Making Moving (Forced) Bonding Time With the Kiddo

It gives me great pleasure to say after a couple weekend, for all intents and purposes, I am "in" the new place.  The great move of 2020 has concluded, and it included some great bonding time with my son.

Granted, he was far less excited about our time together than I was.  In fact, I think he would have gladly traded our together time for some uninterrupted device time, some play with a friend, or even a day of reading books.

Those were not his options though as I made my expectations clear from the beginning.  You live here, your room is one of the messiest, and it's just "right" as a member of the household that you carry some of the weight.

In thinking about it, we've moved quite a few times in his 11 years.  He was born in Seattle, then we moved to Denver, from there Nashville, and then to Boise.  In Boise, we've had two homes with me, one with his mom, and this is now the forth.

In all those occasions, he hasn't "really" had to handle parts of the move, but I wanted him to experience the trade-offs to keeping so much stuff, and the challenge of planning or not, as well as the gift of giving to others with charity donations.

This weekend was a good highlight of the process.  We packed up our charity items, delivered those, and then did our dump run.  This was the first time he got to experience the dump scene, as aside from the "smell and gross floor," enjoyed the experience of tossing our stuff out (so much faster than it was to load up).

It was good bonding.  A lot of firsts, some great conversation, and then at times, earbuds in and the device in action.  Having said that, I wouldn't trade these moments.  They were great.