Moving and the Unknown
One week from yesterday, we will be moved into our new house. Out with the old, and in with the new!
Our house looks like a war zone of boxes. The kitchen itself probably has 30 boxes stacked against the windows near the eat-in area. We've made good progress, but there is still much left to do. So far, my 3 year old has handled seeing our current house transformed into a city of boxes quite well. We've taken everything off her bedroom walls and emptied her bookshelf, and yet I'm amazed how she keeps moving forward each day, unphased by the bareness and lack of personal touch that her room possesses.
My husband and I feel very much at peace to be moving in just one week. We are sad to leave our neighbors and the memories made in our current home, but very excited to be getting a little more space to live in. The new house presents many unknowns, and while it will be a time of transition and adjustment for us, the kids will also have to adjust to a new environment and unfamiliar faces (or, more importantly, the loss of familiar neighbors).
We've driven by the house with the kids several times to try and bolster excitement in their hearts regarding their "new" house. When you have kids, you look for little things that will make them comfortable in a new environment. The seller of the house we're buying happens to also be a K-State Wildcat fan. There is a wildcat in the front landscape that greets you as you're walking up to the house. There are neighbors behind us with a Wildcat grill cover. Our daughter is excited that we're buying "a wildcat house", and that's good enough for me.
When we knew that we were buying this house, we told her that we needed to go upstairs to find her new room. Then we had to find brother's new room, and Mommy and Daddy's new room. Though this seems obvious, make sure that the kids (especially if they're young) know that everyone is moving into this new house, not just them. We're letting her pick out her paint color in her "new" room, and the chosen color is pink. We plan to paint this room as soon as we can, again, to make her feel comfortable and to help her feel like this, indeed, is her room.
The neighborhood has a pool, which she has seen and requested we go to each time we've driven in the neighborhood. We'll make it a point to go here soon after we move in to build fun memories for her right from the beginning. We are bringing her swingset from the old house to the new house, which will serve as familiarity and hopefully some comfort for her. And she's already been asking about having some of her friends over for playdates to "play Tinkerbell and Ballerina", and scheduling this for her is also important. Building new memories for her with friends and family in an unfamiliar place will help the new house to become like home.
What are your tips for transitioning kids when moving?