Moving vs. Children's Museum

I mentioned in an earlier post about our family moving and even though I was extremely excited about getting into a new home the actual moving process...well, I was dreading. I lost sleep, had high anxiety and even believe I had mild panic attacks over it. I had worried my husband enough that he asked me to  leave on the big day of moving. I think he wanted me to be present at the house to help organize the people and make decisions on where large furniture should go but we decided on furniture before the big day. The part I had dreaded was the people portion of this process. I love my family for helping and am very grateful but this was the anxiety portion and he knew that so he told me to go do something. He had thought maybe I could go shopping but that's not really a day that I see as a lot of fun. (And yes, I can hear some of you gasp because a lot of people love to shop but shopping with a four-year-old doesn't equal fun for me.) As much as I was stressing out, I probably wouldn't have been required to take our son, but there's no way I would have ever done that. He's moving all of us into a new home, then I'm definitely taking our son to do something.

Climbing up to the top.

We decided I'd finally take our little guy to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum for the first time. If you ever get the opportunity to take your child...GO! We had an absolute blast that day and typically our family isn't an all day venue type of family unless it's a pool or beach for vacation but we spent about five hours visiting. I highly recommend it and my guy was a little skeptical because he didn't think it would be hands-on and playing with momma all day. The museum has so many things to do for all ages of little ones. Even when you first enter they have this monstrous climbing maze that goes up into the second floor but is caged so they can't fall but parents can see their children at all times. I even ran to the top of the second floor when he got to the very top to surprise him. "Mom, how did you even get up here?" It was cute because he didn't see the stairs. My son actually stayed climbing up and down for quite some time. He gained more confidence of his climbing abilities each time. Bracing himself against the cage to reach areas he wouldn't normal be able to reach. 

Pulling and pushing the levers

to make this guy move. 

I have to say we went to each exhibit/area and tried almost everything, from the circuitry station to running on a kids treadmill making the gears spin in order to rotate the tires. We pulled levers to move this big wooden guy and let me tell you, it took all 38 pounds of my son to pull and push some of the levers, but he loved that when he really tried, he successfully made the guy move. 

The last exhibit we visited was the arts center, which in hindsight we probably should have done first so everything he made could dry but we will know for next time.

Making paper

Painting

Screen printing

I highly recommend and strongly urge you to take your child or children and visit if you can. We had a great, fun day.

Moving - Just the Start

We are just starting the moving process again and I can say that I hate moving our stuff. It's not too often that I ever use the word hate but I do and I can't help it. I don't like packing, unpacking, moving it in vehicles and especially don't like other people touching my stuff. It always takes me back to the time when I was moving out of my college dorm and my dad was "tired of moving my junk" and proceeded to kick things down two flights of stairs. I'm very thankful that we are going to have help, believe me, truly appreciative but it gives me some anxiety because it's my stuff and I'd prefer not to have it thrown or kicked.

A little background - this is our third house in about six years and I know people, especially in the military, move a lot more often than this and I don't know how they do it. We moved to this area about four years ago and bought our second house and while the house was great; fantastic actually, the location didn't exactly suit our needs or wants. My husband and I talked about moving back home so we listed the house and to our surprise it sold in about 25 hours. We were thankful, ecstatic and felt extremely blessed because it's not too often that houses sell that quickly. Just one minor problem...we didn't have a new house to go to so we thought maybe we should rent in our current location until we found our new house. As you know, things change and we decided we should probably just stay in this area and call it home. After about nine long months of renting we are starting to move into our new home. 

This week begins with the painters ripping off the wallpaper and painting, the new carpet being installed in the upstairs and then an initial cleaning from a local couple. If I haven't mentioned I'm expecting an addition to our family in the summer so I'm not as much of a help as I wish I could be. Not only can I not lift the heavy items like previous moves but also can't even scrub the house. I'm forced to rely on other people which just makes me nervous. I know that I'm paying, probably more than I should for some of the services, but it just give me a little bit of anxiety. I like to do things myself and I don't like to pay for things like cleaning services. Wish me luck this week and upcoming weekend.