Goodbye Yellow Brick Home

Growing up, I only had three addresses and three landline phone numbers that I really called home … and I still know them by heart. As a kid, just the idea of pulling up our roots as a family and moving to a new home, even if it was just down the street, was devastating. I can recall probably a dozen or more kids that followed me through school from kindergarten to graduation, whose family also stayed put in the same zip code for decades. Are things still this way?

Making the decision to move my kids out of their comfort zones into a new home and new neighborhood was difficult. Lucas seems to be taking the move like me; with a grain of salt and a large dose of sentimentality. He and I are both creatures of comfort; change is the enemy. Our new pool and his new upstairs bedroom that he doesn't have to share seem to be taking the sting out of the situation. Plus, he's already flagged down some new neighbors in an attempt to make friends, forcing me to come out of my shell a little as well. 

Davey seems readily happy to start a new middle school after a rocky 6th grade year. He'll be riding the bus for the first time, and is more than happy to adopt his new school's uniform-free dress code. He keeps saying that he's happy to have a "fresh start".

Max switched schools too, and is now actually at the daycare center that his older brothers went to years ago. It's been bought out by a new preschool, and is completely renovated, but there's something sweet and reassuring to me that he is following in their footsteps in a way. 

We only have a few more weeks left where we officially own our little yellow brick home down the road. It's still filled with some odds and ends and needs a good sweep and scrub before we hand over the keys to the new owners. I hope they can appreciate it as much as we did. I can't help but smile and think about all of the Nerf darts that are sure to surface in the back yard after a good rainstorm, and all the Lego bricks that may be left in the dryer lint trap. 

So far, we love our new house and new neighborhood. We have a long way to go to fix it up and make it our own, but we're already enjoying having double the space to live it. But even with all of the new amenities and possibilities of our new house, I'll still always yearn for my first home just a little, and have a touch of sadness that Max won't grow up there like his brother's did. Maybe it's because I finished doing my growing up there too.