Not Even 3 Months and It’s Already LOVE!

“Mom, I love it here!  I want to stay.” [Insert my sinking heart here.]

Both of my children separately uttered these words to me, unprompted, last week as we were going about our daily living.  The kids love their new schools, their neighborhood, and their routines.  Love with a capital L, maybe even LOVE with all capitals.  They are happy, joyful, bursting at the seams, wanting, wishing that this place is Home.  As in permanent home.  Or at the very least, longer-than-10-months home.

Handsome Young Man and Diva Darling are excited for each and every day.  No moping.  No dread.  No bullying.  Just happy to be here.  Present and in the moment. 

I am relieved that this transition has been easy for them.  (Maybe too easy!)

I may even pat myself on the back for making choices that have benefited my family. Since the spring, I have prepared them as best I could about upcoming changes, handling themselves in new situations, making new friends, being themselves, and having the courage to try new things.  It makes my head spin, thinking about how much has been thrown at them this past summer. 

If the Queen Bee is calm, her Busy Bees should be calm too, right?  Although if you truly knew how I handled this move, calm would not be the first word choice that comes to mind.  Our hive has transplanted and is thriving and buzzing along splendidly in the Deep South.

And yet…

My heart already sinks knowing that staying here is highly unlikely.  That this time next year, we will be somewhere else, most likely a place we have never been before, with new schools, a new neighborhood, a new routine.  I am already dreading the break-up.

I do not dread the relocation and all the details and decisions it entails.  I dread detaching from here and putting on my brave face to be the newcomer yet again.  It’s getting harder for me because now it involves watching how my children will detach themselves from a place that they have grown to love, watching them insert themselves in a new place.

I can only hope that they will continue to be excited for each and every day.  Today.  And one year from today in the new place.

But let me remind myself to not get ahead of myself. I am happy to be here.  I am present and in the moment.  Because it’s not even three months, and it’s love!  Ok, love is a strong word.  Although perhaps I am willing to say I am, surprisingly, rather smitten with Montgomery.

How marvelous that it is my children who, unintentionally, remind me that everything is going to be alright when it is I who thinks I am teaching them life's lessons.

One Month Down in my New Hometown

The boxes are unpacked.  Mostly. 

The house is functional but not yet cozy.

I pause while I’m walking around the house. I’m trying to remember that the light switch for the kitchen light is outside the kitchen and the light switch for the guest bathroom is on the right when it should clearly be on the left.  I still marvel how creaky the wood floor is. I have spaces I don’t know what to do with, such as the gigantic gaping hole above the fireplace mantle, intended for the TV. Neither our TV nor any of our picture frames fit the space, and I am not overly interested in addressing it right now.

 In other words, I still feel awkward in my own house.

However, I can now drive around town without the GPS! Most of the time, anyway. 

I have decided on which grocery store and gas stations I’ll frequent.  I know how many minutes to allot to drive to the children’s schools. I have located and registered each child for one after-school extracurricular activity. We are in search of a church home.

I am living in the time “In between”, and I’m waiting.  Novelty is wearing off, but I’m not yet established.  To not feel like a newbie takes time, of course.  I am impatient.

I’m waiting. 

*  For school to start. 

*  To establish a routine.

*  To find my peeps.

*  To decide on my time, my schedule.

“In between” time is lonely but also offers possibility.  It is a time for reflection and reinvention.  Old rules from the last place may not apply.  It’s a short-term assignment.  I have 10 months of living before the next Change & Transition of another military move.  (This PCS may be the year of fitness.  I may live at the gym!)

I’m still learning to navigate through, wondering when “I’m new in town” becomes “I live here,” when I feel at home.

Imprisoned in the House of Sick – A Saturday in June

The biggest challenge for me, as a temporary single parent of young children, is leaving the house becomes an execution of strategy and planning.  Since the children obviously cannot be left alone, they must accompany me everywhere.   Constant companionship is a challenge for me as well.  Add sickness.  I can’t really go anywhere being a responsible citizen mama and limiting exposure.  The situation is not bad enough yet to seek relief.   The house, however, is beginning to feel like a prison.

Handsome Little Man has an upset stomach. 

We attempted to break free.  After he slept off  episode one for most of the morning and he ate a small lunch and claimed to feel much better, we all set off for fresh air.  Destination: Washington Harbor to walk along the Potomac.  Parking was hard to come by and before I could find a space, Little Man began to complain again.  *sigh* I don’t want a repeat incident away from home.  Back home we go.

Sometimes my motherhood experience feels like near constant vexation, punctuated with moments of joy.  I wish it were the other way around!

We made it home, just in time.  Thankfully, Little Man is being a good sport of it, with no whining.

Already this morning, I have dealt with a vomiting boy, spilled apple juice on the sofa cushion, and urine on the living room floor (although I was asking for it.  I let Diva Darling run around nude.  Potty training does not begin in earnest until after the move and we are settled).  It’s the constant clean-up that I object to.  I like clean, just not the cleaning.

Relief is en route.  However, we are not going to attempt prison break #2.  I texted the Hubby to take a taxi home.

I’m now planning my temporary escape when relief does come.  Due to the pending move 3 days away (3 days away!), our cupboards are quite bare and definitely out of stock of necessary upset stomach comfort foods and drinks.  My escape will include a quick kid-free trip to Safeway, a guilt-free snarfing of some fattening ice cream product like a Wendy’s frosty, and 10 minutes of quiet somewhere, soaking in the fresh non-humidity air and sunshine.

Good times, people!  Good times!

Does everyone have this much fun and life challenges daily as me, but I'm the only one who broadcasts my woe-is-me attitude?  Or do I just have bad mojo??

“I don’t wanna!” she said with a stomp and a glare.

“I don’t wanna!” she said with a stomp and a glare. 

Actually, that’s me and not my toddler.  I have been having an epic temper tantrum for weeks now over moving back to Texas.  I do not want to move this year.  Or next year.  Or ever, really.

His orders tell me otherwise.  Yet I am resisting, which makes the moving process more difficult than usual.

How do you overcome the resistance, when once again your desires are not, cannot be really, taken into account?  How do you graciously pack up your closer-to-perfect life you have here to go back to a place you have been before and swore you’d never go back?

I no longer know how to be gracious about this move.  I cannot put on the happy face and say “We’ll make do.  It’s only 2 years.”  My well of enthusiasm and optimism that usually accompanies each move runs dry.

I am a Seasoned Spouse, too.  I know the routine.  So I am not sure why this move is the hardest to accept.  I can’t even follow my own positive attitude, upbeat advice that I have given over the years.

Now what?  What advice do you give a cranky, seasoned spouse that a return to base X can only be better than before?  And if it’s not, that she will graciously survive?!