Moving House With Five Kids Under Ten (An Extreme Sport, Pending Red Bull Sponsorship)

Can I tell you a secret!?

We are moving house.

With five children under ten.

If Red Bull would like to sponsor us for our new extreme sport, we are honestly very open to it.

The whole thing is, oh my fairy goodness, a lot. Open homes every weekend. A three year old who attaches sparkles to surfaces faster than any human can de-sparkle them. Building and pest. The novel concept, recently introduced in our household, that toys should actually be put away when you have finished playing with them. I know. How rude of us.

I am writing this in the middle of it because I think if I wait until it's over, I will have romanticised it. Right now, in the thick of it, it is what it is. Funny. Chaotic. Sometimes lovely. Often a touch much.

The bit nobody warns you about

The cleaning and the fixing and the moving boxes are one thing. Five kids under ten while you do all of that is another. But neither of those is the actual hard part.

The actual hard part is the feeling underneath.

There's an anxiety that sits just below the surface when the ground you walk on is shifting. Even when the move is good. Even when the new house is exciting. Even when you wanted this. Something about your physical address being temporary makes your whole nervous system a touch unsteady, and it impacts everything.

There has been a rollercoaster of feelings around here in the last few months. So many tears. So much foot stomping.

And that's just me.

Five small humans, one shifting ground

The kids are feeling it too, in five different ways, because they are five different people. The big ones are asking specific questions. The middle ones are processing it through behaviour we have not seen for a while. The little one is, I think, going to be fine because she's three and her ground is fundamentally her mum's hip, which is moving with her, but who really knows what's going on in a three year old's head.

What I've noticed though, watching them across the last few months, is that they are all looking for something steady. The thing that doesn't change while everything else does. For each of them, it has been a fairy.

Tilly, in particular. Each of them is using her differently. One has her on the pillow every night. One has her tucked into a school bag, the ribbon doing what the ribbon does, holding the invisible thread between home and not-home. One has her on the bedside table where she can see her without holding her, which is its own kind of comfort. A couple of them are doubling down with Rosie too, the one with the I see you energy, the one who doesn't ask them to talk.

Autumn has been turning up in our bedtime stories. The fairy who is good with change. Who knows that things ending is part of how things begin. The kids are leaning in.

I don't say this to sell anything. I am saying it because it surprised me, honestly, how much they have leaned on the fairies through this. We built these characters because the world was loud and our kids needed something quiet to hold. I am watching them do exactly that in real time and it has, more than once, made me cry into a half-packed box.

For anyone else in this kind of season

If you're moving, or changing schools, or about to have a new baby, or watching your family change shape in any other way, please know.

This bit is hard. It is hard whether you wanted it or not. It is hard whether you planned it for years or whether it landed in your lap. It is hard even when the destination is beautiful. The hard isn't a sign you got it wrong. The hard is a sign you're a person who notices, and your kids are people who notice, and noticing is the price of being awake to your own life.

Your kids will be okay. They will. They are more adaptable than we give them credit for, and they have you, which is the most stabilising thing in the whole world even when you don't feel stable yourself.

Hold the small steady things. The bedtime book. The morning hug. The fairy on the pillow. The voice that says we are still us, we are just somewhere new. That's the message they need from you, and you don't have to be calm to send it. You just have to keep showing up.

Where we go from here

I think we're going to write a few things about this season as we go. Five real-life references, all different, all helpful. Moving, school changes, the way change feels in a small body, the way it feels in a parent's body too. There's not enough honest content about this stuff, and there is a lot of it sitting right here in our actual lives. It feels wasteful not to share it.

Change can be tough. It can feel huge.

Our Little Lightkeepers are here for the changes. So is whoever else is moving boxes and packing tape and trying to find one specific spoon at 9pm.

You are not alone in the chaos. You are doing better than you think.

Tilly is the Little Lightkeeper of invisible connection. The ribbon between you and your child that holds, no matter where you are. For separation, for school drop-offs, and for the small humans navigating their own version of a moving house. Rosie sits close to the quiet ones. Autumn comes in for the changes. They were all made for exactly this.