kiwords

Well, we made it! I have two working mottos for our family right now: "We're getting there" and "Don't panic, it's here somewhere."

They're not all that moving or inspirational, as mottos go, but they're true.

Max is convinced this house is actually smaller than our previous one. Which...no. I mean, this one has nearly DOUBLE the square footage. But he insists it seems smaller, so I look around and mentally subtract the floor space taken up by boxes, and the family room that is unfinished and filled with boxes and one teen camper, and Tre's room (the camper), which has neither floor nor walls nor heat. And I suppose if you subtract all of that...no. Still no, no way. This house has space and air and light.

Oh, and no curtains. So LOTS of light. The teens around here have never gotten up so early. 

But it's not like there's no window decorations, because the chickens like to hop up on the kitchen windowsills and say hi. As soon as I find my camera, I'll upload a picture. If I can find the cord. Um. Maybe just take my word for it? 

I love chickens on my windowsill. I just do. Clay keeps promising that if they get in the house, they will cease to be pets and become food. I believe he is mostly bluster, but I'm not inviting them inside anyhow.

I am amazed by how exhausting it is, trying to reassemble order in a new place. I run up and down the stairs seventeen trillion times a day, and half the time I get to the other end of the staircase, having forgotten what I was after, but seeing fourteen other things I need to do in front of me. I am sleeping very soundly. 

The other night, in the few seconds between lights out and snoring, Clay reached over and took my hand.

"I'm done," he said. 

"You will have to expand on that. Quickly."

"I don't want to renovate any more houses."

"Oh, THAT. Yes. AMEN." 

When we first moved in, there  was only one working bathroom (we are up to 1.7 working bathrooms. Do not ask me to explain the mathematics of bathrooms. 1.7. Trust me), and it has a shower. Sophia, for the first time ever, had to take showers at night, rather than her usual water-churning bath. The first night she showered, I sat right outside the shower stall, talking her through the experience. She leaped in and out, screeching with delight one minute, demanding I tell her she was okay the next. For eleven bathroom-drenching minutes, she seesawed from joy to fear and back again. By the time she was all done and ready to be gathered up in her froggy towel, she was a warm, damp, exhausted bundle of girl.

That, I decided, is just what moving is like. Exhillerating, scary exhaustion. Plus boxes.