Just Another Manic Moving Day

A year after their seventh child was born, my parents decided that our house was no longer big enough. Looking back, I don't remember much about that house. The cellar was perfect for roller skating in circles, the attic was great for playing school, there were pocket doors between the living room and the other living room (in fourth grade I didn't pay much attention to what rooms were called), and the floor in the downstairs bathroom was a black and green swirl pattern and was always freezing cold.

Before moving day, my mother had a going away party for all the kids in the neighborhood, and gave them all presents. During the party, my mother looked outside and saw a child walking by. The child was more an acquaintance than a friend, but my mother told me to go invite her to the party. Meanwhile, my mother scrounged up another present from her bureau drawer, a pretty little change purse, and gave it to the girl.

Although it was a little sad to say goodbye to my best friend, Paula, I was excited about moving to a new house. The whole searching/passing papers/packing process went right over our heads. When moving day arrived, all the house contents had been taken away, and the nine of us were left alone in the house. Our last supper was chicken pot pie with no drinks (or so I remember) and to this day I remember how dry, dry, dry that chicken pot pie was. I have never had any since. After our gourmet meal, we all piled into the car, in the dark of the cold winter evening, and away we went to our new house.

An hour later, we scrambled out of the car and hurried into the big, new house. Actually, it was quite a big house, but it wasn't new. Part of it was built in the 1700s and the rest of it in the 1800s. The cellar had three rooms, and one of them even had a dirt floor. There were two staircases, one at each end of the long house. Most of the bedrooms had fireplaces, as did all the downstairs rooms. (We were later to discover the mice in the walls, but the mice would always quiet down when we knocked on the walls.) We kids covered every inch of that house that first night, filling all its rooms with our excitement, walking up and down those staircases. It must have driven my exhausted parents crazy, but if so, they kept it to themselves. It was a magical night.

When spouse and I got married, we had our house built, watching every step of its creation. When we came home from our honeymoon and the house wasn't ready, we stayed with spouse's parents for five weeks. We finally moved in and we loved our new house. Within a year, our best man (spouse's brother) and matron of honor had their house built, and we were thrilled to be only a mile apart. Then the babies started coming, and we took turns having them for the next four years. The kids loved playing together, and we parents had many great times together.

Gradually our town became more like a city, and our street became more like a speedway. The girls couldn't ride their bikes in the street (alright, I wouldn't LET them) and the traffic all over the city was getting crazy. We decided to move to small town USA. We looked at houses to buy, but once again, it was more cost effective to build a house than to buy someone else's. So that's what we did. This time when the new house wasn't ready on time, we moved in with my mother, for eight weeks. House-hunting, color selections, packing, moving, it's all difficult and stressful, but the most difficult part of moving is leaving loved ones behind.

We actually had two moving days, as the first was to move the furniture into storage, with the generous help of family members. The second moving day was easier than the first, as we had the assistance of professionals and were only moving five miles. We, along with our girls, had watched the progress of the construction one weekend at a time, so there were no surprises, unpleasant or otherwise. The girls got their blue or pink bedrooms and a bigger yard. They seemed to like the new house, despite the cellar having only one room and a cement (not dirt) floor, despite there being only one staircase, and despite the lack of mice in the walls. Kids - they're so easy to please.