Moving

I sent my little Kate off to Kindergarten this week. [sniff, sniff]. She, of course, did great. She looked so cute with her hair braided, wearing her school clothes, and carrying her blue backpack that matched her eyes. We walked together to the school the first day. She went right in to class with no hesitation, which is exactly how I wanted it to be. Little did she know, however, how her mama’s heart was aching as she walked away from the school without her little one. Suddenly I realized how quickly these years will pass.

Kate seems to be thriving in school. She is excited to go. She has a good teacher. She has become friends with the other children. She tells me all about the routine and the rules and tells me when I am doing things wrong with her lunch or her notebook or her clothes. She teaches Jane new songs and cheers and now in addition to their Indian and bad guy games they play “coach.” Kate thinks she is big stuff walking to school with her backpack. No one can help carry the backpack. It is a symbol that she is a big kid and she goes to school.

Thursday was “a little bit sad.” At breakfast Jane said, “Kate, remember we were playing Pocahontas?” Kate replied, “I can’t, Jane. I have to go to school.” I almost withdrew her on the spot! After we returned home from dropping Kate off and I started unpacking boxes Jane came in and said, “Mom, I miss Kate.” We all miss Kate! It is exciting to see her take this step of independence, but we miss her just the same.

The other big news of the week is that we are in our house! We spent the first two days cleaning up the previous owner’s dirt. Then our pods arrived and we have spent the rest of the week creating messes of our own. The kitchen is now functional and the beds are made. Other than that, we are a work in progress. It’s exciting and overwhelming and discouraging and exhausting, but mostly just exciting!

I have one story from our bachelor pad that I have to write down before I gladly close that chapter of our lives. The bachelor pad was a furnished apartment and decorating was interesting. For one thing, there were mirrors everywhere. Jane Austen fans, I felt like we were renting from Sir Walter Elliot (Persuasion). The most distracting of the mirrors were those surrounding the kitchen table. I would find the girls watching themselves in the mirror when I was trying to talk to them. They would answer me but they were watching themselves in the mirror. One evening we were eating and I said, “We are certainly not going to have mirrors around our kitchen table in our new house.” Josh replied, “Oh? I like mirrors. It makes it look like there is lots and lots of food!” Quintessential Josh.

Love you all! If you are bored this week, call me. I’ll be unpacking boxes!

Up, Down, Up, Down, UP!!!

What a week! I feel like we have been riding a rollercoaster but came off flying!

Up: Kate is registered for Kindergarten. Her school is darling—Purefoy Elementary School. We get to go to “Meet the Teacher” night this Thursday to, yes, meet the teacher, her classmates, and tour the school. We went school supply shopping and ordered a backpack and a few school clothes. Why do I still get so excited over new crayons and school clothes?

Down: I had to drive out to the school three times this week before I remembered all the right forms and documents. If anyone has seen my brain, let me know.

Up: The clouds came! I have decided that clouds rolling into Texas is what sunshine breaking through the clouds is to the rest of the world. We ran outside, danced around, went to the playground, and delighted in the cooler temperature.

Down: The walls of the bachelor pad are closing in on me. I have really tried to make the best out of this situation. I have made some really good salt & pepper dinners. I have scrubbed this place until it is shining. I don’t pay attention to the layer of slime on the bottom of the pool or freak out when I have to scoop bananas, bread, cigarette butts, and bugs out of the pool before we jump in. But, I’m ready to move on! Sunnies don’t like idly existing in limbo!

Up: Kate jumped into the swimming pool. This may not seem like a great accomplishment without knowing the background. I put the girls in swimming lessons this summer so they would be comfortable with water when we made the move to Dallas. The first day Kate jumped off the diving board without any hesitation. The next day she would have none of it! For the next week she could not get up the courage to jump in, even from the side. Being the sensitive mother that I am, I started getting a little frustrated. I offered her rewards. I even pushed her in once. Then as I was talking to her one day, she looked up at me with a certain expression and I realized that my constant nagging had hurt her. She was doing great with the swimming. Why did I care so much about jumping off the side? I mended my ways and shifted the focus to what she was doing well. This week she said, “Mom, can I jump off the side?” She jumped 5 or 6 times. Then I had her jump in and swim to me. Before we got out she was jumping in and swimming to the stairs. Good things kids can excel in spite of their parents.

Big Down: The appraisal on our house came in really low. On top of that, it was a very sloppy appraisal. Our realtor was having a fit. A low appraisal is one thing, but a sloppy low appraisal is another. You all know how well I do with sloppy. Anyway, the bank said they would only lend us the amount of the appraisal which left us having to come up with a significant bit of cash, not something we are floating in just now. We tried to get the bank to redo the appraisal. No luck. I tried to keep my chin up as I saw our house, Kate’s school, and reprieve from life in the bachelor pad slipping away.

Flying: Thanks to the efforts of our realtor and, mostly, unexplainable blessings from Above, the sellers ended up coming down to the amount of the appraisal—lower than our original offer. We had to give up the BBQ, the rug, the patio furniture and the curtains, but, hey, I’ll take it! We electronically signed the amended document last evening while sitting on a pile of cardboard boxes in Home Depot. Then we looked at each other with a mixture of relief, gratitude, disbelief and excitement and kissed—right there in public!

Here’s hoping for a gentle landing this week!

Interesting Read

p.s. This is a well timed article from the Wall Street Journal that sums up the appraisal situation we found ourselves: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904006104576500170808091148.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

Print, Sign, Scan

Have you read the news? That hot, miserable, drought-ridden land they are talking about reaching record breaking temperatures…yeah, that’s where I live. Fun stuff. On the bright side, though, the tortilla selection in the grocery store is amazing!

My dad called me one day this week to give me information on keeping cool and told me about the warning signs of dehydration and heat stroke. That night just after I put the girls down for the night our power went out. It was around 8:30 p.m. The temperature inside our house was 78, the temperature outside was 100. Suddenly, that phone call wasn’t just a dad’s ice storm warning. We moved the girls out of the closet, changed them into the coolest clothing we could find, and started making plans to spend the night at Josh’s office if it continued to get hotter. Kate was so scared. She felt her way over to me in the dark, cuddled up close and said, “Mom, can we say a prayer?” Her sincere plea must have gone straight to the heart of Heavenly Father because minutes after she returned to bed all the lights came back on and our AC started up.

Not a lot is going on here beyond working toward closing on our house. That, however, has kept us mighty busy. Who knew buying a house was such a complicated process!

Yesterday we went out to the Katy trail again. I ran while Kate rode along next to me on her bike. Jane was on her skuut and Josh was walking along with her. After Kate and I went out and back, I stayed with the girls in a shady spot and we let Josh go run on his own for a bit. Jane was collecting rocks, one of her favorite pass times. Soon the rock collection evolved into arranging the rocks into designs. By the time Josh got back the three of us had made a great big sunshine out of rocks. The girls finished it off with a crooked smiley face and we left it there next to the path to make people smile. I don’t think there are a lot of children in downtown Dallas. You should have heard the comments from people as they came by our creation. Jane left saying, “I’m an artist!”

Another great Jane moment this week came in the middle of one of her polly pocket games. The polly pockets have saved us while we are in this one bedroom apartment. The girls play with them non-stop. Jane came up to me and asked me to help her get a dress on one of the dolls, which is a normal occurrence. But this time she said, “The Fairy Godmother couldn’t get the sleeve in, but YOU can do it, Mom!” Nice to know that where fairy godmothers fail, mothers take over!

Have a happy week.

p.s. With any luck I'll have my computer back in two weeks and I can finally post some pictures!