- Firstly: relax your standards about everything. There will be more TV time. There will be more chicken nuggets/pizza. There will be difficulties! Accept it from the get-go and you’ll be fine!
- Split responsibility. If you are a two parent household: one person handles logistics and planning and another handles actual packing of all the things. Obviously, you work together on these, but it worked for our family to have the details worked out by my husband and the packing taken care of by me.
- ASK FOR HELP. You can’t do it alone unless you are some kind of mega awesome superhuman, in which case you wouldn’t be reading this anyway! We had our parents watch the kids for the actual moving days. They took them the first weekend our old house was on the market for the showings. I even had a friend play playdough and read to my kids all afternoon while I packed.
- Start packing ASAP. Pack away what isn’t being used as soon as you know you are moving.
- Schedule a Purple Heart Pickup! Gather up all the things taking up space in your home which you don’t need and have them picked up at your door to be donated without having to load them into your car where you will forget them and chauffeur them around for a few weeks.
- Plan ahead as much as you can with meals. Easy things you can throw together with a couple of sheet pans or skillets are best! You don’t have time to be Ina Garten right now! Honestly not even Rachael Ray was happening in our house for a while there. Mostly we rocked the Cookie Monster and Chef Gonger from Sesame Street style. Oh and we ate many sandwiches. Blah.
- Coloring books. Paper. Crayons. Playdough. Get out all that stuff and keep it an easy access spot. Kids love these and they are easy to supervise while packing/discussing moving details/making dinner.
- I have improved my penchant for procrastination over the years, but still I’m here to say that if I can do it, you totally can, too! I am NOT renowned for my planning abilities! Now go pack up a box of DVDs. It’s a great place to begin because they are easy to pack and it will feel like you got something accomplished. Yay, you did it! Only 137 more boxes!
Leave a Reply