So far I have really only talked about my kids. Today I’m going to give you a little insight into our family journey over the last nine years. I just bought our first home since my divorce nearly nine years ago. We have lived in three different two-families since selling the marital home. All three were in the same city and school district but we moved for a variety of reasons. Being someone who lived in two houses her entire childhood, moving my children around was difficult for me.

After the divorce, we moved to a rental in a great city but a not so great part of town. I didn’t realize this area even had a ghetto until I lived there. The police patrolled the street a lot and with reason. My children were very young so I felt I could protect them and honestly wasn’t in the position to move right away again. Plus, it was important to me to provide stability, which I thought included staying in one place. Then one day A, my then 7-year-old, asked me “Why does Kurtis always go up to that car with money and then they just pull away?” It was right then that I knew we had to move. We found a beautiful place in the middle of town with a large yard and in walking distance to everything. We lived there three years putting up with nonsense from the landlord and the neighbor. The landlord wouldn’t fix anything properly. Some of lights and heat were ran through the other apartment so if no one lived there, I didn’t have lights in my living room or heat in my foyer. One of the duplex neighbors, who lived there about a year, partied constantly. I pulled up to our house, on a main street in the city, one day to find him and about six of his friends in my front yard with no shirts on drinking beer out of brown paper bags. I was utterly embarrassed. It eventually became so ridiculous that we moved to our third two-family. This place was only a block away. It wasn’t nearly as pretty but it was cheap and I knew a house was more likely to become reality this way. I saved for a year and half and purchased us a home last month.

This was one of the proudest moments in my life. I feel like my hard work finally paid off for my children. The house needs some cosmetic work… thank goodness I’m a little OCD. In one month, with the help of my friends, new neighbors and parents, I have managed to scrape wallpaper off of two large rooms, paint three large rooms, find and setup furniture, make repairs to my deck, get a new roof and gutters and much more (see photos). We still have a lot of work to do but it’s getting there and already feels like home.

My children love their new home. We finally have something that is ours. We don’t have to worry about a duplex neighbor being too loud, trashing our yard or having inappropriate dealings in the street.  They can play in the cul-de-sac with the neighbor children, hang out on our back deck or side patio, talk to the older neighbors who they admire and ride their bikes around the neighborhood.

I am so grateful that the three of us are finally home.

Even though we love it, there is still an adjustment period. They do miss seeing the friends on our old street on a regular basis. My daughter misses her short walk to school. They are adjusting to their new rooms. Do you have suggestions on how to help kids adjust to a move and a new neighborhood? I’d love to hear them!