Moving causes a lot of upheaval, but the immediate chaos ends quickly. You figure out where you put your spatulas and you make sure all your packages go to the right place.
But then what? In this week’s episode, Sarah and I (who both moved in 2022) answer a listener question about the longer process of adjusting to a new place. Giving yourself a longer time line on big projects can be a big help. It also turns out that Sarah and I have different perspectives on putting things on the walls…
After talking about moving, we tackle other listener questions including some on later evening kid activities (while these can be challenging, we also appreciate that late start times allow kids who are in after care to participate), boundary setting, hormonal mood changes, and more.
Please give the episode a listen! And as always, we really appreciate ratings and reviews.
I am terrible at hanging things on walls so every time I’ve moved, I have 3 girlfriends come over who are GREAT at it. I provide dinner and wine and they go to town hanging pictures! It’s a win/win as they really love doing it. For the most part, all of the pictures on our walls are pictures from my travels in France. My husband’s only piece of “art” is a Kurt Vonnegut print.
I echo Sarah re: therapy being key for boundary setting. I have to view this through a gender lens, but women seem to have a harder time setting boundaries. My husband says no to things and doesn’t feel any guilt or second guess himself. I’ve had to work on learning how to set boundaries in both my work and personal life but therapy was crucial is setting the boundary and trying to feel responsible for the other party’s reaction to setting boundaries. I find it does get easier with practice.
As a parent of littler kids, my instinct is to dig in my heels against all this kid activity stuff. Like, I have spent the past five years in Gym Tots and Music Together and Zoom Baby Sign Language, can I please be done?
Seriously, though, I do think these things can get out of hand. Last year, many of my then-kindergartener’s classmates had 3-4 activities each weekend, on top of after-school elective activities, on top of the kindergarten “school” day which is mostly art and music and gymnastics anyway. I know kids need and want to explore, and every family has its own schedule and preferred balance between structure and freedom and activity and rest. But I just want to put it out there – I know this is a very un-BOBW sentiment – that if optional extracurricular activities interfere with family time and sleep, it is an option to just not do them.
My biggest tip for late kid activities (sports) is to bring a snack to eat in the car on the way home. For us, a huge stumbling block for my 8yo who has trouble sleeping past 6:30/7 (I swear, I wasn’t the listener who asked this question!) is getting home from a late practice and wanting to eat a large bedtime snack, which totally draws things out even more. Now we make sure the baseball/basketball bag is packed with peanut butter crackers, Clif bars, and yogurt pouches for post-practice snacking!