Navigating Moving with A Young Child

In our welcome back blog post, I mentioned that we moved to a new house earlier in the year. Joshua and I were finishing school and living with my mom when Delilah was born. We had plans to move out soon after we finished school, but Covid threw our plans into a loop and completely changed the rental landscape. We decided it was best to hold off on moving and save money until the situation was more certain. More time passed, and we had an excellent chance to save, but having savings doesn’t do much to help combat the incredibly high monthly rent costs. At the same time, it also didn’t appear that the situation was going to improve anytime soon, so we decided to figure out exactly what we could afford and start looking. We also agreed that since we weren’t in a huge rush, we wouldn’t do anything unless it absolutely felt right.

When we started talking about moving, we wanted to keep Delilah very involved in the process. She had lived in the same house since the day she came home from the hospital, and she is not a fan of big changes. We didn’t want to suddenly spring things on her. We started out by talking to her about different kinds of living situations. To her, a world where she didn’t live with her grandma just didn’t exist. We talked about different types of houses, not knowing if we would find a house, duplex, or apartment. She really responded well to talking about it. She’s incredibly curious, so she jumps at any opportunity to learn.

Luckily, in our situation, we weren’t tied to a particular location, so we had a big search area to look around in. After what felt like endless searching, we found a few places we liked enough to take a look at. Delilah isn’t big on change, and she gets it from us. We have a habit of analyzing big decisions until we’re going around in circles talking about them. Delilah was so excited when it was time to go look at places. She walked right in and started talking about the different rooms. She liked to imagine which room would be hers and where all her toys would go. She had a lot of fun looking, but we also made it clear to her that nothing had been decided yet. We’d let her know if we were going to be moving into any of the places we looked at, but she was excited about the process.

At the same time as we were looking at apartments, I had been talking to the owner of the house next door. She had bought the home and was finishing up some remodeling before putting it on the market to sell. We talked a few times, and she showed us her work on the inside. She had hoped for a quick sale, but the home ended up being on the market longer than expected. At that point, we started talking to her about possibly renting the house from her. We had initially hoped to settle a little closer to Joshua’s work with the move, but this home had a lot of other positives, so we added it to our options.

While deciding which option we wanted to go with, we brought Delilah to the house next door to let her look around, like she had done in the other places. She absolutely loved it when she was over there and ran back and forth across the empty house laughing. Once we decided to move forward with renting the house next door, we asked Delilah how she felt about it. To our complete surprise, she started crying. We expected emotions with the move, but we had thought she would prefer the house next door because it meant staying so close to her grandma. After talking to her, she told us she was upset because she wanted to move into an apartment, not a house. We eventually reached a compromise and agreed to call the new house an apartment.

Once things were said and done, we did not have much time before it was time for the move. In the days before, Joshua had to work, and I was at home with Delilah, feeling very much like I needed to do more to prepare. At the same time, spending time packing only to move them one house over also felt strange. Because most of our things were contained in our rooms and in storage out in the garage, I thought the move would be a simple process.  I also spent a good bit of the time we had before the move doing a deep clean on the house. I knew I’d have to clean again after everything was moved in, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to clean while the house was completely empty. 

When moving weekend came around, Oregon weather had to do its thing, and it was raining. It was not a light sprinkle or mist either. It was a consistent rain with occasional bouts of steady downpouring. We hadn’t rented a covered moving truck to move next door. We had planned to carry most things ourselves and move furniture and boxes in the back of my mom’s truck. The rain complicated things because we couldn’t load up the truck gradually, or everything would get soaked. We carried everything out to the porch and only loaded it up when we were absolutely ready. When it came to the move, Delilah wanted to help! She did not want to sit at Grandma’s and watch a movie. Instead, she wanted to carry things out of the old house and into the new house.

Moving was absolutely exhausting for all of us. When we carried big things like furniture in, we put them directly where they were supposed to go, so we didn’t have a ton of work to do before we were even to sleep in the house for our first night here. My mom was super helpful and went and picked up dinner while we got things settled for the evening. One thing is certain: whether you’re moving across town or one house over, it is exhausting to move!

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been worrying about how Delilah would handle the first few nights in a new house. The whole day of moving was a lot to process on top of sleeping in the house for the first time. We wanted her new room to be somewhere she felt completely safe, comfortable, and happy. Since we had the space, we set up our bed in her room for the first few nights so she could get used to sleeping in her own bed, in her own room, without any anxiety. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she could look over and see us right there, and I think it helped her make the transition without any fear or tears. A few times, she started sleeping in her room on her own, but then she woke up and cried. She had gotten used to the house enough to come out of her room and find us, and we could help her get back to sleep.

Now that it’s been a few months, Delilah is so happy in the new house and her new space. At the same time, it’s shown a lot about how she processes big changes. When she sees my mom, she often reminds her, “Hey, Grammy, I don’t live with you anymore!”. When other family comes to visit, she tells them all about it, too. It helps her to talk about the move and the changes, so we do it as much as she needs to.