Settling In

Selling our old house was so hard, but I just couldn't wait until we had moved so we could settle in to our new house. I knew then that the major stress would be over and we could hopefully then just start enjoying it.

It only took a couple of days before all of us knew that our new house was going to be a much happier place to be. I got a lovely package from my gorgeous cousin Toni yesterday.  She had put in lots of goodies for the house and goodies for myself and the funniest thing was an empty mint bubbly wrapper! I sent her a text and asked her what the go was and she admitted she has no self control! It made me laugh. I will being writing out an IOU for that one I think! ;)
Our new house is a lot bigger than our old one, which has it's good points and bad points.  It's great to have more space and not be sitting on top of each other as much, but the boys never hear me when I'm calling out to them anymore! I'm going to have to get walkie talkies or something! ;)  Half the time I don't even know where the boys are and they can't hear me when I'm calling out to them. It's nice though to have lots of room and it's been fun working out where to put our furniture, to make it our home.

Jalen was so upset about leaving our old house and kept saying that he didn't think he was going to like our new house. It only took a couple of days before he was saying how much he loves it.

Kobe still wants to go back our 'old house' and cries a bit and has been really sad this week saying that he's 'missing Daddy and Noah 'weally much' but he also loves the new house.  I think he thinks if we go back to our old house that he won't be as sad. I just wish it was that easy.

Harri has been so good and is loving the new house.  He has slept in my bed with me for the past 13 months and told me he was going to sleep in my bed  until he was seventeen! I told him I thought he would change his mind a long time before then, but he was sure he would still be sleeping in my bed then!

The boys and I have been talking to a counselor when we feel we need to and he has been awesome and has helped the boys a lot.  He has given me great advice about how to help each of the boys, as they're all suffering grief so differently because of their ages.

I talked a lot with him about moving house and whether it was a good idea or not, and once I made the decision we talked about how it would be a good opportunity for Harri to start sleeping in his own bedroom again.  I was worried that he would need me even more, with the change of house but we talked it over together and made a big deal about making his room special.  I talked a lot with him about how brave he was being lately and how his bedroom would be close to everyone's and right across the hall from Jay.

The first night was terrible and he cried a lot and kept waking all night and coming into my room. It was so hard to keep taking him back to his room and I would sit with him until he calmed down and would then go back to my room. He kept crying and calling out ' you don't understand how scared I am, because I haven't slept in my own room for a year!'.

I knew exactly how scared he was, because I hadn't slept by myself for a year either, but I really felt that there had to be sometime when he started sleeping in his own room again, and the longer I waited the harder it would be. I also don't actually sleep very well when he's in my bed, so I was looking forward to having my own bed back again.  I definitely wasn't ready to send him back to his room at our old house though.  I know we both needed each other.

After the first bad night in his own room, he woke up and was so proud that he was still in his own room.  Since then he has been so happy sleeping in his own bed and keeps asking 'are you proud of me Mum! I wasn't even scared and didn't suck my thumb!'.

The most amazing thing is that he has been going to school, and leaving Noah's monkey 'Nono' at home! He usually drags him absolutely everywhere but one day I realised he had left him just sitting on his bed! When I asked him if he forgot him, he said that he just decided that he should stay at home from now on.  I told him how brave that was and that I'm sure Nono was happy at home, waiting for him in his bedroom.
We feel like we are on holiday because we are closer to everything now. The boys are loving being able to walk to school and it's so nice to not have to race out to the car each morning or to jump in the car in the afternoon to pick them up.  We have a little deck which has a lovely view and we can actually see our old house that we lived in, before we built our last house. It's lovely to sit and look out to it and remember the times we had there. It's the house we lived in when Kobe was born, and it wasn't the nicest house we have lived in at all, but it we probably had our happiest times there as it was all six of us together, and Noah's health was really good.

Most nights we have been sitting out on the deck to eat tea.  On our first day here we ate our lunch out there and had what Aaron would've loved - party pies and Pepsi! Not the healthiest of choices, but I'm sure he would've been proud! 

Three of my best friends -  Lynne, Bec and Pip came over for lunch yesterday and it was lovely to sit out on the deck and enjoy the last of the sunny days we will have, before the autumn weather really takes hold.

It's so nice to have a room to be able to put the piano in, as before it was in my bedroom (luckily we had a big bedroom).  The shelf is full of Kobe's toys, so it's nice to be able to hide them away in drawers and keep the room neat still. I'm looking forward to spending more time playing the piano now. I just didn't feel like playing much in our old house.

One of the first things I wanted to do was get all my photos up on the walls and I put my poster print of my instragram photos up from Printstagram up in the front entrance, near the boy's bag space. It's nice to see it all the time as we are walking past it.   I really want to get more printed off now.

My bedroom is a lot smaller than at our old house, but we had built it to suit Noah so we could have him in our room with us.  My new bedroom is a good size though and big enough to still have Noah and Aaron's special boxes in the room with me which I'm happy about.  I put out all of Noah's special things and my canvases and Aaron's T-shirt quilt that Toni made for me, and it feels like my old bedroom.   For the first time in my life, I have my own bathroom which is so nice!  For some reason the boys come and use my toilet all the time, even though there are two other toilets in the house! I keep telling them that it's my toilet and the other toilet is the boy's toilet, but every morning Kobe comes into my room with the cheekiest grin saying 'I'm coming to use your toilet Mum!' and races in there!

By far our favourite part of the house is the sunroom. It is right near the kitchen and we all hang out there together all afternoon, enjoying the afternoon sun.  It's going to be beautiful in winter on those frosty mornings, when you get sun for the rest of the day.
We feel very happy in our new house so far, and we've only been here a week. I wonder about our old house and who is living there and what it looks like inside, and whether he is taking care of our beautiful garden, but I haven't really been worried about it, and know I will think of it less and less as times goes on. I was worried about what Aaron would think about us selling our old house, but knew how hard he found it when Noah passed away, so I'm sure he would totally understand why it was too hard to stay there.   I think because we are all feeling happy with the move, that Aaron and Noah would also be happy for us.