We had a great first full week last week and got some of the kinks out of our new routine, meaning, we have very little routine or plans or structure and 0 friends, so it’s actually quite a change that we had a little more trouble navigating even though we were prepared to feel this way! We are a structured family and we have no problem being this way. We are not rigid…we simply thrive on having a rhythm, a sketch of a plan or a least of list of possible activities on hand, places to be, and every one of us does best when we get “up and out!” as I like to say over and over again in the mornings.

After a full first weekend, Jordan started work on Monday and it’s incredible having him around so much. He left at around 1pm Monday-Thursday and was usually home around dinner at 6ish or earlier, which gave us a lot of morning time to each workout, have a slow morning with the kids etc. This was fun for about 2 days, haha, but this is just not realistic for us. When our kids just “hang around”, getting them out is damn near impossible. They get grumpy. They get frustrated by nothing. They want to watch TV, but not in a way that they’re happy, in a way that they’re fed up with life and can’t manage anything and everything is awful unless they lay there watching TV and then crying because they’re hungry and bored! You have to see it to believe it but I’ve been living with my kids since birth and this is just in their blood. We do not do well laying around. We have to earn the laying around and there has to be a time limit to said laying around….OR ELSE! haha seriously, moods are terrible otherwise, including mine.

So, by Thursday, we rectified some of our plan and I went to a workout class at 7:30 and Jordan went running right after me so we were ready to go do something by 9:30. We went to Art Zone and the kids loved it! We also have bought the kids more entertainment items than they have at home haha including a bike for Delaney, a bball hoop for Owen, and chalk, bubbles, and coloring books to share. And most importantly, we basically just tried to start living the way we do in Boston – with a plan!

Following our few days of fumbling around, it’s been really great — but it’s still an adjustment being somewhere so different for the kids and for so long, because Delaney specifically is just having a hard time understanding what the heck we’re doing here, how long two months is, when she’s going to see her friends, and all the other typical things any highly intuitive and thoughtful 4 year old would be thinking about! She obviously doesn’t express this all in words, but by her behavior, I can tell. She’s working through a lot and above all else, we are so proud of her and how well she is doing being here.

We are living in paradise and we are so lucky. The realities of moving your family across the country for an extended time knowing almost nobody and having no school/activities/etc are still there, Owen being awake for hours on end screaming for no apparent reason still happens in another zip code, but I’m proud of us for taking this leap and I feel beyond lucky that Jordan got this opportunity for us all. I’m also grateful for something Jordan said to me the other night while we were in the midst of our first few days of his work that: “I’m really grateful for how self-sufficient you are.” The work of motherhood is often invisible and the work of motherhood even in times of pure bliss like being in California is still here. I can get stressed out and I can get overwhelmed, but I also do a lot and am very independent as both a wife and a mother. He understands that being here with two kids and finding things to do with no car while he’s gone can be kind of tricky, but we’re doing it and we’re loving it and I like to believe that all four of us are stronger and braver and closer because of this adventure already. We are soaking up every minute and I’m proud of that.