I remember when we picked our puggle, Mosotos, up from the vet when we adopted him in ‘burbs.  I had to walk him into the woods adjacent to the parking lot to get him to pee before bringing him in the car.  Three weeks of city living later, when we came back for a follow-up, he proudly peed on a lamp post.  City living is different.

So, mothering a mutt being my only previous foray into parenting, and myself a cul-de-sac-raised girl, I wondered what it would be like to raise city kids.  Then I realized they didn’t know any better.  Until…Though we are technically still in “The City,” it sure doesn’t feel like it.  I have seen more types of bugs and spiders than I can even count, many in my house.  There are burrows all over the landscaped parts of the yard that I am pretending are inhabited by chipmunks  Daniel almost hit a deer on his way to the airport early one morning.  We have seen hummingbirds in our geraniums (that’s right; we have geraniums), and praying mantises (manti?) abound.  We have wildlife here.  And that’s great, except my kids have never encountered it before and aren’t quite sure what to do with it. 

“Mommy!  Mirabella cried one day, regarding a robin in the yard, “Look at that pigeon!”  I explained that pigeons are just one type of bird, and that they don’t live everywhere.  Later, when I described a woodpecker I had seen, she said, “That’s a type of pigeon, right?” We’ll get there.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only wildlife we’ve encountered in the Village, or in our home.  As Daniel and I sat watching a movie the other night, I saw a mouse scamper from under the fridge and across the kitchen floor.  I saw Daniel pretend not to notice it until I mentioned it.  When we moved in, we found a closet full of poison and strange electric devices that are supposed to repel rodents.  Apparently, they do not.  As my dad reminded me, it wouldn’t be fair to call it a country mouse, but the one I’ve seen so far seemed much better fed than our occasional downtown mice.  I know we live in a 130-year-old house.  But I’d really rather not share the space.

From a strictly consumer perspective, until a few weeks ago, I might have referred to IKEA as the Happiest Place on Earth. I love it there.  Why? Because, for the last six years, I have had the challenge of making a home out of small spaces for a growing population with an ever increasing inventory of stuff, the smallest inhabitants bringing the most and biggest of the stuff, of course. IKEA, with its endlessly creative and useful and frugal contraptions, feels like home to me. So many items that perform multiple functions. Vertical storage! Thoughtful design! What's not to love?

Having kids has only increased my appreciation for the Swedish shrine. They have step stools at their bathroom sinks and emergency diaper changing kits. They have a place for mothers to nurse. In their restaurant, they have bottle warmers, baby food, healthy kids’ meal options and kid-sized furniture. The whole place smells like cinnamon rolls, and they even have free childcare that, in my pre-parenthood days, made me scratch my head.  Who would leave their kids with strangers at IKEA? I thought.  Then last year, to my family’s discomfort, I said excitedly, “When the kids are a little older, I could see us going to IKEA for a date.  The kids could play, we could eat meatballs; it would be awesome.” I remember my sister saying, “Wow, that’s sad,” and I think my mom offered to babysit for us.

So when we ventured to IKEA on a recent Friday afternoon, I laughed as we entered with several families with kids of similar age, chuckled when there was a waiting list at Smaland, the kids’ place, and yet again when we saw the same families eating dinner at the restaurant shortly after 5:00 PM. Our kids were a little unruly at dinner, but it was appropriate for the venue. I still looked forward to purchasing storage solutions (something about being in IKEA makes me overuse the word “solution,” as if I am mitigating the great challenges of life) that would greatly enhance life in our new home.

Then it all unraveled.  Something I never noticed about IKEA until this visit: In the showroom (the upstairs part that is organized by room), there are large arrows on the floor directing you through the space.  Why did I notice this time?  Because Emerie, my shrieking toddler, sprinted in the opposite direction of every arrow.  I ran, bent at the waist, after her.  I never realized she had such speed or volume.  I threw her over my shoulder on several occasions and attempted a feeble smile at unamused onlookers. Mirabella, usually compliant and well-behaved in public, was a disaster.  She melted into hysterics upon learning she could not play in Smaland.  She fell apart when I would not allow her to take a nap on a bunk bed on display.  It just kept getting worse. We should have left, but just getting Daniel and I in the same place over the course of the last month has been a challenge, and we had traveled an hour to get there. I had a list of specific items and measurements.  We couldn’t just leave, though many of our openly judgmental fellow shoppers certainly wished we would.

We finally abandoned the list, tried to gather what we could so we might leave with what little dignity and partially assembled items we could muster.  In the AS-IS department, where we found exactly what we needed to rig our old and heavy flat panel TV that we can’t hang on the plaster wall of our new place, Mirabella staged a coup.  She stood on a white couch and screamed.  I can’t remember why; I think I’ve repressed the memory.  I picked her up and walked her to a patio set where I quietly scolded her and placed her in time out.  I walked away.  She continued to scream.  Daniel and I looked helplessly at each other while Emerie, smiling broadly, rushed to her sister’s aid. People were very openly staring at this point. "We just need to leave,” Daniel said, defeated. 

A family with four children aged six and under, two of them toddler twins, strolled by.  Their children were behaving beautifully.  The father said, “This could just as easily have been us.  It still could, at any minute.”  Though embarrassed, we were grateful for his graciousness. 

The girls and I left the store and Daniel completed our transaction.  A few minutes later in the car, Mirabella, with skin still splotchy from her outburst, was her sweet self.  She had no explanation for her behavior.

Emerie, nearly 18 months old now, is at what I hope is just a stage where she throws fits often.  She screeches, swats, yells “mine” and “NO” at children who merely attempt to occupy the same space as her and, in most situations where there are other children (the Science Center, Chick-fil-A) makes me wish I had just stayed home.  But she is only semi-verbal, and though she can understand a lot, she still can’t talk much.  I redirect her, I calmly correct her, I send her to timeouts (or she sends herself and sits there giggling).  I often find myself scolding her in public for the benefit of other people.  She doesn’t know what I’m talking about, and I have no belief that it’s helping.  But it looks to the other, openly condemning parents, that I am at least attempting to rectify the situation. This is not what I thought it would be.

That night in the car on the way home from IKEA, we laughed at what our life has become.  In our haste and humiliation, we ended up purchasing a few items that didn’t work out.  Though there are still solutions we need to find, we haven’t been in a hurry to go back.

I only hesitantly bring the kids to Trader Joe’s for fear they will ruin the one shopping sanctuary I have left.

When the prospective new neighbor who first showed us our home for our out-of-town landlord walked us around the "village" to meet the neighbors, then had us over for a cup of tea, we probably should have known this would not be a typical neighborhood.

The Village, as I'll call it to maintain its privacy, is something else. After that first meeting, we felt fairly certain we had been interviewed. Though the farthest cry from a "planned community," one like this does not happen entirely by accident.  It takes a certain kind of person, I think, to want to live in a 130-year-old house.  One week in, we received a brochure in our mailbox (with no postage) describing the Architectural Committee guidelines (one of the perks of renting: no need to worry about such things!). Not everyone would want to deal with the trouble and expense of taking this kind of care to preserve the historical integrity of a home or a community. What I've seen of our community thus far is diverse, but not like you'd think.  Not the way my high school was, which was racially, mostly.  Though there is some of that brand of diversity, this is different.  There is a variety of ages: young families, retired singles and couples, and everything in between. The Village definitely leans to the left, but even in that there seems to be room for variance.  I guess that sums it up: There is acceptance, and there is room for differences.

We moved in early so we would not disrupt and so we could participate in the annual Fourth of July festivities, which this year featured 5 days of Alice in Wonderland themed revelry.  We did not even participate in half, only making it to the children's activities, the dinner dance, and the parade.  Mirabella sprayed a fire hose, created a "Heart of Queens" costume that netted her a prize in the following day's parade, then danced the night away before watching fireworks that were both extremely loud and incredibly close. We were warmly greeted and happy for activities to take our attention away from our far less walkable surroundings as we settled in.

The Village is web savvy and uber connected. I am already part of its Google Listserv and a Facebook group; I am accustomed to this type of "community." But a week later, we were taken aback as we cleaned the house to prepare for 10 days of company and a neighbor stood on our porch with his granddaughter.  She and Mirabella had hit it off at the pre-move-in cookout, so she had come to play with Mirabella.  She stayed for an hour and explored our toy room, and everyone had a good time.  Daniel and I stood in the kitchen, unsure of what to think.  This had never happened to us before. Playdates usually require weeks of pre-planning and a barrage of e-mails.

"I think this is what neighbors do," Daniel said.

"Oh, right," I agreed.  "This is what we wanted."

We've since had additional visits by more neighbors, and several more playdates.  Our downtown daughters don't know what hit them, but they know better than to question a good thing. 

I dreaded the fourth of July.  Daniel decided it would be fun for us to camp out in the old house, to see the fireworks one last time from the two-story deck he built himself.  In theory, I thought it was a great idea.  Romantic.  But as it got closer, I wasn’t so sure.  From a strictly logistical perspective, the place was filthy.  There was no furniture, no fridge, no shower curtains; it would be a nightmare.  But those were really just a ruse for the real reason I didn’t want to do it: I wasn’t sure I could handle going back.  The day of the move was so task-oriented and busy that I didn’t have time to look around at how sad my first home looked.  But I knew if we went back for “family time” in the old house, it might be too much.

So Monday as we continued to work to set up the new house, we waffled over what to do.  I had convinced Daniel that a sleepover wasn’t wise, that wasn’t a hard sell.  But I could tell his heart was still set on going.  I wondered if I would regret it if we didn’t.  So we ventured over, with a vacuum cleaner, Pack and Play, toddler sleeping bag, Styrofoam cooler, and our ever present iPod and docking station.  We ate takeout on the patio.  At every turn I welled up.  Images of our life together washed over me.  I rinsed a sippy cup in the kitchen sink and remembered bathing both my newborns in it.  (And also, man is it a beautiful and deep sink.)  I looked down the galley kitchen I had long despised and longed for that kind of counter space. I saw the cabinetry, tile work, woodwork, paint, plumbing, and design Daniel had poured his heart and talented hands into over five years.  It was becoming sadistic.

When it started raining, the girls ran circles around my old bedroom while I sat on the floor. I thought of the first night Daniel and I had spent in that room, in sleeping bags on the floor.  I changed into my wedding dress in that room. Over our ensuing marriage we held each other there through joy and loss, through lost jobs and sick loved ones, a miscarriage and the fears it brought, through dark days and through the unspeakable exhaustion and joy of bringing our babies home.  I put Emerie to sleep in her room and couldn’t finish singing her the song I always sing.  It was time to go outside.We sat on the deck on the furniture I bought last Father’s Day.  We used to call it our favorite room of the house. 

 Mirabella squealed in delight over staying up late and having a perfect view of the fireworks (and the hammock and her parents to herself).  She went to bed in our old room and we laid on the hammock while I cried.  We talked about how this was the longest we’d lived anywhere since we were kids, how it was the first place we’d been allowed to paint the walls, how I wasn’t sure we’d know how to be a family since that was the only place we’d ever been one.  “We’ll be a family wherever we go,” he said.  I used to know this.  Used to pride myself on not being attached to things like houses.  But then we made a home.

“I don’t think I want to come back,” I told him.  “My heart can’t take it.” 

Finally, Daniel said, “It’s time to go.”

Echoing the Alice in Wonderland theme of our Fourth of July in the new neighborhood, I said, “The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of other things.  Of ships and shoes and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings.” 

“Wow, I can’t believe you just did that.  That was really weird,” he said.

When I woke her, Mirabella said, “We have to go to the new house, Mommy?  Because this is not our home anymore, right?  This is not our home.”  I winced and told her she was right.  In the car she said, “I love both our homes, Mommy.  I love two homes.”

I know that this one will always have a big piece of my heart, but the time has come to talk of other things.

I promise, soon I will venture off of the topic of moving.  Soon.  Not today. Our diagonal, cross-town move, from SE to NW Baltimore went as well as it could have.  With no professional (read: paid) movers.  And so, out of the rubble of broken down cardboard, I give you my lessons learned:

1. Procure boxes early, and get more than you think you’ll need.  Craigslist and Freecycle are wonderful things.  I started searching for boxes a month before the move so we wouldn’t have to pay for boxes out of desperation.  You have to respond quickly, because others are similarly scrambling for boxes or eager to have them out of their new homes, but you should never have to pay for moving materials.

2. Know when and how to ask for help.  We learned the hard way who to ask, how to ask, and when to let it be.  General rule: if you are beyond helping others move, they are probably not going to jump at the chance to help you. Just saying.

3. Be nice to guys with big trucks. Because you just never know.

4. Pack early, pack often. Though we didn’t move until the last weekend in June, we started packing in April.  We moved a storage unit full of stuff (excess toys, out-of-season clothes, Christmas decorations) out of the house in April and continued to pare down each month.  We were fortunate to be able to move boxes over gradually in the week before our “official” move.  This is ideal.  We moved carloads at a time, making the big truck load less big.

5. Pack with unpacking in mind.  My packing pet peeve: unrelated items packed in the same box.  On one of our first days of packing, Daniel handed me a sealed box labeled “KITCHEN/ENTERTAINMENT CENTER/MISC.”  This is not a good sign.  I say I often do things for “Future Christina.”  I imagine how I might feel coming down to the kitchen in the morning and seeing dirty dishes or toys on the floor or lunches unpacked and it gives me the motivation to complete tasks I’d rather not.  (My sister-in-law says, “You’re always doing things for that chick.”)  But I do think it’s helpful to be thoughtful in packing, not to just throw everything in a box, but to consider where it will go and whether the way in which it is packed will be stressful later.  Because the move doesn’t end when the last box is in the new place.  Having said this, also,
6. Embrace—or at least learn to live with—your differences.  Contrary to #5, Daniel’s packing pet peeve is boxes that are less than efficiently packed.  If it doesn’t look like a Jenga tower, he is irritated.  It matters not where the items came from, as long as they fit like a puzzle.  This is how you get lots of “MISC” boxes and a disgruntled wife (who also happened to be chief unpacker).  I let this bother me for a long time.  However, when unpacking the (30 or so?) kitchen boxes, I learned to appreciate that he had packed pots and pans with throw pillows.  Because a 4-foot-tall box is much easier to unpack when it’s unexpectedly half-full of pillows, which leads me to,

7. Celebrate the small victories.  I actually consider this to be a strategy for a happy life, but it works with moving too.  Packing or unpacking, we considered each box a victory.

8. Clean the new place first.  Admittedly, this isn’t always possible (as in our case).  But man, I sure wish it had been.  It’s still not as clean as I’d like it, and we’ve been there 10 days.

9. Have really fantastic friends. Okay, it’s not like you can really accomplish this on a whim.  But we were so blessed to have friends bring us meals and one even drove his truck all the way from Connecticut (on his birthday weekend) to help us move.  We also had a wonderful new set of friends help us with the kids, which reminds me,

10. Arrange for someone to watch your kids-- away from both houses. Our new friends brought us dinner the night before our move (complete with disposable silverware tied with gingham ribbon) and watched the kids at their house the day of the move.  The girls even spent that first night away, which was unplanned and hard for me at first.  I really wanted to show them their new room, but it just wasn’t a reality until the next morning when we brought them home.  We should have planned this from the start.  They had fun playing with friends, and we didn’t have to worry about their safety while we sorted things out.

11. Find a place for your pets to go. We didn’t do this and should have.  After we loaded the last of it to take the new house, we didn’t want to take the dog because we knew the doors would be propped open.  We came back to get him a few hours later.  The problem: He didn’t know we were coming back, and he was left in a completely empty house, scared to death.  He was literally sick with worry, and it was messy.  We should have sent him away with a friend or even boarded him for the day to keep his nerves (and our carpet) intact.

12.  Be prepared. Buy lots of trash bags, packing tape, paper towels, toilet paper, bottled water disposable cups, plates and cutlery (even if you’re not typically paper product or bottled water purchasers), ice, and have coolers on hand for refrigerated item transport (and drinks).  Have directions between houses on hand for moving helpers and family, and don’t pack your phone chargers, iPod and docking station (or battery powered stereo of some sort) or cleaning products.

13. Have a plan of attack for room setup. I knew I wanted the girls’ room set up first so they would have a place to play and feel at home, the playroom, the kitchen, and our room behind that. It can’t all get done at once.  But whenever I feel overwhelmed, I walk into the playroom closet and look at the neat shelves with labels and all is right for a moment. 13b.  You really should invest in a label maker.

14. Cut yourself some slack.  The week before (and really, after) the move, for us, have not really resembled real life.  Lots of frozen meals and eating on the run.  This too shall pass, and thank goodness for Trader Joe’s and macaroni and cheese.

15. Don’t let it go to your head. Change in Living Conditions ranks 25 points on the Holmes and Rahe Stress 100-point Scale (14 points behind “Gaining a Family Member.”  I don’t see how that could be correct).  We found it to be terrifically stressful, and it wore on our marriage.  We fought over when to pack, how to pack, whether to hire movers, in what order to move, whether to and which farewell activities to participate in—the list goes on.  We would have done well to give each other a little space to sort through our mixed feelings and let the little stuff go.  In the end, it was all little stuff.