Moving...

Tomorrow we pack up our house into the POD sitting in our parking spaces. I have frantically packed all week while trying to keep life somewhat normal for Delanah. She's been showing signs of stress with this move, more fussiness, acting out, getting very clingy. I think I did a good job making things okay for her. Thanks to some great friends we had 2 "play dates" where she got to play with her friends while my friend watched the kiddos and I packed. This morning she got to go to "Days" house while Dave and I worked like fiends here. Tonight she got to go to G-ma's and G-pa's house for the first time without me. They're having a blast.

So here I sit, 1:45am Saturday morning, not been to bed yet, can't turn off my mind and make myself relax. I am frantically getting some last minute washing done, the whole time thinking that I should have stopped washing days ago. I have made more labels for the boxes. Why? I doubt I will use them tomorrow. I do this with every move, mad, frantic packing, stressing, fretting before the last rush.

I can't believe we are leaving this place. I am excited about the new house; I have been mentally moving in all week. But this place has so much of our story...our first home, not apartment, but home where we put our touches on it. The painting of the cupboards in the kitchen (oh the drama there!), getting the colour just right on the kitchen walls, picking the floors, oven, fridge...painting the nursery. This was where we brought our daughter home. This is her first home, where our family started. Yes, it's time to move on, but it's hard. I am sitting in our living room, boxes and un-boxed items filling the floor space, but our couch, TV, Delanah's toys, the cuckoo clock, are still here. I can pretend that we're just cleaning out the crawl space, but tomorrow I can't. Tomorrow afternoon I will walk through the front door and enter an empty living room, I will walk through the dining room with memories of Delanah's first solids, bum scoots, first toddling steps running through my mind. I will climb the stairs and not need to open and close baby gates, I will see the bathroom we painted, the tub she had her first "real" bath in. Then I will look into her first room and see the colours we so joyfully painted on the walls before we met her. The imprints of where her crib, dresser, changing table and glider will still be in the carpet. I rocked her to sleep so many times in that room, battled diaper changes, watched her sleep... These memories I will cherish. These walls protected us from so many storms, brought Dave and I closer, watched our family grow, kept Delanah and I safe while Dave was away. I am going to miss this house. It's silly, it's just a house, my family is still going to be together, we're just starting a new chapter in our life.

...but I can still shed a few tears....