Sorting/packing/crying

Martin and I decided to give the kids to my mom for the day and  overnight. I know a lot of you, myself included at this point, are wondering why I'm at home typing on the computer right now. I *should* be at some fancy hotel sipping pink drinks by a pool (yes, it is that warm here...during WINTER). But no, we are here, at home, doing "chores." 

Martin tried to get me to leave this morning, "call up one of your lady friends" (where, from my bridge club?) and "go get a facial or something." (Oh, Martin, a woman's life is so simple isn't it? ;)

He  very kindly offered these things and I said no. I know that if I do these things instead of what I need to be doing I will regret it later. Like on Monday when all of these bins...

Boys and girls, Maternity/Post-partum, by size and gender.

...are still sitting in our room calling out to me to go through and sort and give away/pack up/distribute.

That's a lot of bins, ya'll. 14 in fact. And when, pray tell, during the week, am I going to get that done? Having the kids gone is just about the only way to get any real work done around here unless the other parent (aka Martin) is willing to not work on the lawn so he can watch the kids while I work on aforementioned bins. But when your lawn is producing something like this...

Lovely, Martin. Lovely. (that's a weed by the way)

... you know that BOTH of you should probably be working at the same time, at the same house, doing something productive. (we *are* trying to sell the house to real people, who will live here, NOT scientists hoping to raise baby dinosaurs)

I'm sitting here, listening to some of our favorite music (something else I rarely do because children are very loud), distributing all these clothes into three categories.
1)  clothes to take this trip ...everything 18M+
2 ) clothes/items to take when/if we are pregnant again that will be left in storage in America...everything
     0-18M+ and all maternity/post-partum clothes
3) clothes to give away


My babies are getting so big and are still so little at the same time and I have to choose which of their clothes to give away?! Already?!  Are you kidding me? It was so much easier knowing they were up there in the attic, even if they weren't being used, at least they were still *mine.*  I am going to be a mess when I finally have to give them all away for good.  Even harder is realizing, again, and again, that we have to do all of this because we're moving so far away. I would gladly cart these things a little farther to the other side of town, perhaps even to another state...but across the ocean? Just not possible.

To celebrate our day of freedom Martin and I went out to eat lunch. Mexican food. Really good. Over my large, ice-filled, as-many-free-refills-as-I-want-Dr. Pepper I was reminded just how far we really are moving. It has been much easier to see how small the world is since having met and married Martin and traveled so often to the other side of it. It really is very small, the world. And not, at the same time. So many things will be exactly the same, *exactly* the same. People, in all the best and most fundamental ways, are exactly the same, anywhere you go. You know? And that's good. And it will help. But there are so many things that are also so different. Other-worldly, literally like a completely different planet, and it may as well be, in terms of ability to visit back and forth. It's going to be lonely and strange, at first.

It will begin to really sink in more and more as the day draws nearer. Just 4 months.

These clothes I am sorting *are* making me a bit sad. They remind me of the past 6 years and all we've accomplished and the memories. But I am also excited to think of them meeting me in Poland and reminding me of our time here. And seeing Kacio wear them will somehow link me to my home, not just our house, but my home, Texas.
 And the music can come. And that will remind me too, of the past 31 years, and my home. And I know I'll smile. Or cry, like I'm doing now. Sigh.