It’s funny how your life can change overnight. My husband and I were nearing our one-year anniversary of living in Austin, when, boom, suddenly we’re both unemployed. 4 days ago I was shopping for real estate, now I’m packing up my house to move back to San Francisco to live with the in-laws. We’ve given ourselves two weeks to pack, move and find jobs.
It’s crazy how fast your life can change.
It’s also crazy how difficult it is to pack boxes with a one-year old running around. If you didn’t read my last post regarding Sammy and his magical object-relocating skills, read it here.
I actually thought the biggest problem was going to be this:
Or, perhaps the opposite of stealing; I’d open up bathroom boxes in San Francisco to find the sippy cup I’d been looking for, or find a half-eaten banana squished in with my pillows. Hmmm, perhaps I shouldn’t speak so soon, I haven’t finished packing yet…
So far neither of those have happened. It turns out that the most common problem is this:
Searching for the tape isn’t so bad, not compared to Sammy’s other trick.
Do you know what skills one-year olds are learning and oh-so-proud of?
Climbing. I get it; if I were less than 3′ tall, I’d want to get up as high as possible to see what I was missing. The problem is that toddlers learn how to climb on things long before they master the skills to get back down.
You’d think this would faze them. And you’d be wrong. In fact, the higher the mountain to climb, the more intriguing the mountain. I’m probably just being a paranoid parent though. In my minds eye, this is how I view my son:
In reality, this is probably what’s happening:
I think parenting turns even the strongest people into complete scaredy-cats. At least, that’s my excuse.
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You DO know that in most cases the child won’t climb higher than a) he can get down from or higher than b) he feels sure you’ll come help out. Remember confidence is gained by experience and an occasional bump for 6″ isn’t too bad unless it is landing on his head on a cement floor.
Well, we have hardwood floors so my paranoia may be a little warranted; however, that said, I don’t stop him from climbing up in the first place and there really isn’t anywhere that he can climb up to that’s very high anyway.
I moved when HJ was 6 months and than 18 months…omg I was amazed at how much more dificult it became. Wait until you are unpacking and find a random toy thrown into different boxes
I’m completely expecting to find random objects; although it might be payback. I once helped a friend move and somehow inadvertently packed cat poop in with his kitchen stuff.
I agree! I live through this physical exploration phase with sweaty palms and a racing heart. On the other hand, the thing I found myself saying most often today to my crying 18 month old was, “Try again. You can do it.” Why the heck do I *do* that?!? LOL
Having moved back in with my mom twice as an adult, you have my sympathies. (My mom was pretty cool to live with once we worked out that I am an adult, LOL… it was mainly the idea of not being able to handle things on my own.)
Shan recently posted..Phew!
Hehe… this is hilarious!! Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving such a great comment! I replied to you there, but I didn’t know if you’d stop back to check, so I’m going to reply here too! I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who got suckered at that store. But you’ll laugh when I tell you that I also got duped into buying that same cleaner too! Except, um…I bought $400 of it. Yep. There was some special deal going on where, if you bought three cases, you got one free…or something like that. Anyway, they told me I could use it in place of laundry detergent, and I hate buying laundry detergent, so I figured I wouldn’t need to buy detergent for the next few years if I took advantage of the deal. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Anyhoo, needless to say, my husband was livid when he got home. He called the company to get our money refunded, and we got our $400 back but the guys never came back to pick up the cleaner. So essentially we got $400 worth of cleaner for free! (I make sure to point out this fact whenever my hubby sees fit to harass me about my high dupability factor.) LOL I’ll probably devote a blog post to the story someday!
Anyway, I’m following you now! Love your blog–enjoy the rest of your week!
Smiles, Jenn @Misadventures in Motherhood
Jenn recently posted..Strange Brew
Ok, I hereby bequeath you the ‘I’m a sucker’ prize. I thought it was mine, but I think you *might* deserve it more. I do love that you ended up with $400 of cleaner for free though. Now that’s a good deal!
The problem is I don’t have one of those “no soliciting” signs on the front door (seriously, I need to get/make one) and so when someone unexpected knocks on the door I’m as good as doomed.
I love your blog, I’ve been following it for a while.