Settling Down

Last night my family and I grabbed our ponchos and strolled downtown for an evening of 80s music and fireworks. While it may seem we were prepared due to my mention of ponchos, we were decidedly unprepared. We noticed this soon after we arrived at Lakeside park with no ID card with which to admit our ready-to-pee, penis-holding three-year-old to the restroom. You see, in our neighborhood, one has to have his town ID card to get into the amenities, such as the awesome playground our kids had to sit next to all night without being able to go in, because I forgot aforementioned card.

Also woefully left behind was the blanket we were to sit on, the cold beverages and tasty snacks, and the card game we would have enjoyed until someone got tired of losing and threw the cards all over the grass. Insect repellent: who would have thought to bring that along on a warm Florida night near the lake?

So we perched on our ponchos amidst our fellow townspeople who could pee when they wanted or send their whiny kids to the playground or pick up the Uno cards their sore loser seven-year-old tossed at her brother's head. We waited about two hours there shooing bugs and playing solitaire on our phones. We "watered" the bushes and found some toys in the bottom of my backpack amidst the layers of toddler snack crumbs, diapers, and sand. The children quit fighting and complaining about lack of snackage. It didn't even rain as expected. Little by little the "misery" eased (it wasn't true misery after all). We settled down.

I wish to "settle down" in the other areas of my life. Like our outing on the Fourth, our lives are lacking due to not being prepared. Granted, it is not easy to prepare to move a family of eight out of state and start a new job and life, but I am rethinking our decisions this past year. We have moved three times. We are currently paying high rent. We need new cars. We may have been emotionally damaged by homeschooling. I am only partly joking on that last one. Our decisions have gotten us to this place in our lives, and this place is not ideal.

Let me go back a few steps. I said it wasn't true misery on our Fourth of July outing. It wasn't. We were sitting under the stars waiting to see breathtaking displays of pyrotechnics to celebrate the amazing country in which we live. My baby girl perched on my belly as I lay on my back to view the show. The rest of my family was flung out beside me, the sparkles reflected in their eyes. It was worth the wait, and the wait wasn't all that bad anyway (spoiled Americans we are!). Reflecting back on that outing, let me put my life in perspective. The place we are in is not ideal, but it is far from horrible. We live in a beautiful home in a beautiful town, albeit temporarily. I could go on about the ocean, the weather, the Mouse at our disposal, blah, blah... We have the challenging, but fun task of finding a permanent home, school, and "life" for a family of eight. We may not have things exactly as we want, but like the fireworks display, all's well that ends well.

Home is Where the Heart Is

I am packing tonight for the third move here in Orlando. We stayed in corporate housing for the first two months before finding a rental we loved in Reunion. We planned to stay for a while, as we are hesitant about buying a house in Florida. The home was foreclosed by the bank, unfortunately. We were offered a sum to move by the end of the month, and we decided to take it instead of staying for the end of our lease. I may regret that decision.

It's tough work to move. Moving from Indiana to Georgia was tough enough to make me not want to do it again. From Georgia to Florida, we had movers do most of the work, but the "work" is not just packing and lifting, it is also mental and emotional. We had to move ourselves from the apartment to our Reunion house, and that was bittersweet for our children. They were glad to be in a house instead of a small apartment, but moving means upheaval. It was more of that. Now, even more.

We are moving from this house that was starting to feel more like home every day. The kids loved their bedrooms and their own bathrooms. We hadn't even swum in our pool yet. Again, it is bittersweet. The kids are excited to be moving to a better school district and go to a school with other children instead of being homeschooled. The new neighborhood has lots of kids for playmates. It is bittersweet because the move makes us feel homesick. Homesick for our old house, sure, but also just in the generic sense. We want a home for keeps.

While packing, I found a small planter that my mom gave me. It was my grandmother's. It's vintage, but nothing of monetary value. When I unpacked it back in December at the Reunion house, my husband asked if I wanted to keep it. We were thinning out, since we didn't have as much storage here. I said to put it in the "maybe pile," because it was my grandmother's and also chartreuse, my favorite color at the moment. It has a pink dogwood flower on it, and reads "home is where the heart is." As it turned out, I didn't even have time to sort out the maybe pile, and it is there that I again find the planter. I reexamine it, thinking of the Goodwill box. I read the message again and know its destiny is not to be among the other discards on a thrift store shelf.

Earlier this evening, I was thinking of a pep talk for my kids. Emotions are tender and tough. The environment here is uncertain. The planter's little saying hits home, pardon the pun. Wherever we are, as a family who loves one another, that's where the heart and home is. After we return the rental truck to Uhaul, after we get around to unpacking all the boxes for a third time, we are heading to Home Depot and picking out a little plant. Maybe an African violet would look nice in this inherited pot that is destined for the window sill of our new "home."

Adventures in Moving

Moving Day

We'd been planning our trip to Disney World for several months. We helped clean a local park and got free tickets through Disney's Give-a-Day, Get-a-Day program. Finally, we were heading to Orlando over Labor Day weekend. Coincidentally, Steve landed a job interview with Disney, so he coordinated it with our trip.

I enjoyed Magic Kingdom as much as I could, being eight months pregnant. I have actually never been to that park not pregnant, so I am used to swollen feet, aching back, etc. etc. of being at a theme park all day with an extra passenger.

Steve had his interview, and I didn't think much of it, as he'd had many interviews this past year. Maybe it would work out, maybe not. Whatever happened, I'm sure it would happen way after the baby was born.

Steve got a call from Disney only a few days after we returned from Orlando. He was offered a job. I was in shock. Didn't the company have a bunch of red tape it needed to cut through, a number of people to consult, many other tasks to do, taking a month or two, before they could just hire Steve? I was going on nine months pregnant! We didn't need another life change. I told Steve I was OK with moving to Orlando, but I was having the baby first, and the kids were finishing the nine weeks period at school.

Steve accepted the job and gave October 11th as his start date. Our baby was due the third, so he thought he was in the clear. Dear Steve forgot that our babies tend to be late. If our little one was two weeks late, that would put her birthday on the 14th. However, I had a good feeling about this one. I really thought she was going to be a forty-weeker. The one constant in all my pregnancies is that I start having serious pains two weeks before the birth. The pains started at 38 weeks, so I was hoping 40 weeks would be the time. Thus, I agreed to the start date of the 11th, and moving date of October eighth, after the kids got out of school. Disney did say Steve could start later if the baby didn't come in time, but he was really hoping to get a good start at his new company without having to ask for time off right off the bat.

October third came and went. Then the fourth, and the fifth... We had painters coming and going, cleaning crews, packers (who packed our stove knob by mistake), and movers. We were slowly closing up our Georgia life. One thing remained "open." Our last little Sullivan still had not arrived. We were getting nervous. We knew we weren't able to make the eighth as moving day. Maybe the ninth, or maybe Steve could go ahead without us. We were trying to figure it out, when I decided maybe I would have an induction.

A semi truck worth of stuff

I don't like inductions; I learned with my first pregnancy that Pitocin is not my friend. I realized that an induction may not even be an option, anyway, because I had had a previous c-section. We were getting desperate. We went to talk to my doctor. He said, "come in tomorrow morning, and we'll get you out of this pickle." Elated, but also nervous (I'd had all of my babies except the c-section, without medication or interventions) we left the doctor's office to prepare. Steve's mom came down to help with the kids.

As the evening went on, I told Steve we were probably going to the hospital that night. My "pains" that started two weeks prior, were organizing themselves into regular, consistent contractions. Sure enough, little Delaney Grace was born that night, October sixth at 10:33 PM. I suppose we just had to threaten her with the induction to get her to come out.

Eli, Sawyer, and Delaney

We were released to an empty house on the eighth, our original moving day. I slept on an air mattress. We decided Steve was going to Orlando on the ninth with or without us. We just had to decide if I could make the trip, or come later after resting up. Well, this being my sixth baby (and ninth pregnancy), I just didn't feel that beat up. It was an easy delivery, and she was sleeping a lot still. The house was empty, and so I decided to go ahead to Orlando with Steve the next day. Yes, you are reading this right. I birthed a baby on the sixth, and took a roadtrip on the ninth. Yes, for those of you who haven't caught on yet, we are crazy. Did you miss the fact that we now have six kids? We are still waiting on Amazon to deliver our straight jackets.

We loaded up the vehicles and said good-bye to Kilmersdon Lane. I went to use the bathroom before we left. I heard a plink and a small crashing sound. I looked down in horror to see my cell phone in the toilet. It had fallen out of my back pocket. I grabbed it and dried it off the best I could, but it was ruined. Now, I wouldn't be able to keep in contact with Steve on our road trip.

I go outside to share the news only to find that our van won't start. We had left the doors open all morning. Steve jumped the van and told me he'd meet me at Chipotle for lunch. I left him and his mom and got a head start for my burrito.

I turned the corner and drove through a big pile of glass. Great, now I could get a flat tire and not be able to call Steve. Steve and his mom would drive through this pile of glass later. So Steve's mom could get a flat on her way back to Indiana by herself.

At Chipotle, the kids and I wondered what was taking Steve and Baka (my kids' name for her) so long. Finally, they came in and told us Baka's van wouldn't start (this is a problem with Dodge minivans). We were off to a terrific start (pardon the pun).

All's well that ends well. The rest of the trip was uneventful and the baby slept through most of it as did I. Just kidding. We agreed that if I got tired we would stop. We broke the trip up into two parts. Four hours each day. Not bad for a sleep-deprived mama.

We're sort-of settled here in Orlando. We're in temporary housing and the kids aren't in school yet. We are ready for our new adventure in Florida. We'll sell our Atlanta house (hopefully), get a new one, make new friends, explore the state, but we miss our old life. It is painful, but exciting. Just like giving birth, no pain, no gain!

Eli and the view from our new balcony

We began our married life in Indianapolis. Seven years later we moved away from our home state of Indiana to the foreign land of Georgia. I was pregnant then too. New house, new job, new state... Another seven years later, here we are again. Who knows where the next seven years will take us?