Day Thirteen

Any time someone learned we were driving across the country (whether from one of us or from someone else) there were two very clear types of reactions. The first was something to the extent of "Wow! What an adventure! You guys are going to have such a great trip! Your boys will have such amazing memories!" The other response people had was something to the extent of "You are insane! Why aren't you just flying out? They are both so little! GOOD LUCK (said with sarcasm)." Josh and I tossed the idea around of flying out and having our cars shipped with our other belongings, and tossed around the idea of him driving and the boys and I flying, or one of Josh's brothers driving out with him while I flew out with the boys, etc. etc. What it all came down to, is that this is a move we are taking as a family. And because of that we ended up coming to the decision that whatever decision we made it needed to be one we did all together.

I spent a lot of time preparing for the trip almost obsessively... I had Amazon orders coming pretty much daily with various toddler activity books, car organizers, and so on. I think today it really hit me how challenging this trip has been as a parent. We have not spent more than 2 nights in one location, according to the app on my phone we have spent 31 hours in the car traveling so far (it feels more like 3100 hours), have changed time zones twice, and have been really winging pretty much everything. I thought I had some insight into how challenging the trip would be, since kids thrive with structure and routine and our lives prior to this trip had a lot of structure... but like anything else, I only could speculate what the trip would be like. The truth is I had no idea. The boys are exhausted. They typically wake up with bad attitudes, cry over small and unimportant things, and I'm not sure anything they say is not whiny. To say that Josh and I are feeling pretty worn out 13 days in is an understatement. Overall, I think the boys are probably doing the best they could be doing, with all of the changes taken into consideration, so I think in those moments when I start feeling suicidal/homicidal, I have to remind myself how much this has impacted them and treasure the times when they aren't being turdlers. (Turdler: A toddler who is a turd, does not listen, emotionally unstable, bossy, messy, and very impulsive). I'm sure it will take awhile to settle into a good routine in California. Between moving in, Josh starting his new job, starting a new Pre-K for Henry, and the additional 1 hour time change (3 hour time change total from NH), there will be a lot. I look forward to things being a little more planned and scheduled, and I know that when we're more scheduled we'll all feel quite a bit better and more emotionally regulated.

Today was relatively low key. We had breakfast at the hotel, did laundry, watched a movie, visited Old Town Albuquerque which was really neat, did a couple errands, ate delicious Mexican food, swam in the hotel pool, and are starting to think about the remaining days of our trip. I got an email from our rental office for our rental today to schedule the pick up time for our keys on Saturday, which really hit home how close we are to our final destination. The moving truck company sends us updates on where the truck is every couple of days, last we heard it was in Nebraska, and it sounds like our belongings will be arriving within a couple of days of our move in date. The company (Cross Country Movers) keeps their prices down by combining moves to similar areas of the country and sending them out in shared trucks, so the window for our belongings to arrive is technically up to 14 business days from 7/28. 18ish days without our stuff would be rough, but it sounds like we won't need to wait this long, fingers crossed.

Oh and they shampood our hotel sofa today! 🙏🏼

Tomorrow we're headed to Arizona! Stay tuned!