Home Sweet Home

I have been a horrible blogger lately and for that I sincerely apologize to my children who will one day see this blog dry spell and think that they didn't do anything fun or interesting or funny for such a long stretch of time. But that's not true, dear children! You have done so many fun and interesting things in the last few weeks, and we are all constantly laughing at the hilarious and wonderful things that you say! The Molloy family has just been all-consumed by the prospect of moving as of late.

Yes, the time has come for us to once and for all address this school situation - and it appears that our most viable option at this point is relocating to a better school district. It was always the last resort alternative, but it appears that we have reached the last resort. The house officially went on the market last week and we are searching high and low for our new home. This is sad for many reasons, starting with (but not limited to) the fact that we love our neighborhood, we love our house and we really deep down in our hearts don't want to move at all. But sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. And there is a lot to do when you're planning to move.

Getting a house "show ready" with two small children is no small feat. Keeping a house "show ready" is practically impossible while also simultaneously maintaining sanity. I am so proud of my little ones who have done an amazing job of keeping it together as we obsessively clean around them, remind them every 20 seconds not to make a mess, and drag them out of the house at the last minute - often late in the evening, ruining their nightly routine and getting them to bed later than usual - as someone comes to look at the house. It has been a long and exhausting process for everyone. And it hasn't even been a full week yet!

Selling a house is kind of like breaking up with someone you really care about. You love them, but you know deep down it is just not going to work out in the long run. And in that moment when things are ending, and everything is clean and tidy and freshly painted, all you can remember are the good things (the fabulous hardwood floors! the deep window sills! the finished basement! the awesome neighbors!) and somehow you forget all the bad (the wonky doors! the lumpy walls! the lack of insulation! the horrible public schools!). It's going to be very sad to leave this house and this community that we love so much. Our children have grown up here, their whole life perspective has formed on this very avenue.

Moving is a big deal, no matter what, but it feels like a bigger deal to me with kids. I have moved many times and lived in many places, but this home we live in now is the Molloy Family's first. There is always a special place in your heart for your first home, where your children were born and learned to crawl and walk and sing the alphabet and ride a bike and every other milestone along the way. I associate every room in the house, every inch of the yard, every block of the sidewalk with something that one of my children did or said and it feels strange to be intentionally surrendering those memories - or at least surrendering the memory markers.

But the whole reason we are moving is because of our little ones, who we love so much and want the absolute best for. We want them to get the best possible education and have the best opportunities. Even though it doesn't feel like it in the middle of all this hectic craziness and sadness for what we will be leaving behind, we will find a great new house in a new fabulous community and we will be gaining so much for the future.

We will find a sweet new home and you, my darling children, will love it. And you'll be so glad we did all of this.

Hang in there, guys.