Moving and Pregnancy Challenges

We had a rather chaotic move just before our sixth child was born (our oldest was ten at the time).

We sold our house for-sale-by-owner in the fall - we put it on the market in August and closed on both houses in December. We signed up for a Multiple Service Listing, so we had realtors doing showings on a regular basis, had a standard lock-box, etc. (This was a really good value - about $300 - and one of these realtors did end up selling the house. You do have to pay a commission to the buyer's agent, but you save a lot by not paying a commission to the listing agent.)

The showings were a challenge as we had to get everything cleaned up in rather short order and get out of the house for an hour or two. We simplified our belongings considerably (we had a large outdoor shed with dozens of Rubbermaid tubs so that our stuff was accessible if needed, and safe from bugs and rodents, but very much out of the way - and donated a lot of things to the poor as well - all of this helped simplify the move as well as cleaning up for showings!) We simplified our school materials too. I picked up a Comprehensive Curriculum book from Sam's Club for each grade level to augment a few well-chosen necessities (Religion, Math text, Latin, etc.) and would select pages for the children to study from these. We didn't even come close to using the entire book, but it was nice to have a simple place to pull lessons from. This allowed us some continuity during those chaotic months without too much mess or confusion.

It was a good experience for my children (particularly the two oldest) to help out with preparing the house for each showing. Since there was so much work to do to get the house "just right" (and I was in my third trimester of pregnancy during that time), I usually brought the children out for a fun lunch or dinner during the showing as a special treat and "thank you." I did let my reporting to the homeschool program slide during this time, but really felt like we kept the essentials intact throughout the process.

contributed by Alicia from Wisconsin