The big move

Highlights from the past week and a half:

• Scott asked me to pack up the clothes the girls would wear on the trip up to Boston, and I replied with, "Yep, I'll pack Beth and Sarah tonight."
  
  Beth, who had been watching (and occasionally helping) the whole packing process, got this totally worried look on her little face and said, "No, mama, don't put me in a box!"
  
  "Oh, sweetie, no," I said. "I won't put you in a box!"
  
  "Not baby Sarah either?"
  
  "No, not baby Sarah either. I'm going to pack your clothes in a suitcase so that you can have them on the trip."
  
  "Oh. Okay."


• Forget the Waldorf-Astoria — my favorite hotel is now the Homewood Suites. There's a kitchenette, enough room for two portable cribs, a swimming pool, breakfast every morning, and dinner most weeknights. It's clean. There are highchairs. It isn't too terribly expensive, especially after you add up what you'd spend on those meals. And the girls lovedlovedloved going swimming last Tuesday night. Sarah, who hadn't been swimming before, was apprehensive for about two and a half minutes before deciding that she was born to be a water baby. Seriously. She kicked her legs and waved her arms around and giggled. Seeing her in a swimsuit is about the cutest thing ever.


• We read the last Harry Potter book all the way up to Boston and then all weekend while we were waiting to get into the house. Excellent, excellent book. (And if you haven't heard my rant on this before, you're getting it here: What is with the crazy evangelical folks who think the Harry Potter books are evil? Come on.)


• Beth didn't throw up in the car. Yay Dramamine!


• Beth did, however, throw up in the Friendly's in Sturbridge. I think I'm at fault for giving her too many fruit snacks to keep her quiet while I was reading Harry Potter to Scott.


• We figured out on the second day of our drive that listening to a tape of old Sesame Street songs will keep Beth quiet and happy for hours on end. No exaggeration, no kidding.


• Closing on the house? Totally anticlimactic. We signed a bunch of papers, the girls played in the corner, the sellers' agent was woefully unprepared and glaringly unprofessional. Our agent, whom we adore, actually handed us her garage door opener and let us stay at her house for four days before our furniture arrived.


• Boston is impossible to get around in. We bought a GPS unit for the car and improved our navigational skills only marginally. It's just bad.


• Oh — if your profession depends on an internet connection, e-mail access and a collection of software your husband is unlikely to have on his computer, just don't move. Ever.


• Stephanie, you were right: Bear your testimony the first chance you get in your new ward. All spirituality aside, it gives people a chance to size you up. (Thanks for the tip, girl.) Someone from church actually recognized me today at Costco and said hello. That random enough?


• Scott got to use his cordless drill to take apart a window on the second floor. Then he and the movers hoisted our couch up over the balcony and squeezed it through the window to get it into the living room. Fun to watch.


• Today's the first day it's actually been bearable to be in the house without air conditioning (which we only have in the bedrooms, thanks). Ninety-plus degrees in Boston is just hot.


• Beth and Sarah had been increasingly frantic about the move. The first few days were like a vacation, then Mom and Dad got serious about something, then we took them to an empty unfamiliar house and said, "Hey, this is where we're going to live! Won't that be fun?" Then we didn't actually get to live in the house for a few days, and then it was hot and humid and everyone got cranky and a bunch of men were moving a lot of things into the house and it was past naptime and everyone got hotter and crankier.
  
  In the middle of the moving-in-the-furniture chaos, the phone/internet/TV guy came to hook everything up. (Somehow this house made it to 2007 without getting cable...but that's another story. And we have co-ax cable draped and duct-taped around the moldings until we can get a contractor in to embed it in the walls. Again, another story.)
  
  But the technology all eventually got hooked up, and the TV got unpacked and put on top of a great steamer trunk we bought in Pittsburgh, and Mommy found the on-demand kids' shows and found (drum roll please) an episode of The Wonder Pets. And everything was immediately, miraculously better.
  
  Beth slumped down in her chair — I could actually see her shoulders relax — and five minutes later she was asleep. Poor kid. She really needed it.


• Oh, we have a terrific downstairs neighbor. She's been saving Bed Bath & Beyond coupons for us, she's fed us dinner twice, and we just genuinely like her. We're counting our blessings.


• First room to be almost completely set up: the kitchen.


• Second room: the guest bedroom. We're hoping for lots and lots of visitors (and you know who you are).