Good to Great: Moving from East Coast to Midwest

My wife brought home a refrigerator magnet one day that read: ”Life begins where your comfort zone ends.”…and so life is certainly about to "begin".

After a lot of careful consideration, lengthy discussion and exhaustive research we decided to sell our dream home in Pennsylvania and move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The plan is to pack up the contents of our house in the next few weeks (making most of the headway while my wife takes Catherine to see her sick Grandpa in Tampa next week) and store everything neatly in the back basement.

We will list the house just in time to hit the tail end of the summer market with hopes that it will be an attractive situation for someone looking to move into the area before the school year starts in September. We will be shipping my wife’s car and drive my Suburban with one week’s worth of supplies in our (just purchased) Thule Atlantis 1800 (Sonic XL) rooftop carrier, along with a 2yr old and a 125lb Newfoundland... should be interesting to say the least. Below is my navigational chart which is an example of how over-thinking and over-planning allays most anxiety for me. It took quite a bit of time to determine the best times to travel, how long to travel and where to stop based on a myriad of variables including everything from nap times to doggy’s potty breaks and anti-anxiety meds (the dog’s). I learned a lot in my 1 week intensive course in trip planning…like the fact that zoo keepers and vets most often move animals under cloak of darkness when possible to avoid additional visual stimulus and potential anxiety / motion sickness…but we also wanted to see most of the trip as well since neither one of us could ever imagine needing or wanting to make a drive like this again.

Although this level of organization may seem like the science of qiyas when equipped with a state-of-the-art navigation system in my truck, I can’t help but think that a 5-day trip with 5 planned stops for a family traveling with a dog and a baby (neither of which have ever traveled in a car for more than a couple of hours) it’s imperative to identify additional potential stops at dog-friendly hotels in advance. We need alternate targets that can serve as half-way markers between stops in the event Catherine or Lulu just aren’t doing well…AND potential stops / hotels just past our scheduled stops in the event we are able to / need to make up time and can comfortably survive going on a little further….so that explains the thought process a little… 

Entertaining Clients: Throwing a Birthday Party

Some nice birthday gifts received from Catherine’s friends today and a wonderful party all around.

My wife did a lot to make it special and I was moved by the beauty of her happily getting lost in what truly was a labor of love…a commitment to excite and thrill our little girl.  

We stayed up pretty late the night before preparing hand-made decorations and favors in order to construct an “Arts & Crafts” themed party. She monogramed white oversized children’s oxfords with different colored fabric letters for guests to use as smocks they could use at the party and then take home. She also put together a “make-your-own party hat” station as one of the activities for the day and “sock puppet kits” comprised of everything from the sock with cardboard mouth pre-glued in to eyes, whiskers, spots and anything else required for the respective animal or creature-in-a-bag. These kits were packed in their goody bags as well. We both really enjoyed thinking of the animals and characters for which we spent hours cutting out their parts from sheets of felt and making a few of our own along the way.

The sample sock puppet my wife made was hilarious! It actually had a Muppet-like personality. Green yarn hair. Black googley eyes (complete with eyebrows), a long pointy nose and a long thin black mustache. I couldn’t stop laughing when she put it on for a trial run and made “Juan” immediately come alive with his Spanish accent and adult humor. 

Capital Improvements: Best Money We've Spent So Far...

A few things my wife and I recently discussed as really being the best gifts/things we ever received/purchased for our Catherine (outside of her car seat and miniature kitchen which both count as necessities in my book).

• The Learning Tower-http://www.sensationalbeginnings.com/Item--i-F-3-699X      I thought this thing was just a super safe step-stool at first but it has quickly become a real learning tool and way for me to include my daughter in everything that goes down in the kitchen. The tower enables me to happily oblige her when she says “I want to help!” I include her in everything from meal preparation (she mostly just mixes ingredients I’m not really using and pours liquids from one container to another) to “washing” plastic containers and metal bowls we refer to as “dishes”.

• Swing Chair- http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2384&e=product&pid=45667      Would never have been able to take a shower without one.

• Dog (Newfoundland)- http://www.ncanewfs.org/      Our Dog Lulu is Catherine's absolute best friend in the world (next to our neighbor’s daughter Sophie)…also read somewhere that pet dander helps children develop a healthy immunity and resistance to allergies...not to mention the fact that our dog is much more efficient under the kitchen table than a Roomba.

• Badger Basket Stackable Toy Bins- http://www.target.com/p/badger-basket-three-bin-storage-cubby-white/-/A-13849987#prodSlot=large_3_25      A place for everything….and now she is responsible to sort all her toys and put them back in their appropriate place. Really a gift for everyone.

• iPad- http://www.apple.com/ipad/       From Face Time with grandparents to math and language games…this also keeps her entertained in the car, on the potty, at a restaurant…and we, surprisingly, have not had any difficulty limiting her exposure to TV/iPad time to under 2 hrs./day.

• Bouncy Balls- http://www.alibaba.com/productgs/528105899/Plastic_Balls_for_Playgrounds.html  You know those 8.5” bounce balls you see stored in wire cages at the supermarket and Toys R Us? Well, I could remember being a kid and always thinking it would be cool to have a whole room full of them (perhaps a result of watching Richard Pryor in “The Toy” more times than I could count). I was grocery shopping one day and randomly decided to buy a whole shopping cart full of them. When I realized that the balls were on sale for 79 cents and that the whole cart only cost about $8, I decided to fill another cart and bring home 20 of those balls…which looks like a lot more when they’re all over the foyer. We had so much fun bouncing, kicking and tossing those balls all over the place the night I brought them home! We ended up putting them in Catherine’s playroom along with about 60 helium balloons for her birthday party… which was immediately dubbed “Balloons Room”.

• Seaside Sidekicks’ Sand Cupcakes Set- http://www.melissaanddoug.com/seaside-sidekicks-sand-cupcake-set     Colored Plastic Cupcake Sand Molds that we first saw these at the Westin in Grand Cayman. Catherine showed  interest in playing with another child (for the first time) who was playing with these plastic cupcakes at the pool one day so we picked up our own set at the gift shop the following day. They not only serve as our go-to beach or pool toy, but also as the perfect icebreaker at playgrounds with sandboxes. 

• Simply Hero Boys Superhero Cape and Mask Set-         http://www.sears.com/search=simply+hero+boys+superhero+cape+mask+red+super+hero+cape+costume+toddlercatalogId=12605&autoRedirect=false&storeId=10153&yikes_prod=true                                                                                                                                                      The best five bucks we’ve ever spent! Picked it up as an impulse buy at Wal-Mart and turned into Catherine’s costume our (almost) daily game Catherine invented called: “Super Bunny Saves The Day!” …and a more productive game that Daddy invented called: “Rescue the mail from the mailbox!”.