House news

First, to the dear, wonderful, supportive, ladies in my life: no, I was not referring to you in my previous post. The mothers I mentioned, the ones so busy bragging on their own kids that they failed to remember that we are all imperfect beings, are too oblivious to have realized they could have possibly done anything wrong. You ladies are too inherently HONEST and self-aware to have been the women I was speaking of. Thank you for your kind emails and IM’s. You are true friends.

Now… house news!

Last Saturday we signed an extension on our current apartment lease so we could stay here until June 19th. The very next day a house came on the market with 4 bedrooms, a finished basement, a “decent” yard, and in the Superior elementary school district- in short, every thing we have been waiting for. It was also well within our price range.

We ran out to see the house that day and made an offer on it Monday morning. Monday night we received a counter offer and accepted that offer. We signed the documents yesterday (Tuesday) and have the inspection scheduled for Friday. If all goes well we’ll close May 24th. We agreed on the longer closing time due to our newly signed lease extension but also because the owner has a daughter graduating from high school in May. Since we are flexible on our move date, we felt it was the decent thing to do- letting them stay in the house until she had graduated.

Pictures!

This is the front of the house.. and Ian.

One of the upstairs bedrooms. There are three bedrooms, including the master, on the upper level.

A very bad picture of the master bedroom. There is a 5 piece master bath attached to the room plus a walk-in closet.

The other upstairs bedroom. This will probably be the boys room- once we get rid of that glaring turqouise paint.

This is an open loft area on the upper floor where the bedrooms are. Since the built in bookshelves convey with the house, we're going to make this a play area for the boys.

The kitchen doesn't really have more counter or cabinet space than my kitchen in Springfield, but there is room to expand it along the left wall if we choose to.

The stairwell. Why is every house in this neighborhood painted that mustard yellow? Argh! The formal dining space is at the base of the stairs. Oh look, Ian snuck in the picture again.

This family room/den area connects to the eat in kitchen.

This nook area is beside the front door and the formal dining area. We are going to make that area our home office.

The right side of the long room in the basement. I have no idea what we'll put in that corner, since we don't have exercies equipment. It might become a mini-library.

The left side of the basement. This side will definitely be set up similar to how the current owners have it. To the right of the picture are the sliding glass doors that walk out to the backyard.

The left side of the backyard. As you can see it's not really big, but it has plenty of room for a swingset. The house is also located on a cul-de-sac, so it will be safer for the boys to ride their bikes out front. The deck is a trex composite material and large enough to have a patio table , several chairs and a grill- effectively doubling the backyard entertaining space.

I'll let y'all know how the inspection goes. It should be easy to check for roof leaks and drainage around the property, since we got 15 inches of snow last night. It will all be melting by Friday.

Coming out from under the bed

It should come as no shock to a reader of this blog that I am a competitive person. You read Gone With the Wind in two days? Yeah, well, I just read it in 12 hours! You got a 95 on that AP history exam? I aced it AND got extra credit! Etc. etc.

So when our on-line moms group began discussing childhood milestones and how quickly, or not, our children were hitting those milestones, I’m ashamed to admit that I was one of the worst braggarts. Ethan crawled at 5 months! Ethan got his first tooth before anyone else! Ethan can throw and catch a ball!

Karma, or God, has a sure-fire way of deflating your ego. At some point your child will have a hard time learning a new skill, or, he’ll fail to do something as well as another child. Our moms group started to drift apart specifically because we spent so much time bragging and boasting about our little darlings and not enough time supporting each other through the hard- and the truly important- trials of parenthood.

Mark and I first realized Ethan’s “quirks” weren’t quite so innocent and laughable when he started pre-school and refused to do “normal” child things. He wouldn’t finger paint, or play in the sand table. If the sand table was filled with shaving cream or something gooey he shut down completely and cried in a corner. During soccer practice he refused to touch the wet, muddy, ground with his hands. He couldn’t write any of his letters and couldn’t properly hold a crayon, much less a pencil. He switched between hands when holding a fork, playing sports, writing, or playing games. He couldn’t button his clothes, snap his pants or master Legos. These little personality traits were no longer just something that made Ethan unique. He fell behind other children in classroom progression.

Preschool helped a great deal. Falling out a tree and breaking his left arm in kindergarten did not help his fine motor control at all, though. Before falling out of the tree he was becoming more left-hand dominant. With a cast from his palm to his elbow he had to start using his right hand and basically had to start from the beginning with basic writing skills. During his first semester of first grade, in Virginia, Ethan’s teacher mentioned that he was falling behind his classmates in reading.

On our last day in Virginia his teacher handed us a note suggesting Ethan be placed back in kindergarten when we reached Colorado. She had never before mentioned that he was far enough behind to warrant holding him back a year.

Ethan started school in Colorado on January 25th. Since that day he has started receiving 45 minutes of extra reading help every day with the special education supervisor at his school. He also receives special attention in the classroom. After spring break he will be starting extra 15 minute per day classes in writing and speech therapy. Last week I met with the school principal, Ethan’s teacher, the special education supervisor, a school social worker, the school occupational therapist, and three other teachers to discuss how we could further help Ethan.

I cannot describe how gratifying and yet utterly terrifying it is to have so many education professionals sitting down to discuss your child. A lot of initials and labels were thrown out that day. We need to have Ethan tested for and officially diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder. He will most likely need out-of-school tutoring and occupational therapy. But the goal of that meeting, and of everyday, is not to label Ethan and put him in a nice neat little box. The goal is to help him, to help the intelligent, curious, witty little boy that is trapped inside a body that doesn’t respond quite right to the surrounding world.

I recently reconnected with one of the mothers from my old moms group. She mentioned that her child has been really struggling in school. She stopped posting to the group because she was ashamed of how “behind” her child was, and then she felt horrible for being ashamed of her own child. I wish we lived closer so I could apologize in person for being such a clueless b—ch. I also wish I could give her a hug, sit down with a hot cup of tea and discuss how we can help our darlings. This mother hasn’t been offered any of the help or support that I have. I feel ashamed for being part of the problem that drove her away from a support group she sincerely needed.

The competitive over-achiever in me wants to hide my head in shame that my child is “behind” or “special” or “needs therapy”. I cannot be that person, though, because I have to be his mommy first. He needs his mommy to understand, to help him, to love him no matter what. And, I swear by every stubborn bone in my body, I will not let my little boy down.

I sum up:

So, yes, life got in the way. By “in the way” I mean, it came up and kicked me in the head and chest until I submitted and cried for mercy.

Since my last post, Ethan, Ian, and I have all been sick individually or concurrently with head and chest colds. Mark seems to have survived- so far.

Since I last posted we had a “decent” snowfall of 5 inches and during that time we hiked from Ethan’s school to the house we were planning on buying.

Since I last posted Ethan had an eye exam and got a prescription for glasses to wear when he’s sitting in the back of the class.

This week has been the coup de grace of the head kicking life has been giving me. On Monday we got word from the bank that held the first lien on the house we were trying to buy. They approved the short sale! Woo hoo! On Tuesday we had the home inspection and found out there were $38000 in structural repairs needed on the foundations and beams of the house. On tope of that the house had leaking pipes, a hot water heater that needed to be replaced, new washer, dryer and fridge, all the carpet had to be ripped out, the deck had to be rebuilt, the cracks in the drywall around every single window had to be repaired, the air conditioner leveled, and the whole back yard re-graded. There were also the expected move-in expenses of new paint, and, oh, eliminating the colony of mice living in the basement.

We didn’t walk away from that house deal, we ran screaming!

So now we’re back looking for a new house to live in while we struggle each day piled on top of each other in this (effectively, since one room is filled completely with boxes of storage) two bedroom apartment with elephants as upstairs neighbors.

But, Mark loves his new job and is so very excited to go in every single day. His office is so close he can come home for lunch and his evening commute takes seven minutes.

Ethan has made many new friends at school. While he is still behind his classmates in reading and writing skills, he’s making phenomenal progress thanks to the excellent teaching staff at Superior elementary.

Ian still isn’t potty trained. We struggle with that. He is, however, a hilarious little chatter box who keeps me entertained with his almost- 4- year- old wit.

And me? Well now that I’m not hacking up my lungs, or crying about the house, I’m doing good. I’ve re-launched my political blog, I’m slowly making friends with other moms at Ethan’s school, and I’m adjusting to the oddities of living in the Mountain Time zone.

Mark’s severance package and final termination from Mythic took effect yesterday, March 10th. We don’t feel the need to avoid talking about where we live or where he’s working. The Mythic phase of our life is officially behind us. The Colorado phase is already well under way and we continue to appreciate how blessed we are to have jobs, the opportunity to buy a house, healthy kids, and loving families.