Saturday, November 10, 2007

What a Mess

My eyes burn. Not just from the onions I just cut up, but from fatigue.

Our household goods finally arrived on Thursday. Fortunately, Matt was granted a couple of days off. As I walked down our street and into Parade to drop Olivia off at a friend's house, I saw the movers pull onto our street. I was filled with excitement and dread.

Oh, I longed to hear the whirl of my mixer, the grinding of fresh coffee beans and to feel the comfort of my old slippers, bathrobe and mattress.

I did not, however, long for box after box of clothes neither child fits into any longer. And, where would we put our two Chariot strollers, extra bases for car seats, baby swing, bikes and toys, ginormous garage and basement storage shelves, miles of books and enough Army trunks to store military gear for a whole company of soldiers? And, what about winter clothes and recreation equipment? Camping gear, tool boxes, etc.

You see, we have no storage space. And, when I say no storage space, I really mean it. No garage, no basement. Just a few closets and one small storage nook.

Well, we have to get creative (we have no storage space to rent available to us here), buy a storage shed and even then, possibly ask the landlord to store some of our "stuff" in the unrented house next store. Note-to-self: If ever stationed in Europe again, store items you will not need before you move.

Oh, and toys. I haven't mentioned the toys. The bikes/riding/pushing toys, the dolls, doll clothes, doll beds, blocks, stuffed animals, child-sized purses, children's books, etc. Did I fail to mention the baby blankets? We have enough to donate to an entire orphanage. Olivia loves baby blankets for her dolls-but, I think I'm going to have to have to store the majority of them in our "next baby girl boxes" (because we'll surely have another girl). The playroom suddenly became a place to store toys - not to play in. And, Olivia and Lila are, primarily, only interested in dolls. The closest they come to playing with toys is pouring them out of bags or the toy box, and then leaving the room. Olivia will push or carry one of her dozens of dolls around the house while Lila follows behind yelling, "oilia!" As soon as I'm finished picking up the mess they left behind, they are back at it again.

I'm tempted to throw out all toys that don't relate to dolls (aside from puzzles, books, blocks and art supplies), however, my husband would kill me. In the mean time, I'm going to have to store some toys and rotate them out from time to time.

I did throw out a couple of dolls who suffered an untimely death of severed heads. I dumped random toys into the toy box and brought it upstairs to Lila's room. Her room opens up to our balcony and we, obviously, need some balcony toys.

We quickly discovered that our living room furniture does not fit. Our living room will always look cluttered and shoved together. We currently have a bookshelf in our dining room. I have yet to unpack my clothes and put them in my dresser. I'm still working on going through the boxes of Olivia's clothes that now fit Lila or will fit into within the next year.

However, it's slowly coming together. Nothing appears broken or ruined. Our kids are happy (Lila's a bit upset to be in a crib instead of the Pack and Play she's been in since she was four months old- but she'll get over it). I'm exhausted but feeling less overwhelmed than I was. I do love our house. I love the location, it's old charm, balcony, fenced-in back yard, uncarpeted rooms, large (larger than our kitchen in AK) modern kitchen (we have a gas stove instead of electric!) and more. I just don't love the lack of storage space!

Matt was finally able to hook up our router. We are now wireless. I can now browse the Internet and use my VOIP phone at the same time. I can't, however, do both and watch AFN (Armed Forces Network-American TV) because Olivia decided to wash the AFN receiver the other day. She was trying to "help" our housekeeper. Help all right; she fried it! We're not sure if we can get it replaced for free or if we'll have to pay for a new one. Oh, the joys of toddlers!

2 comments:

House Dad said...

Our furniture arrived in mid June and we're still unpacking a few things from out in the garage.

The good thing is that I know Jennifer has been converted to the idea of purging as much as possible before the next move.

The problem with kids clothing is that one of them can be the age of the size on the clothes but it can be too big or too small. Campbell is 15 months old and can wear some of the 2T stuff we have. Ellie is over 3 and can wear some of the 2T stuff. Craziness.

Angie said...

We are re-unpacking, but we actually do have storage. Thank goodness for basements. Did you store anything before you moved? We stored some things, but I'm not sure how some of this didn't end up in storage, like the seed spreader and wheelbarrow. We are not going to need those things here!

Great that things don't appear broken.