Nearly a month ago now, when my family was preparing for a cross-country move to our new home, we had boxes everywhere. Our floors were littered with papers, toys, books, pans, bags, boxes, and other things that normally weren’t on the floor. The result of this situation was that our son could now reach these items easily. This was really fun for him (I must stress) because he could get his hands on things that were normally out of reach. Everything from breakable candles to cast iron picture frames. This was a triumphant moment for our son, who was able to interact directly with things he’d only previously been able to see visually. Additionally, since his parents were distracted with packing a truck, organizing items into labeled boxes, and cancelling services, paying bills, and transferring utilities (among much much more), he was able to interact with those items largely without his parents taking them away immediately.
Well, about a month after the move to our new location this situation is repeating itself. While the vast majority of the boxes and items have found their way into a final resting place, there are still several boxes that remain on the ground, near the floor, or “temporarily situated” in places where our son has easy access. Again, he is having the time of his life looking through boxes of photograph negatives from a largely bygone pre-digital era of photography. He’s happily picking up the box full of creative work sitting helplessly on the floor while Dad cleans out his office. He’s overjoyed to play in clothes (clean and dirty) that have yet to find their easy resting places in rooms with much smaller closets. They say that if you give children a toy they’ll play happily with the box. That is true. The thing I didn’t know was that the best part of moving was having everything on the floor to play with. No wonder parents are generally more organized: they have to be.