Shit on my hands

MH *

In moving house you must be sane enough to realise you need space for your future and your child to crawl/run about – yet in this realisation you have committed yourself to the insanity of moving with a child.

This all started in June when we thought it a good idea to take advantage of the real estate boom and sell our tiny workers cottage in über-desirable Northcote, and buy a larger family home. We wanted T to have a lovely big bedroom and backyard to roam about in. Beautiful. Cue ocker voice-over for bank/family station wagon commercial.

Smugly delighted by the price we received, we started searching for new bigger digs nearby. And searched and searched and searched. We bid for places that ticked just about all the boxes but kept missing out. Then we were outbid on dumps that barely ticked one box. Still no love. M started making doom-laden statements about the likelihood of us all soon living under a bridge. But the (rather less hyperbolic) reality was that we would be competing along with everyone else for a rental property real soon.

Then finally we were the successful bidders at a rundown Californian bunga with a bad 70s reno in Preston. Yippee!

One day out from the movers arriving on our doorstep, half of our possessions were still to be packed and T had decided she would now commence commando crawling. The cats meanwhile, knowing something major was about to occur, were getting in screechy scuffles with the local feral (cat, not human) and ignoring the litter tray in favour of the kitchen bench top.

While my mothers group were enjoying a crybaby session of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, I was hurtling across the suburbs in a sleep-deprived haze collecting boxes from various sympathetic friends. The big day came and all our stuff was shoved on and then off a truck. We’ve since unpacked, hung pictures, installed a clothes-line and had the hot water system repaired at great cost.

And the perfect new house? Well, that is still a work-in-progress. The floorboards have been polished and the walls painted tastefully with ‘Bassinet’ and ‘White Smoke’, but the shocking c. 1976 en suite with brown everything will remain for some time, as will the decrepit shed. Yet we are delighted with our new home in the ‘burbs with retirees Bev and Les living on one side and a professional couple with chooks and a comprehensive rain catchment system on the other.

I’m sure T will appreciate all this one day (or she may demand, “Why did we move from such a cool area? I hate you!” We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it), but in the meantime, here is my advice: if you have cats and a baby and are thinking of moving – don’t!

That Joseph Heller was onto something.

* Due to my state of moving-induced mental and physical exhaustion, dear hubby M co-authored this post. Bless.