It was still raining when we arrived at the new house. We stomped wet footprints across the hall carpet on our way through and the cardboard boxes were damp by the time they made it inside. The afternoon passed in a blur as we unpacked what we could and pretended it felt perfectly normal to wander round what was surely a stranger’s house. Except it wasn’t, it was ours.

We ate Chinese food for supper and put the children to bed like it was any other night, reading stories in a peculiar bedroom and brushing teeth in an unfamiliar bathroom. I was grateful they were exhausted as sleep came easily in spite of it all. We took our weary bodies to bed too, but lay awake long into the night. I watched the pattern the streetlight outside made on the wall next to our bed.

Then morning came and this happened…  

All those cliches of motherhood. ‘How is my baby big enough? It seems like only yesterday…’ and so on and so forth. I cried. Just a little. Because my years of caring for a truly tiny one were over.

Jesse was excited. Finally, it was his big adventure, the new beginning he had been building to for such a long time. Izzy was nervous about her first day. I mean, really, really nervous. I had never seen her mind so preoccupied with worry before. I cried a little over that too.

The new house felt even more alien to us without the children. We busied ourselves with boxes and bags, unpacking and sorting our way to the end of the school day. There were smiles {from them} and big deep sighs of relief {from us}.

Then we wandered to the park in the sunshine. As I watched the children explore their new playground I somehow knew we were all going to be OK here. I’ve not been proven wrong yet.

Love Audrey xxx

PS. The house tour, it’s coming 😉