Moving Day

The ground was coated with ice when we pulled into the driveway. As I lifted Bella out of her car seat, I felt the ice cracking under my feet and I held her tight in case I slipped. We ran through the empty house, and our laughter echoed through the deserted rooms. Later that night, we all tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep. Both Bella's pack and play and our inflatable mattress were hard and uncomfortable on our backs.

But it wasn't our uncomfortable bedding that kept us up. It was the eerie silence of a suburban night that made us uneasy. The warning blast of the train horn off in the distance louder than all the New York city police car siren.

The next morning when the moving trucks arrived, we greeted them with bleary eyes but big smiles, eager to start our lives in our new home.

This morning, five and a half years later, the moving truck arrived again, this time to transport our furniture to a new life in Ohio. In that time we not only acquired industrial quantities of toys and furniture, but we also added two more people to our family. It's amazing how quickly an entire life can be packed up in anonymous cardboard boxes. A year of preschool triumphs boils down to the label "miscellaneous arts and crafts." Only my kitchen boxes give a hint to my love of cooking with their detailed labels, "pasta maker, chopper, food processor."

Although we're all excited for our MidWestern adventure, our hearts are heavy as we bid farewell to these walls that welcomed two of my children and witnessed cozy Christmas mornings, chaotic playgroup snacks, and countless breakfast for dinner feasts.

Happy Wordful, Wordless and Way-back wednesday!

This is an original Chefdruck post. Please don't copy without my permission.