Exhausted

I signed the lease, I hold the keys. I am the proud new tenant of an apartment with views of the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Bund. Furthermore, I checked off each box, I paid the duties, and I am once again in possession of many of my belongings. The shipment was delivered around 12:30.

Allow me to walk you through my day, so far.

9:00 - L-- and I wake up. Don't let this remove your pity for me. I went to sleep after midnight, and was up with S-- for an hour around 5:30 am.

9:30 - S-- wakes up. Luckily, I've managed to dress myself.

10:00 - L-- and S-- are eating breakfast. Both are in good moods, and we get through breakfast in a quick 20 minutes.

10:20 - Dressing both girls. I managed to pack the backpack while they ate their breakfast. This has been an efficient morning!

10:30 - Out the door, with S-- in the backpack and L-- in the umbrella stroller. Also carrying the camera bag on the stroller, and all of our moving documents and diaper bag implements in the backpack. It's heavy.

11:15 - Taking the metro with 2 little girls from the hotel to our new home is about an hour from door to door. We're stopping at the grocery store first, so the girls won't get grumpy while we sign papers and receive boxes.

11:30 - We meet Sheila, exactly on time, I might add. We receive the keys, sign for everything in the apartment, and discuss logistics with Woody. Woody is our new manager, and has promised to take care of any problem we can think of. He made sure I put his phone number into my cell.

12:15 - Woody gives me 16,800 RMB to furnish the apartment. He only asks that I provide receipts for everything I purchase, and that I leave it behind when we move out. That is about $2,250 I will carry with me for the rest of the day. Normally, this would make me nervous. Today, I'll stuff it in the backpack beneath the diapers and the bananas, behind the grumpy child. No one will presume there is anything of monetary value - I have no worries.

12:30 - The shippers arrive. They immediately ask to stop for lunch. I say no (the babies will need to nap as close to 2:00 as possible). I immediately feel like a jerk for saying no, as I set up lunch for L-- and S--.

12:35 - The shippers begin piling our boxes outside our door. There are 4 apartments on our floor, leaving plenty of room from the elevator to our door to pile the boxes from one liftvan. L-- and S-- begin to eat their lunch of bananas, hummus and cucumbers. As L-- would say, "Mmm, nummy!"

1:10 - It's time to verify the shipment is fully received. They bring in each box and show me its number. I check it off as received on the inventory, and tell them which room to place it in. L-- is still enjoyig her lunch. S-- has been screaming for about 20 minutes.

1:15 - They bring in the booster chair. L-- looks at it with surprise. "My booster!" she cries, as if thinking, "How did that get here?" S-- fits perfectly, and screams half as much once no longer on my lap.

1:45 - Everything has been received and the shippers are done. L-- has finished her lunch, and S-- has screamed so much that I put her on the floor. L-- is ready to open a box. Lucky for her, the box she chooses is full of her books. She was in heaven. Once book after another, she piled carefully on the couch, often leafing through before going for the next one. After only a few books, she couldn't resister. She sat down to read, and then pulled me over to read them to her. We spent a lovely 15 minutes reading our old favorites, and already beginning to feel at home. S-- has stopped crying - apparently she's happy to see something familiar as well.

2:00 - An hour later than we should have, we pack up and head back to the hotel. Already tired from an emotionally wearing hour and a half, I am quickly exhausted on the way back. The walk to the metro is about half a mile, first through the winding roads and boardwalks of our compound and next down the new Chinese road between our compound and the metro stop. We pass people collecting plastic bottles out of garbage cans, people selling hot food off of small stands, grown men weaving through pedestrians and traffic on their bicycles. I bounce the stroller down the stairs at the metro, lift it over the turnstile, bounce it down another flight of stairs to the train, push it onto the train, and L-- decides its time to take off her shoes. With a child on my back, there is little I can do besides hold her arms over her head - which I do for about 10 minutes, poor girl. At least she stops trying after that point. Someone also offered me their seat then, making the last few minutes much more relaxing.

3:00 - Back at the hotel, I wasted no time in putting each child to bed for their 1-hour-late naps. Exhausted, now I will do the same for myself.

It is a lot of work just to get the girls from the hotel to the apartment, and back. Luckily, we only have to do this for a few days. It will be difficult to get everything set up and unpacked, as well as some basic shopping done by Thursday, but even if we're sleeping in our sleeping bags for the first few days, surrounded by our books, blankets and peanut butter, it already feels like home.