Feeling a Little Boxed In

We recently sold our house and are currently playing the waiting game while we wait for our new house to close. So a few weeks ago we loaded up a moving van with much more furniture and boxes than should ever have fit into our tiny little house (I seriously think we broke a few laws of physics there) and headed west... to a retirement community.

Retirement?

Yep. I look stinkin' good for my age!

Actually, my parents were gracious enough to let us stay at their house while they are working in another state. They warned told the neighbors we would be staying here, and, except for the occasional ambulance and firetruck, it's been pretty quiet.

A friend of mine asked if we were actually allowed to stay here since we're clearly not old enough and we're toting around a 5-year-old. I told her we absolutely were. But only for a limited time. We'll know we've overstayed our welcome when a blue-haired mob shows up in their golf carts with torches and pitch forks to slowly chase us out of town!

My mom always keeps a tidy house. Despite the fact that it had been empty for a few months, there was not a speck of dust to be anywhere when we moved in. Towels were neatly hung up ready for use. Crisp sheets were perfectly tucked on the beds. It was like moving into a vacation rental.

Luckily my mom is not here to see how we have filled her garage with our furniture and appliances. She's not here to see how we've moved our dressers and wardrobe boxes into her beautiful formal living room.

Dueling pianos! Just a little keyboard family reunion
before we moved in the dressers.

And she's not here to see how we redecorated her dining room.

Some people like to decorate their homes in a traditional, contemporary, country chic or even industrial style. We're going with a cardboard motif. Personally, I like how the chandelier and oil painting really bring balance to the whole room.

We took two days to move everything out of our old house. During one trip, my dear hubby saw a wild coyote strolling the retirement neighborhood. He was probably looking for the local Luby's. During the final trip, my same sweet hubby asked me to help him move the refrigerator by tipping it over on him. After making sure his life insurance was up-to-date I obliged by giving the giant appliance a shove toward him and listening for any screams that may have been muffled by the large metal box. Luckily, it somehow made it's way onto the dolly and down the ramp without claiming any victims.

We then spent the following two days starting all our conversations with "Have you seen my..." or "Do you know where we put the..." For the sake of our sanity, we cut through the five layers of tape that created an air-tight seal on each box and relabeled the boxes. We only unpacked what was necessary -- like food, toothbrushes and anxiety medicine. And now we are living out of boxes one day at a time.

We're exhausted. We're confused. And sometimes we're just plain cranky. You know... I guess we do fit into the neighborhood after all! ;-)

Leaving Home

Yes, I've been delinquent (again), but I've had a good reason... we are moving!!! Actually, it's not quite that simple, because, really, when is it ever?

So we spent two weekends clearing out clutter, packing up boxes, and cleaning. Granted, we only cleaned out half the house because we still had to live here! But it was worth it because we sold it in two weeks!

After that, we started spending quality time with our agent looking at houses over here. Looking at houses over there. Looking at houses everywhere!!! Weekends. Evenings. Afternoons. We crammed in as many houses as possible and put several bids down. And just this week, we finally had an offer accepted. Whoo-hoo!!! However, it doesn't close until the end of next month, so in the meantime, we'll be living at my parent's home... in a retirement community... with a five-year-old! Watch out, retirees! We are moving in next door!!!

Tomorrow, we pick up the moving van. Pack up the rest of our stuff. And move across town.

Tonight is the last night in the house that has been my home for over a decade. I bought this place while I was still single, and didn't have plans at that time to marry and have a kid. Come to think of it... we've tripled the occupancy since living here!

The first home improvement project I did was in the guest bath. It was the first time I battled full-scale hives, and I had to keep my hands busy so they wouldn't scratch. So I spent the week sponge painting and slapping down some tile.

Almost a year after I bought the house, I met my husband. We got to know each other when he installed a doggy door for me. A few months later, we had our first kiss here. And he asked me to marry him here...

After we got married, he thought I deserved to have roses all the time, so he added a rose garden...

Several years later, I found out I was pregnant here...

We brought our baby home and watched him grow up here...

We taught Little Dude to hit a slow pitch here in the back yard, and we used to enjoy watching our dogs race around playing tag in the evenings.

And, of course, my beautiful lemon tree lives back there, along with my vines that grow on the back fence.

My husband made his own contributions (other than the doggy door) by replacing all the faucets, a toilet, the stove, the shower doors, and the flooring. He created custom built-ins for the master closet, which I love, and installed a little air conditioner in the separated laundry room so I wouldn't get hot while doing laundry in the summer.

I'll miss the sound the rain makes on the patio roof. The scent of the citrus blossoming in the neighborhood. The neighbors who walk their dogs past us every morning while we leave for school and work.

We have been totally blessed with some really awesome neighbors. Some have already let us know that they're going to miss us, too. Everyone looks out for each other here. When the weather's nice, people enjoy walking and jogging and waving hello to each other. Holidays are always magical in our neighborhood -- hundreds of people walk up and down our street on Halloween, everyone enjoys showing off their Christmas decorations each year, flags fly for patriotic holidays, and several neighbors even decorate for Thanksgiving and Easter.

We are leaving with some wonderful memories, but we're looking forward to making some new memories in our new house.

Good-bye, kind old house.

April Fooled by a 5-year-old!

I enjoy a good practical joke every now and then. And I often look forward to the little jokes and pranks that come on April 1st. But combine the mischievousness of April Fool's Day with the innocence of a 5-year-old, and you've got a master at work.

Yesterday, I was driving my perfectly precious little 5-year-old boy to school when he announced, "I can't hear very good."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't hear when the TV is too quiet. It has to be really loud for me to hear. And I can't always hear the questions that the teacher asks, so I don't raise my hand in class."

This was a new one for me. Hmm... do I err on the side of caution this time or wait and see if this is a real issue? Sure, I try not to jump every time he skins a knee or busts a lip, but then again, if he's having a problem hearing, I might need to check it out right away. I doubted he was going deaf. Most likely, with all the pollen flying around right now, his ears were gunky from allergies.



Unintentional April Fool's prankster
or master trickster?

Little Dude told me, "It's like there's dirt in my ears and I can't hear through it."

"Do you need to go to the doctor?" I was hoping this would make him reconsider in case it wasn't a real problem. Instead, he seemed to perk up at the idea of going to the doctor.

"Yes! I really need to go to the doctor."

"OK, but it won't be until this afternoon, which means you'll miss recess." One last attempt.

"It's OK. I need to go to the doctor."

I dropped off Little Dude at school and called Big Dude who was immediately worried and wanted to get it checked out. Big Dude, you should know, had a burst eardrum as a child and as the veteran of such an affliction, he worries about ear infections... which for some reason never seem to exhibit any symptom in our child except the occasional "squishy" sound that his ears make when he yawns or opens his mouth as wide as possible. So, with that in mind, a co-pay is a small price to pay to make sure our kid isn't going to suffer some sort of aural trauma.

SIDE NOTE: Now, I know that as a reader, who is probably much wiser and more skilled in the ways of parenthood and child psychology, you can already see where this is headed. It seems as if everyone has some point in their childhood where they faked an injury and their parents fell for it. For me, I was about the same age when I feigned a broken arm for an entire day (apparently, I was quite an actress) and my parents finally rushed me to the doctor. I even had x-rays! Although I didn't have a broken arm, I was still disappointed I didn't get a cast.

So yesterday afternoon, Big Dude took Little Dude to the doctor. She checked his ears and gave him a hearing test... which he passed with a great big perfect score. Then she asked him again why he thought his hearing wasn't up to par. His answer? "Well, I don't always hear things the first time. They have to say it again before I hear it."

Big Dude said the kids down the hall could probably hear the doctors laughter. At least we know Little Dude could hear it!

And now, Little Dude doesn't have any excuse for not listening to us! We've got the proof. I think I might frame his hearing test for reference. Yep, those little ears work. He just needs to use them!

And from now on, when my kid tells me something out of the ordinary, I'll make sure to check the calendar first.

The Kiss of Guilt

Last week I was about to step into a meeting at work when my cell phone rang. The caller ID caused my stomach to clench... It was the school.

Calls from school are not usually a good thing. It usually means either you're child is sick or hurt or your child did something terrible. This call was the former.

"[Little Dude] fell on the basketball court and bit into his lip. His top lip looks pretty bad and it looks like his bottom lip is hurt too. There's a lot of swelling and blood so it's hard to tell how bad it is. Do you want to come check him out?"

Now, if you ever think moms sometimes seem distracted, it's because we are busy doing a hundred calculations in our brains. As soon as the school receptionist asked if I wanted to come down there, my head was filled with all the variables...

He busts his lips all the time and it may not be too bad, but on the other hand he could have bitten all the way through his lip and that is bad, but if I go down there he'll have to come home with me because he won't want me to leave him especially after the trauma of biting his lips, but if it's not really that bad then he doesn't need to have me upset him emotionally by showing up and leaving, but  then again he may need me to rush him to urgent care, but he used to fall and hit bust his lips all the time at preschool and he always recovered and if I rush to school the first time he gets hurt and it's not truly serious then I might besetting a precedence that I'll always come to swoop in and rescue him, but he needs to learn to be a big boy and cope when he's not seriously hurt, but I really want to skip this meeting and go grab my baby boy and hug him and make sure he's ok, and maybe this is one of those times when he really needs mommy to come get him and hang out with him the rest of the day.

The debate in my head took all of 3 seconds before I said, "Put a bag of ice on his lips for about 20 minutes and then call me to tell me how they look."

Then I took my cell phone into the meeting, explained I may have to leave early and sat there thinking about my kid's bloody lips the whole time: It's before lunch and even if he stays at school he may need me to bring him something soft to eat. Maybe I can at least bring him a yogurt or a milkshake. Yeah, a milkshake would be good. The cold might be good for his mouth right now. Why hasn't the school called yet? Why didn't I just go down there? Maybe I should have gone down there. Now I'm not just the crazy mom who constantly calls the office to find out every detail for everything that's going on and bugs them about whether he's learning at the right level, but I'm also one of those moms who doesn't care when her kid is sick or hurt. What must they think of me? I'm definitely not winning any Mother of the Year awards for this. Why haven't they called me yet? Which urgent care is closest to the school?

After about 40 minutes of this, I excused myself from the meeting and called the school to find out his status.

"One of the teachers used to be a nurse and she took care of him and got him calmed down. The swelling stopped and he went back to class."

Ah, relief and the justifying knowledge that I DID make the right decision.

Of course, I spent the rest of the day imagining my kid sitting in class with tears and ice packs and blood down the front of his shirt. When my husband picked him up, he brought another flood of relief by telling me it wasn't bad at all. Just some scrapes. He was even well enough to kiss us goodnight later.

Ah, motherhood.

Talk about an imagination running wild!

Just a little bragging...

OK, so no funny story today... this is just a mom bragging on her kid. Her 5-year-old child. After a hard Wednesday night of memorizing a ton of verses (John 3:14-16 and some stuff somewhere in the book of Joshua), my child sat in the back seat while I drove him home. It was pretty quiet, until...



Obviously, that's not the back seat of my car. In the car he said everything perfectly and added the Pledge of Allegiance on for good measure. So I rewarded him like any good mother would... by making him do the whole thing again so I could videotape it!

They are learning some serious stuff in Kindergarten!