February 11, 2008

Something to Panic About

The first nerve-wracking part of this week is now over. We have the pre-approval from the mortgage lender. We know how much house we can afford. We now know that we can build the house we want, with the options we want. We just have to choose and then sign the papers and put things into motion.

I’m excited about having my own walk-in closet. I’m excited about having a single-family home with a yard for the girls. I’m also really excited about having a basement big enough to turn into my own personal dojo without having to share too much space with litter boxes and abandoned toys.

Tomorrow night, we’re touring our "competition." Our realtor has set up a tour of several comparable homes to our current one for tomorrow night. After tomorrow night, we’ll know the exact number we can put on our house and officially list it.

Then it’s time to panic.

I feel like I spent my entire day following the girls around, picking up one mess after another after another. Lil C took a marker to my atrium door windows and glass fireplace doors today. Later, she took a pen to her sister and the ottoman in my living room. That was after she dumped an entire snack bag of cheese crackers onto my white carpet before deciding to stomp them into the floor. Did I mention that only one out of every three bites makes it to her mouth at the dinner table?

Lil C has also suddenly decided that she will intermittently go on the potty like a big girl, which means there is a constant half-naked little munchkin running around which terrifies me to no end. I don’t even mind when she tells me she "pooped on Dora" (in her Dora diapers) because at least that means it’s not happening on the floor somewhere. She is managing to make it to the bathroom every once in a while and while that is shocking, exciting and cool, this newly unbraced ACL recoveree isn’t quite up to the running that potty-training toddlers require their parents to do.

In fact, I’m not ready for a lot of things I’ll be needing to do.

I can not imagine showing this house at a moments notice. I think I’m going to have to tell my realtor I’ll need 48 hours notice and a babysitter if anyone is to walk in my house and not think it’s a trashed toddler fraternity house. Instead of crushed beer cans, there are strewn-about sippy cups. Instead of beer sludge on the floors, there are cheese and graham cracker crumb piles that will randomly turn up on chairs, under chairs and on carpet. Instead of hungover fraternity boys, you’ll see a toddler who refuses to change out of her pajamas for the entire day. Just call her "Heff," as in Hugh.

There’s also the business of all of our stuff. Since moving in to this home over four years ago, we have accumulated a kid and all her stuff, an entire other room of living room furniture, another dining table, a complete bedroom set for Big I and about a ton of new toys (We’re not even going to talk about the clothing and shoes that belong to various girls in this house). I seriously don’t know how we’ll move all of this stuff out of here. It’s tempting to sell the entire house and all of its contents and just start from scratch with everything.

Now that the panic has subsided about the mortgage, I’m sure something else will take its place. . . the prospect of owning two homes at a time, the stress of choosing cabinets, carpet, tile, exterior and interior colors of everything, choosing the best lot, the perfect model, and timing everything right.

There’s also, of course, the touchy issue of finding people to help us move. Mr. BBM and I have moved eight times since we got together so most of our favors are just about used up. I guess I’ll just have to recruit my readers.

Anyone?

Bueller?