The Kids Were Regulated. Everything Else Was Feral.

Moving? It’s been a trip.

The pod got delayed. The gas company wasn't exactly operating on my preferred timeline. We needed more storage than expected. More labor than expected. More trucks than expected. The hives were still hiving. The to-do list was reproducing overnight. At one point I looked around and thought: "There is absolutely no way all of this is fitting anywhere."

The adults were stressed. The sensory seekers were stimming and smiling.

At first, I spent a lot of energy trying to keep the boys occupied while I packed. Independent play. Separate activities. Anything that bought me thirty uninterrupted minutes to cross something off the list.

It wasn't working.

I missed calls. Let bills go past due. Lost my cool, literally and figuratively.

The boys weren't the problem. The plan was.

One fine (errr stressed) day, I caught myself thinking: What would Ashley do? [Ashley was our Early Intervention OT] And immediately I knew the answer.

She wouldn't remove the kids from the activity. She'd make the activity the activity.

So I stopped trying to work around the move. And started bringing the boys into it.

They emptied cabinets. Carried boxes. Vacuumed shelves. Made dump runs. Watched the driveway repair crew. Cheered on Podzilla like it was the greatest engineering achievement of our generation. Made entirely unnecessary trips to storage.

The move became the sensory activity.

Now before Instagram turns this into a highlight reel…

Did this make moving easier? Absolutely not.

The move still cost more than expected. Things still slipped through the cracks. We still hit bumps at every turn. There were still plenty of moments where I questioned every life decision that led us here.

But the boys? The boys were okay. Actually, more than okay.

They had kinetic sand in the front yard while movers loaded the pod. They bounced between transitions on the trampoline. They found heavy-work in every task I was trying to complete. They found excitement in things I barely noticed.

And that taught me something.

When life gets chaotic, I don't need to protect everything. I need to protect the things that matter most.

For us, that looked like:

Heavy Work — Carrying, pushing, pulling, lifting, dumping. If there was a job to do, they got a version of it.

Preferred Activities — Asking the delivery person 1000 questions and standing in the way of movers

Familiar Foods — Moving week was not the week to get adventurous. Like to thank McDonald’s for their meals of gratitude and being a reliable village

Lower Expectations — This one was mostly for ME and had to be echoed to me by BOTH hubs and my mom at every loop in the plan

The kids had kinetic sand in the front yard while the pod loaded. That was the regulated part. Everything else was feral.

And … I'd make the same trade again. What about you, have you ever just… let something slip so your littles didn't have to? tell me what it was so I don’t feel bad over all the balls I dropped recently

Until next time, just keep stimming

Christie

PS… since you're my numero uno, here's a peek at the new crib. 👀