Things I've learned from moving with a toddler

While I don't have near enough time to outline the many, many things I've learned about organizing, packing and moving with a toddler, the main point I would like to drive home is that it should never EVER be done without hiring a babysitter.

Seriously - I had about 400 things to get to today and I only got to 5 of them because of my shadow and my helper.

Need to climb onto the stepstool to spackle and paint? Forget it. My shadow is climbing up behind me, which wouldn't bother me except that my one and only stepstool is actually broken and in danger of collapsing at any moment. So the walls are barely spackled and not yet painted.

Need to clean the oven? Forget it. My ever so helpful 2 year old is picking up all of the ashy crumbs that have been swept out of the oven and onto the floor and eating them. So the oven isn't clean yet.

Need to get the childproof electrical outlet covers off of the outlets? Forget it! My helper has to make sure they're still live by sticking her finger into every single one of them. I aborted that mission quickly.

Every time I leave the room, every time I switch to a new item on my to do list, basically every time I move....my shadow is right there behind me on my heels so that if I say "Oh shoot, I forgot to grab _____" and turn around to go get it, I immediately knock into her and knock her down and she freaks and it's about a 20 minute ordeal to get her back to being happy and content.

I will be so glad when this is over.