something else!

"Something else!" a small voice called out. At the beginning of the day, that call was met with a sigh. It meant that I had to go around the apartment and find something that a six year old could carry down a couple flights of stairs. The boxes, even the ones filled with clothes, wouldn't work, because he couldn't see over or around the box enough to navigate. So it had to be something light and small and not too fragile. It also couldn't have rusty nails sticking out, and just in case you think I couldn't possibly have anything with rusty nails sticking out of it, I'll just let you know that you're wrong.

I never really noticed how little actual moving and how much pointing and instructing you have to do when you're the person who is changing addresses. I've helped my siblings move many, many times. That's easy. Grab a box, take it to the truck. Drive to the new place. Grab a box, take it inside. But when it's my stuff in those boxes, I have to spend a lot of time making sure everyone has something to do. So I make sure the big stuff is cleared off for my brothers and teenaged nephews and that my pregnant sister has room to fill coolers with stuff from the freezer and my niece has enough towels to cover the artwork and that the big kids have a steady supply of light boxes and that the little kids aren't in the way. It's a job. There wasn't a lot of time to find something just the right size and shape for an eager six-year-old's hands.

But by the end of the day, I was starting to enjoy finding things for my nephew Noah to carry. I got better at seeing the items as I was frantically organizing all the people who were big enough to tote boxes or furniture. By the end of the day, every time Noah came back up the stairs and called "Something else!" I was ready. I'd been clearing off the desk or moving aside some boxes of books and I would spy something appropriate. Small lamps, a half-sized box, a pair of ski poles, a board game, a plastic pitcher full of flour. I'd make sure and ask if he could handle it, telling him that if it was too heavy, I could get his daddy to carry the Scrabble game. He would reassure me that he could handle it, and then head on out back to the truck, sometimes saying as he went, "I'm helping a lot!"

As I've been unpacking everything that was brought inside by my helpers, I can't help but notice which things were carried by Noah. Maybe because it was sort of my only connection with all the actual hauling that went on Saturday, maybe because every time I see a plastic pitcher full of flour or my ski poles, I hear him calling out "Something else!"