Moving Day

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Today we had to move all of our stuff upstairs to our new apartment. It's amazing how much crap you can accumulate in under two months. Our new place is bigger, with a better deck and an arguably better view. Sherry took Ro to his second orientation morning at Mount Maunganui Primary, and he seemed more comfortable this time around. She made a point of not following him outside to recess, to see what he would do. He had a great time playing - too good, in fact. He was the very last student in the whole school to come back inside after the bell rang. He claims he didn't hear the bell. Then he claimed he didn't know what it meant. Sounds fishy.

The view from our new deck, looking north towards Mt Maunganui and Mt Drury

Looking south at Coronation Park

When Sherry and Ro got back, we had a last lunch in the old place and went upstairs to check out the new digs. Mark had already moved most of our stuff upstairs by that point, including Ro's bath toys. Ro was ecstatic when he saw the bathtub - he's been forced to take showers the whole time we've been here. Although he had to leave shortly for his last afternoon at Kindy, he immediately stripped down, ran a bath, and splashed around to his heart's content. Meanwhile, Mark availed himself of the other key feature of the new place - a separate half-bath. Sherry busied herself organizing the kitchen, amazed by how much more cabinet space we have now.

Our new apartment interior. Not crazy about the ivory suede couches and a 5 year-old

While Ro was at Kindy, we brought his birthday presents up from the car (we had hidden them in the trunk), wrapped them, and hid them again for tomorrow. Then Mark began working on his taxes, which took well into the night. He did take a break to go to the Bay with Sherry and Ro after Kindy to try to catch some fish. Yesterday, they had gone down to the pier and they could see the water around the dock teeming with tiny fish, so Sherry bought a pole net today so Ro could try his hand at fishing. Alas, no luck catching any today (we all gave it a go), but we soon retreated to Pilot Bay Beach where Ro happily played in the sand.

Mark & Ro trying to catch a few fish

Ro carrying water with gritty determination

Sherry & Ro start construction

Ro with his finished "sandman"

While Sherry fixed dinner, Mark took Ro down to the pool, where Ro had a frightening experience. He loves hanging onto and swinging around the steel banister handrail that runs down the center of the wide staircase into the pool. Standing on the bottom step, his chin touches the water. Well, he was hanging onto the pole, bouncing up and down on the edge of the bottom step, when he managed to miss the step and lose his grip on the pole at the same time. Suffice it to say, he sank the extra ten inches to the bottom of the pool like a stone. Mark was watching all this from the other side of the pool. After a couple seconds of "Is he going to surface or not?", Mark realized he wasn't moving up or appreciably towards the steps, just sort of running in place with his arms flailed out to his sides, his soaked bucket hat bobbing in the water above him. Rushing over to him, Mark scooped him up so he could breathe and grab the pole. All told, he was only under for 6-7 seconds, but the screams and blubbering that emanated from him when he surfaced could probably have been heard across the bay in Tauranga. He calmed down remarkably fast, but restricted himself to the hot tub for the rest of the afternoon.


Fortunately, our new deck is big enough for a table and four chairs, so we ate outside tonight since the weather was so nice - not sure how much longer that will last since we're getting into autumn here.