, hand towels, hand soap, toilet paper, some basic tools, coffee maker and coffee, tea, sugar and dry coffee creamer(just in case), coffee mugs, spoons, paper plates, plastic cutlery, a candle and some toys to keep the kiddos occupied. This was one of the first things we brought to the new place and made the first few nights much easier on us as we didn't have to hunt for anything we needed. If I did this again, I would add some extra snacks, moving is hungry work, and toddler snacks disappear fast during all the excitement of a move!
Our Overnight bags were also very useful, they travelled in the vehicle with us and had basically everything else we needed. We packed like we were leaving on a weekend vacation, all our basic toiletries, clothes, extra diapers, and most importantly chargers for phones, laptops and tablets! We used these the last night we spent in our old home and the first few nights we spent in the new home. The only thing I would change about these is I would pack for a week instead of a weekend, getting organized enough to actually function in the new place took longer than expected.
We also kept a couple of diaper bags to travel back and forth with us while we finished the cleaning and moving. My only recommendation here is I would have packed extra diapers and wipes in ALL of the above kits as well as the diaper bag. We never seemed to have enough!
Helping the Kiddos Adjust
The whole process of moving meant a lot of big changes for our toddler especially. We were lucky in that we are still close enough to keep him with the same daycare we have had him in since he was little. So at least that remained constant.
The first thing I did was make a calendar for our wall with pictures showing our new home and a moving truck for our big moving day and the day we waved goodbye to our old place. Each day we crossed on more day off, counted down to the big move and talked about how excited we were to live in our new home. It seemed to help quite a bit as he got very good at anticipating the next days events.
We also made sure that the first things we unpacked at the new place were his favourite toys and stuffies. We wanted him to know that they came with us, so he wouldn't feel like he was losing anything when we moved.
We tried to have some special days mixed in with all the hectic running around. We had a pajama day, the day before the move. This saved some work of finding clothes and bringing laundry along with us. It was also a super exciting day for our toddler. Even though we stayed in jammies, we still took him out to the park near our home for one last walk and some playtime. He was so excited to get to go out in his jammies, it was a lot of fun! Also not a bad way to relax a bit for mom and dad!
We also had a picnic style breakfast at our new home the day we took possession, before we moved anything in! There is nothing like a completely empty, echo filled house to excite a toddler!
We made a point to let the kiddos tour around and say goodbye to the old apartment once everything was moved out and cleaned. That way our toddler could see that it was empty. We waved goodbye to the building and the parking spaces and the trees and the park and the store. I don't know if this made much difference for our toddler, but I sure appreciated it. Even though I was excited for our move, and frustrated by the lack of space in our old place, it was still a little bittersweet. Afterall, it was the first place my husband and I lived in together, it was where both of our babies were born and brought home to. There were a lot of firsts and a lot of happy memories made there. It helps knowing there will be a lot of happy memories made at our new home as well.
We have had a few requests for old home since the move, but on the whole things have gone very smoothly for out littles.
The Great Unboxing
Okay, this took forever! I am so very pleased to say it is finally finished!
Unpacking is so much more than just emptying boxes. It's figuring out where it belongs and how you want your spaces to function. It's also deciding if certain pieces are still functional in the new space.
Surprisingly, even though we moved from a small apartment into a much larger home, we had enough furniture to make use of most of our space, with only the purchase of a replacement sofa and a new bed . We had been putting this off for a while anticipating a move, and my back is so grateful we finally upgraded!
As mentioned above, we made a point to have the kids games and toys be one of the first things we got unpacked, right after making up the beds. Then we unpacked the kitchen and the necessary computer bits for my husband to work. After that it went more slowly, it took weeks and weeks to get everything out of boxes and put away, especially with the kids around my ankles. Our youngest got a handle on army crawling just as we moved in, so she was into everything! Our toddler was feeling just a little out of sorts, so a lot more attention was being demanded of us by him as well.
I thought I had planned ahead enough with a couple of weeks of frozen meals prepared in advance, but I definitely underestimated the time this would take, so we admittedly lived on chicken nuggets for a stretch when the meals ran out!
Now that it's finished, well at least unpacked, it was so worth it. Seeing my kiddos playing outside in their own yard, or in their brand new playroom in the basement. Watching my son proudly show off "Me Room" to all of his grandparents. Even little things, like reclaiming my kitchen table from the workspace it had become so that we can finally have dinner together at the table again. Every bit of effort involved was worth it!
There is still a lot to do, a million little projects that need to be done around the property and a steep learning curve for a couple of first time homeowners. I am sure some of our adventures will wind up here as well. I am so excited to start my garden which I will quite likely be posting in one of the HIVE gardening communities, any suggestions let me know! I have started some homeschooling work with my toddler which will likely show up on c/Home Edders in the near future. I am hoping to pull my camera out soon and pick up where I left off in learning a bit more about photography and photo editing. I'm also looking forward to starting some crafting again soon, not sure which community those posts will fit best, but I'm sure there is one for me to discover and share those adventures on as well!
I am so very happy to finally be settled and able to return to HIVE and see what everyone has been up to in my absence! I can't wait to share our new adventures here in our new home!
Until then, be safe and be kind!