If you are just tuning in, catch up here:
Part One
When we finally woke for good on Friday, we got the kids dressed and ready for school. I headed out to drop them off and start working again at the new house. My husband stayed at the loft to wait for the movers to come to pick up all of the pieces of our past life and move them into our present. My brother- and father-in-law met me at the new house. My father-in-law busied himself putting together my daughter's first "big girl bed" while my brother-in-law painted. I hung pictures and put away things in the kids room trying to get things settled before they came home to their new house for good.
Little by little, as the furniture and boxes came in and the pictures went up on the walls, the kids' rooms took shape. By the time we were ready to pick them up from school, their rooms were as close as they were going to get to complete. Now was the big test. I drove to pick them up, nervous with anticipation of their reactions to their new home. Would they love it or would they cry and want to go back "home"? It was a crapshoot. Life always is when gauging the reactions for children.
Though my son was only three months old and content with pretty much anything, my daughter was two and very emotional. I was so worried that she would not do well with the change, though I knew it would be the best thing for her in the long run.
On the way back to the house from school I talked to her about how hard we were working on her new room and how PopPop had built her a brand new big girl bed. We had decided that rather than transferring her to the new house in a crib, we would rip the band aid off and try a big girl bed for her first night. A big risk, admittedly.
When we got to the house, I took her right into her new room. She was beyond excited. She hopped right up on her new bed and lit up like a Christmas tree. It was magical. And emotional. She was a big girl now. No more pretending she was still a baby.
But the big question still hung heavily in the air: would the kids sleep in the new house?
Answer: an astounding yes.
Worries that given her new freedom from her crib chains, our daughter wouldn't stay in her bed, were quickly put to rest. She went to sleep right away and slept gloriously through the night. As did her brother. The first time they had both slept all night since baby boy had come to be. And though my mind still wouldn't let me rest with all of the newness dancing in it and worries of a baby calling for me in their sleep and me not hearing it with the addition of walls and doors between us, I was at peace.
Read on:
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
