Settling in

We're here.  We have left Brooklyn.  It seems unbelievable, improbable-- crazy even.  The reality is beginning to settle in, even as settling in for us seems to be impossibly out of reach.

The move was awful; the movers did not get a big enough truck (despite packing us the previous day) and the move took three days and two truck loads-- and we're still missing our vacuum cleaner.  There are boxes everywhere, some broken down, cluttering our entryway, and some yet to be unpacked.  We sleep on a mattress on the floor in the nursery.  Our bed, as yet unassembled, is strewn in pieces across our unused bedroom floor, along with a suitcase with a dwindling selection of clean clothes we brought along to be immediately accessible.  There is a crib, but no time and not enough free hands to put it together.

On the up side is the location-- a lovely, friendly neighborhood abutting a wildlife sanctuary on one side, and walkable distance to town.  And the dogs have their own "room"-- we have to use of our couch again. The Boy has a playroom (shared with the dogs) and we can eat in the kitchen without constantly battling back the encroaching canine beggars. (They just look wistfully through the glass door that separates them from us.)

But as quaint as old farmhouses are, they are drafty, moldy, full of hidden safety hazards.  On our second day here we discovered that the paint is full of lead and the basement is full of mold.  Now the windows and doors of the play room are covered in duct tape (at least we found white duct tape, a slightly less hideous look) but everywhere else he must be carried until we get our HEPA vacuum back and duct tape every flaking surface of every window and every door frame.  

I have not-so-subtly hinted to directly and repeatedly pleaded with my mother to come help us-- just to watch the Boy while we unpack some boxes, assemble the crib, do the things it takes two people with two hands each to do, but she does not seem to understand the difficulty we are facing trying to do this on our own.  I am beginning to wonder-- did she have kids?  I know she did-- I am here, of course-- but does she remember doing everything one-handed?  How impossible it can be to do the simplest thing-- switch a load of laundry-- if you have to watch the child at all times?  

I know we will get through this part.  I know in a couple of weeks it will be all better, but damn.  This is crazy.  And looming in my mind is the fact that we will have to do this all again in a year when we find a place to buy (not this place, for sure.)  

The Boy, for his part, loves the new space though he hates being constantly constrained to one room or being carried.  He's walking like an old pro now and wants to show off his skills whenever possible.  He gets frustrated with us treating him like a baby and carrying him around all the time.

Though I am not working at the moment, with the space in chaos and the need to be constantly carrying he boy, I feel like I can't take advantage of the extra time in any meaningful way.  But it does feel lovely waking up each morning to see trees outside our window, to hear the blue jays in the morning, the crickets at night.