Griffin and the fortress of solitude

Moving is accomplished. We frantically packed in the weeks before the move, and still weren't finished. Moving is always about seeing the invisible things in your life. Sure, you know to pack the books, the computer and the clothing, but there are small things that exist in every house that we don't even notice until it's time to clear it away and put it in a box. Things like the salt and pepper shakers, scissors. Thumb tacks. Rubber bands. Menus for take out places. Refrigerator magnets.

We had our shit together for the first day of moving, we thought. Our apartment was so packed with boxes that we couldn't move. Griffin and I went to the new apartment early (7am!) to recieve all the various people. Telephone, cable, new furniture, santa, and the new movers. The new place looked huge, and Griffin quite enjoyed the giant open space to crawl around in.

The sun came through the sliding door, and Griffin crawled in circles, trying to catch the light and his shadow. I hung out there with him until Eric came with the movers. With great efficiency a group of about 5 men brought out belongings into the new place. They were a group of younger men with their father/uncle, and were quipping with each other the whole time. We gave them water and soda, they put together our bed, and moved everything in faster than I thought possible. I have never been so willing to part with $400 in my life. It was worth it. In our pasts, moving was a matter of getting all our friends together for a mass moving operation that would take all day, and too much energy. This still happened the next day, though, when our friends descended en masse to help us move the invisible stuff. I thank everything for my friends. They went above and beyond to help us get finished on time. The next day, Eric spent all his energy cleaning the wreckage of our former abode. Then we no longer lived at 1623. That took some getting used to. I loved that apartment, and it had been our home for 5 ish years. When we go by it I still get a little teary.

The first thing we set up completely was his room. In 1623 he shared his room with our computers, and this arrangement was great when he was too young to care about typing noises, or even us being in the room while he slept. As time wore on, this became a weight on all of us, and was our primary impetus for moving. We were so excited to put his room together, that we unpacked the entire thing before we even got our clothing out of boxes. I'm still excited about it. I wanted to get a hanging of the Gryffindor crest for his door (even though it has a lion and not a Griffin on it, just for the pun's sake.), but I couldn't find one! It took him a long time to get used to his own room, but now he goes in and plays with his toys whenever he wants to.

It took a long time for him to acclimate himself to the new apartment. In some ways, he's still adjusting. Part of this is our new lifestyle. Since we have this great new open floorplan, and a bathroom that you can get to without going through either his bedroom or ours, we can have more friends over. And we do, quite a bit. He's not really happy with that, but we're hoping he'll adjust to it soon. The other part is that because the floorplan is so open, he can go (almost) anyplace in the apartment without me trying to grab him and put him someplace else. Primarily, he's allowed in the kitchen and his bedroom, which were two places completely forbidden earlier because the kitchen was a mess, and the bedroom filled with computer equipment. Neither are true now.

He loves bouncing his balls on the tile floor in the kitchen. They make loud clattering noises, and bounce pretty high. My father recently got him a wiffle ball, so it makes a different sound, and bounces funny. Plus, he gets his fingers stuck in it, which amuses him to no end.

We have our old table still in the apartment, next to the chair. There was enough room for it, and we just couldn't figure out what else to do with it. There are still piles of boxes behind the chair, which makes a small fort for him under the table. He likes to go into his fortress of solitude and play, or eat the carpet lint I haven't managed to get out of his mouth yet. I think it's kind of cool.

I will update again soon, as there is much more to tell. Hopefully the next time we move we will be moving into our own house. Hopefully it'll be in better repair than this apartment. While it IS updated, a lot of things keep going wrong. Toilet seats keep coming off, water pressure is unreliable, things keep falling off the sink and the door. Other than having the repair man in all the time, this is a great place.
(now if only there would be less spiders)

Until I next update, be well.
Autumn