Emma and I are finally living in Minnesota with Mel. On Thursday, July 3, the moving company came to our house to load up all of our belongings. Unfortunately, they were unable to load the waterbed mattress because, even though I drained it all day, it still had too much water in it; at least that’s what they said. Anyway, once everything was loaded onto the moving truck, I found Mel’s cat, which was hiding under the stairs, and proceeded to drug him in order to make the trip to Minnesota more pleasant for both him and me.
After loading the last few things into the car, I headed to Emma’s daycare to pick her up from there for the last time. I am going to miss our former daycare provider. She was really good with Emma. And Emma liked going there and playing with the other kids as well. Then Emma, Ike (the cat), and I headed up to the Twin Cities. Because it was a hot day and I had the cat in the car, we couldn’t stop for very long. That meant that we had to eat dinner in the car. Not stopping for very long—we did stop once for a restroom break and to change Emma’s diaper—meant that we got to our destination fairly quickly.
Getting Emma to settle into her new home was quite challenging the first night. Mel and I tried to calm her down and to get her to go to sleep by driving her around town. That calmed her down as long as she was in the car, but she did not go to sleep. I ended up taking her out for a drive two more times that night with the last time happening around 1:45 in the morning! Eventually she got some sleep, but not nearly enough.
Because the movers wouldn’t take the waterbed, and because there were a few other things left in our Cedar Rapids house, we all took Mel’s truck back to our old house to pack up our remaining belongings. Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of stuff that remained and it wouldn’t all fit in the truck. So Mel had to return to Cedar Rapids again on Monday.
While Mel was driving to Iowa and back on Monday, I tried to get some things done around the house, although it was tough to get some of it done with Emma being around. I did almost manage to get one room painted as she took a nap, but I didn’t get it done.
On Monday I also made an effort to find suitable daycare for Emma. After calling five or six in-home daycare providers and learning that they were each full at least until the school year starts, I drove to a daycare center that is located near our house. I had intended on just getting some information, but the director gave Emma and me a tour of their toddler area. While we were there, Emma even had a snack with the other kids, and she seemed to get along with them well. So when Mel returned home, we all went back to the daycare center so she could check it out as well.
On Tuesday we took Emma to this daycare center for a free trial day. She did really well there, although when I dropped her off this morning, she cried and didn’t want me to leave. However, she seemed to do well for most of the day. The daycare center’s director told me that she had been a bit sad a few times when they were outside, but she cheered up once they went back in. The daycare we have Emma going to now is a bit more expensive than what we had been paying before, but I think the experiences she will have there will make it worth it.
While Emma was at daycare yesterday, and while Mel was at work, I worked at painting Emma’s room and another room of the house. I also had to stick around for the entire day so I could meet with the carpet salesperson, the DIRECTV installer, and the exterminator who we called take care of the ant issue in the garage.
Today the cable installer came to install our Internet and telephone service. Once that was done, I was finally able to actually get to work, although I had to work sitting on the office floor as the movers haven’t yet delivered out belongings. They are scheduled to arrive on Friday. Had I known they would take full advantage of their delivery window, I probably would have gone with the other mover from whom I received an estimate. Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about the furniture as I paint.
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