Relocation Assistance

When we phoned our respective families last weekend to deliver the news that we're definitely heading stateside early next year, my 6-year-old niece was absent from the proceedings. She was spending the weekend at a friend's house, so I wasn't able to personally deliver the news...yet.

My mother spoke to her a few days later and said that my niece pronounced our move plans: "Cool!" Then added, "I can see her (me) every day! It'll be back and forth and back and forth and back and...I just might LIVE with her!"

So I phoned my niece yesterday to personally share the news. I reached her via her mother's cell phone; they were in the car en route to a birthday party. I asked if she understood that we'd be moving somewhere near her. She said, "Uh huh. Dixon or Davis." (The towns we're considering. Actually there's a third town but it doesn't start with a D, so it maybe it's less interesting to her.) I asked her where SHE thought we should move. "Dixon!" (where she lives) I started to tell her when we'd be moving and she interjected, "I know, after Christmas next year." Just to be clear, I said that actually once we have Christmas THIS year, then we'll move a few months after that. "Oh!" Then she suddenly put 2 and 2 together and excitedly told me, "You could be my next-door neighbor! There are some people who live at the end of the court who are moving out!"

That's when I decided: I'm going to let my 6-year-old niece plan our entire move.