“When we move to Boston, can I take my bed with me?”
Last June, this simple question triggered the toughest parenting challenge of my life. My four-and-a-half year old daughter Emily interrupted our bedtime book as we lay in her room surrounded by cardboard cartons filled with her possessions.
“When we move to Boston, can I take my bed with me?”
In less than two months, we would trade Los Angeles for Boston. The move was initiated by my husband, Marc, who had forged a professional future in Massachusetts, and who has an irrational attachment to cold weather. After three years of debate, frustration, and tears, I concluded that I was ready to give Boston a try.
Emily was elated. She had vacationed there twice. Life in Boston meant riding the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue and wandering the North End with cannoli smeared on her t-shirt.
Together, we had packed her books and toys, stacking the cartons where she could decorate them with unicorn stickers. She loved the limitless supply of bubble wrap and pronounced the wardrobe boxes “stupendous” for playing Hide and Seek with Farley the cat. I might have felt anxious about leaving, but to my kid it was a fun project.
At least, that’s what I thought… until she popped the question.
I mustered my Mommy equanimity, explaining that—with the exception of the Calvin and Hobbes murals Marc had painted on her walls—she could, indeed, take her bed, her pictures, and anything else she wanted to our new home. She seemed reassured. Wish I could say the same for me.
Home, Sweet Hedgehog
A few days later, I flew alone to Boston. My mission was to find a pre-K that would accept Emily, since the Bay State’s age requirement barred her from Kindergarten until 2007. I solved the school problem quickly and was closing in on some good apartments. But I was crushed by sadness and uncertainty. Falling asleep was difficult; the act of waking up exhausted me.
On impulse, I pulled out Emily’s parting gifts: a colorful drawing of Farley and her stuffed hedgehog, Hamish. Cuddling him at night made the king-sized hotel bed seemed a little cozier.
Hamish became my constant companion. When I signed the lease and went back to measure our new apartment, he posed for my camera atop the front steps, sprawled in the bathtub, and exploring what would soon be Emily’s room. While the current tenants weren’t looking, I pinned Emily’s drawing of Farley to their fridge and took some quick photos. As if to say, “Look, here we are. Happy in our new home.”
I toured the school, Hamish in pocket. The principal indulged my request and took a photo of me giving the thumbs-up to an elaborate wooden dollhouse in Emily’s future classroom.
The Moving Book
I pasted the photos into a large spiral scrapbook on which we had written “I’m Moving to Boston!” Emily carried the book around for weeks, asking everyone to sign it. Some of the younger kids made drawings. Emily’s favorite teacher called her friends in Massachusetts, who sent Emily letters about cool Boston activities. She pasted them into her “Moving Book.” We illustrated its pages with pictures of airplanes and luggage, a moving van, and the growing mountain of boxes in our living room.
She dictated captions for the photographs, providing a humbling glimpse into the complexity of the childhood psyche. Some captions referred to events in her distant past: places and people I didn’t even realize she remembered. Others sounded like new-age affirmations: “I want to go to my new school. I want to do arts and crafts with my new friends.”
It seems like every time Emily said goodbye to someone, she scored a new toy. Soon, she started playing the moving card with glee and returned to her usual good-humored self.
