Moving

We're moving in less than two weeks. We've sold our house and bought a new one in the King.stream neighborhood. Gosh, those two transactions are so easily summed up in a simple sentence -- if only the actual process were that easy! FAR FROM IT!


First there's the fixing up the home which for us involved: regrouting all the tile in our bathrooms, refinishing our hardwood floors, repainting the whole house inside and most of the outside, replacing siding, "refreshing" our kitchen cabinets, ETC! It all took a lot of time, and we paid people to do some of the work which took a lot of moula.


Then there's putting it on the market. We did For Sale By Owner, so we had to do a lot of paperwork and stuff.


Once it's on the market you have to keep the place CLEAN since anybody can come by anytime. Not easy with kids -- although in trying to keep the house clean our kids were introduced to a new concept -- making your bed. Eli was particularly intrigued with this new phenomenon. A couple of days after the house did go under contact Eli feeling distressed asked, "Mommy are we not making the beds anymore? I liked that!"


Well if we move again, we may have another period of bed making. That'll have to satisy Eli :)


Then we went under contract. The kid (age 26) who is buying our house is pretty nice, but his parents are Mr. Beezlebub and Mrs. Mephistopheles, and since Beezle and Stophel are giving their Wittle Boy $60K for a downpayment we've had to deal with them. A. LOT. Stophel is a realtor in her home state so we've been blessed to be able to converse especially with her. A. LOT.


Stophel doesn't feel the need for pleasantries or niceness. She likes to go straight for the jugular. Por Ejemplo, the home inspector noted some soft spots in the roof decking. Wittle Boy asked to have that replaced. We told Wittle Boy that we would get quotes from three licensed, bonded and insured contractors and give him the average of their estimates back in cold hard cash at settlement.


I purposely found three contractors with stellar reputations to give estimates. When Wittle Boy initially received the quotes he was satisfied and told us the matter was settled. But after he showed the quotes to Mama Mephistopheles all hell broke loose. The three quotes were all around 1000 bucks, but apparently that wasn't enough for Mama. She wanted mo' money for Wittle boy. So she called screaming and immediately accused us of not letting the contractors see the real problems, saying that we had purposely misled them. Mama can be so cranky . . . I wanted to tell her "Sweetums, you catch more flies with honey", but Mama Stoph can't be bothered with annoyances like kindness and being polite.


Then Mama called the contractor with the highet estimate and railed on him. He called us later and said he refused to work with her. Mama Stophel has that effect on people.


Now it was Papa Beezle's turn. He decided on his own that we should give Wittle Boy 2000 dollars back at settlement for the roof decking and wrote to the title company instructing them to make that change. Uh oh Papa, yer posed to talk to the seller before you do that. We wouldn't even have known about it had the title company not written to us asking if we had agreed to those terms. No we hadn't, we had not even discussed that possibility with Papa Beezle or Mama Stophel let alone Wittle Boy -- who is the one actually buying the house.


Of course these roof issues weren't the only ones we got to talk about with Mama and Papa. They wanted to nickel and dime us to death on every little thing. You might think, well maybe money is tight for them so they're being extra careful. No Papa and Mama are loaded and live in a big mansion.


Mama Stoph saw how we live and the cars we drive, she knows we are not rolling in the dough. But Mama, bless her soul, wants to teach us the value of a dollar and fight us for every penny.


The rich are always the stingiest, ain't they?


Okay this post kinda drifted from my initial intent. I obviously have some pent up feelings about Mama and Papa.


Then there's the homeowner that we're purchasing our new home from. He's a treasure too. But I'll have to save that for another time.

To the Left

My kids say the funniest things! And I always think, "I should write that down." And then I don't. And then I forget what they said.

Last weekend Laurie stayed with us for a couple of days on her way back from Florida. I made my awesome slow cooker, French dip sandwiches and I was telling Laurie that the recipe called for a can of beer but that I used beef consomme instead. She said she had an awesome beef stew recipe that called for red wine and that she used the actual stuff.

Upon hearing that Eli and Cara both blurted out, "Laurie, you're not supposed to drink wine!"

Cara followed up with, "Laurie, you're supposed to choose the right, but you chose left."

The little urchins crack me up!

Turning Over a New Leaf

Yesterday I was at the elementary school doing Tuesday folders for Eli's class. When I finished I realized it was almost Joel's lunch time, so I decided to wait a few minutes so I could see him and give him a squeeze. Before his class came down, I ran into Mrs. Perlot (4th grade special education assistant) who informed me that Joel had had a really rough morning.

Apparently they had done an activity where every kid in the class had to pull another classmate's name out of a hat and write something nice about that person. Joel unfortunately picked out the same of somebody he doesn't particularly like. Not having the capacity to B.S. Joel couldn't come up with anything positive to write, so he wrote his true feelings about the person which were none too kind.

His teachers told him he needed to redo the assignment and he had a meltdown and became very sad and upset.

When he spotted me near the lunchroom his eyes were red rimmed and still filled with tears. He gave me a big hug and asked, "Mom, can you help me turn over a new leaf?"

Oh my cherished little boy; that humble little statement really tugged at my heart strings.

He is so precious and sweet. It pains me that so many everyday activities are so heart wrenching for his little soul.

---------------------------------------------------

Mrs. Perlot (aforementioned special ed I.A.) has really been a gift from God. She told me yesterday how much she "love, love, loves" Joel, and I can tell she means it from the bottom of her heart. She is quiet and reserved and is totally there for Joel when he needs her.

After Christmas? they switched Joel's classroom and it made an amazing difference. This past fall was a difficult one. Joel was belligerent and obstinate at school and at home and point blank refused to do his work. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him.

His original 4th grade teacher had what one other teacher called "a soft presence in the classroom." I called it disorganization. The lack of structure really got to Joel and made him feel uneasy and on edge. Hence the belligerence and obstinance. When he was switched into the very structured classroom of a different teacher it was like magic, his behavior immediately improved.

In addition to her organized classroom she's a great match for Joel in other ways too. She'll joke and be sarcastic with him which he LOVES. She has a very over the top and energetic personality which Joel thrives on as well. In many ways her interaction style with him is similar to my own and of course that helps Joel to feel comfortable and secure.

Eli has a fantastic teacher this year too. She's taught for eons and really has an in depth understanding of how to work with and get the most out of young children. Plus, she actually really likes the kids :)

In short, I'm feeling really blessed with my kids' teachers this year and so grateful for wonderful human beings who interact so lovingly with my children on a daily basis.

Cara the Character

Cara: "Mommy, heads or tails?"
Me: "Heads."
Cara: "I pick tails. So if it's tails I win, and if it's heads we both win. Got it?"

A TYPICAL PRETEND PLAY SCENARIO WITH CARA--------------------------------------------

"Mommy let's be elephants, you be the Mommy and I'll be the baby."
"Okay."
"Let's go over to the mud pit."
"Oh, baby elephant it's raining, do you want to get underneath me?"
"MOMMY, we're in a house, we're just "pretending" we're baby elephants!"
"Oh, oh now I get it."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday we were playing with mini Strawberry Shortcake dolls Cara got for Christmas. Cara was S.S. and I was Orange Blossom.

Me (as Orange Blossom): I'm sad I don't have a Mommy? Will you be my Mommy?
Cara: No. You don't have a Mommy.
Me: I know that's why I'm so sad. (Choking back the tears)
Will you please be my Mommy?
Cara: Grrrrrr......... You don't have a Mommy. I've seen you on
the cartoon. No mommy!
Me: I really want a Mommy. I feel so alone, will you please
love me enough to be my Mommy?
Cara: .......................(agitated silence)
. . . . .

ARGH! YOU CAME IN A BOX!


Cracked me up. I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know why, but it really struck my funny bone.