Wave To Me

Moving is like dying.  Well, not dying yourself, just everyone you knew died.  Except they are on the internet and facebook and you can still call and hear their voices if you get really desperate. So, not exactly like dying...but almost. 

I thought I was a moving expert.  Just like when I was pregnant with my 4th baby and I thought I was a mommy expert.  I would never have admitted to thinking it, but I was a little smug and could "have had babies with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back" sort of thing.  I knew what I was doing you see.  And after about 10 moves or so I was pretty sure I could own a moving consulting company. 

My fifth and sixth babies taught me that I didn't know a whole lot about anything really and having teenagers is opening up a whole new world I didn't know even existed.  These last two moves are teaching me something as well. 

Moving is like living on an island.  Imagine an island that has your house on it.  A new one.  Even if the house is nice, is it new and therefore does not hold memories.  Everything you do in that new house is for the first time.  Your first  birthday. Your first Thanksgiving dinner.  Your first midnight throw up mess. 

You can still email your friends.  You can call them.  Your extended family is still your family no matter where you go.  But when you go to the store you see only strangers.  When you go to church you see only faces without names to go with them.  When you imagine Christmas you imagine it alone.

I was going to move my blog.  I actually did move my blog.  I moved to the hippest and coolest spot in blogging town.  But I can't make myself actually post anything over there.  I think I am scarred for life.  See, all those other moves I made I did with small children and no real time in the place I was moving from.  This move was different.  Those first 4 babies I had were a blur.  I had them in my early twenties.  I was young and I was oblivious.  Maybe it is all about age.  Maybe having babies and moving are for the super young.  Maybe the holidays are getting to me.  Maybe I am just a whiner baby.

I am going to move my blog.  I am there already, I just haven't spent the night there yet.  I think I even have a bed set up and clean sheets put on.  I will make it official.  I will write a post and will post it there and maybe I will see you. 

And just like the 4th grade good-byes we gave to those boys we thought were cute one minute and covered in cooties the next:  1,2,3......

BREAK-UP!

Transportation is a Precise Business

I am a new business owner.   I am in the business of driving.  I am the transporter.  I thought about a taxi service company but I like to live on the edge so being a transporter sounded way more exciting.

This is a very humbling position I am in by the way.  I pink-ee-swore I would not be my kid's cabbie.  Well, paint my suburban yella' cause that's just what I've become.

I woke up yesterday morning at 4 am.  I dropped oldest kid at church.  I came home.  I dropped Mr. Cox at shuttle station.  I came home.  I dropped middle kids at school.  I dropped Mr. Adam at a different school.  I came home.  I dropped oldest daughter at bus stop.  I came home.  I picked oldest from school.  I came home.  I picked middle kids from school.  I came home.  I picked Mr. Cox from shuttle stop.  I dropped oldest at concert.  I picked oldest from concert.  I came home.

I woke up this morning at 4 am.

No lie.

Not even the 4 am part is a fabrication.

As I was driving this morning, because that is my business, I started to hyperventilate.  I started to realize that I turned into that mom.  I am the anti-driver.  Where did I go?  Apparently I went to get my keys.  "What time did you need to be there?"  Then I stopped, and not just at the red light, wait a minute...this is it then!  This is the next phase of my life!  I have arrived.  The first 15 years was pregnancy, nursing, diapers, and spit-up.  I have moved into relationship counselor, sideline hockey coach, homework typist, and taxi driver...I mean...transporter.

I start thinking about embracing this phase.  I start thinking about lifting my foot off the gas and acting like the faster I get there the sooner I get out of the car.  I start thinking that maybe I should drive slow.  Take it in.  Talk to the kid I have in the car at the moment.  Stop at that stop sign.  Look at that kid in the eyes.  Smile at him.  Love him.  Drive him.  Pick him up.  Be his mother, not his driver.

Then I started thinking about getting a more appropriate vehicle for my new job.....

Audi A8 W12 Quattro.  Dig it baby.