A Moving Haiku

Movers did show up.
We are in fancy hotel.
Annie threw up once.

Unpacked

Hey Oprah! You were right! Remember your show on "The Secret"? Well, it works. At least for me. But not the way I want it too. Remember last week when I told you I kept calling our movers to confirm our packing and moving dates because, as I told the customer service woman "my worst fear is to not have anyone show up"? Next time I will spend my time calling Publishers Clearing House and asking when my check will be ready.

This morning, I had 2 dozen doughnuts on the kitchen counter, a car packed with suitcases, and anklebiters that had been up since 5am. We were ready to go. At 8:15am, I called our salesguy from the moving company to ask when they would be here. At 8:45am, I still hadn't heard, so called the customer service rep. She sounded nervous, and said she would call me back.

I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling.

Sure enough, they screwed up the scheduling. There was no one available to pack us today. They kept trying to tell me it was no big deal to push everything by a day, but our lease ends on Friday. I kept telling them "you are putting the burden of your mistake on me. You need to figure it out." They stopped returning my calls. So, I tracked down their General Manager, and left him a message on his cell phone.

They are going to pack us AND load the truck tomorrow. This means I will have an army of Mayflower soldiers in my house at 8am, until midnight. I am so not looking forward to tomorrow, but another side of me is happy I get one more night in my own bed.

Moving Right Along

Movers come tomorrow.
Must write in fragments because house is a jumbled mess.
Been up since dawn.
Bags almost packed.
Piggy banks emptied.
Fridge is clean.
Pantry is too.
Almost killed hubby last night.
He (finally!) cleaned his closet night before big move.
Been begging him to do this for months.
Can't find one Leapster game.
This is driving me crazy.
I think Texas Treeroach stole it.
If you see roach playing Leapster Nemo game, give me a holler.
Best friend from California called me this afternoon.
With bad news.
She's moving to North Carolina.
This stinks.
My sister-in-law texted me this morning.
With very, very good news.
My little brother left Iraq and now is in Germany.
HE'S COMING HOME!

This puts everything into perspective.

Lost and Found

Matt bought us a GPS system today for our upcoming roadtrip across the country. We went to Best Buy, and I wasn't even noticing what was going on around me, but Matt clued in that the woman next to him was having the clerk run a price match on a system that was on sale at Circuit City. Best Buy was out of the system, but it was such a good deal that before we left the store, Matt found the closest Circuit City on his Iphone and reserved us one of the last GPS'. It saved us $100!

GPS is cool. We had fun deciding which "person" would give us directions. I wanted the British chick, but apparently, only Americans can give you warnings and traffic and such. We took the kids out for frozen yogurt after dinner, and purposefully went the wrong way more than a few times, in vain hope that we could piss off the GPS system and get "Jane" to sound a little exasperated. Didn't work.

The packers arrive in two days. TWO DAYS people. I have so much frickin' work to do before then, and Matt is getting killed at work. It's going to be a stressful week. Want to know what my biggest fear is? That a Texas Treeroach is going to hibernate in one of my moving boxes and hatch gazillions of babies to surprise me with when I open the box.

Irony

Last night: At swanky hot spot with great friends for much needed girls night out. Sampled macaroni and cheese with truffles, wild boar pasta and kobe beef burger with pickled jalapenos. Drank many glasses of wine and champagne. Giggled a LOT.

Today: Cleaned closets, scrubbed trash cans, emptied pantry and cleaned the fridge. Ate Chick-Fil-A for dinner with my 2 anklebiters and we sang "Too Roo La Roo La Roo" like silly people until milk came out of their noses. Giggled a LOT.

Devil In The Details

Today is exhausting. Today is filled with millions of minute details that are not fun to do, but will keep me awake at night if I don't get them finished. Here is a snapshot of my day:

1. Raid the kids' playroom and launch an exhaustive debate with a 2 year old and a 4 year old about which toys are appropriate to donate to the women's shelter.

2. Fill a few garbage bags with toys that aren't fit to see the light of day and run bra-less to the curb to hand the bag of rejects to my bewildered garbage man. Lucky man will not have the chance to catch this sight again.

3. Load the car up with the negotiated booty, throw some clothes on the kids (and a bra on moi) and drag them along to the shelter in hopes of teaching them the joys of philanthropy.

4. Lesson is totally ruined because you have to drop off the stuff around the back of the shelter, and a man came out to unload everything. My four year old, with visions of philanthropic grandeur, hoped to "present" her toys to needy children and instead was forced to scream "Let ME help! I want to GIVE! LET ME GIVE!" while strapped to her carseat.

5. This made the man in charge of donations laugh.

6. Race home to shower and somewhat clean up the nuclear waste of a house before babysitter arrives.

7. Rush to pick up husband at work. Sneak in quick call to mother-in-law to thank her profusely for letting us stay (and hopefully not destroy) her lovely house.

8. Pick up a quick lunch at this local cafe that everybody and their brother went to today. Almost forced to eat outside in sweltering 96 degrees with 80 percent humidity before air conditioned table magically became available.

9. People at the next table shoot me quizzical looks when I start to cry grateful tears about not having to eat outside.

10. Finish fatty lunch while husband and I talk about how fat we are.

11. Go to bank to try and get deed to our house notarized.

12. Bank can't do it and sends us to Fed Ex place next door. Wait in line for an eternity.

13. Get notarized by someone who is so unpleasant and thick, I had to help her fill out the form.

14. Run hubby through drive-thru Starbucks so he can stay awake for the afternoon.

15. Drop hubby off at work, and run to Target to pick up toys for our upcoming roadtrip.

16. Spend just as much money on toys as it would cost to fly first class.

17. Call movers for the umpteenth time to make sure they will show up next week. (I'm paranoid like that).

18. Arrange for husband's car to be shipped- this takes no less than FIVE different phone calls, and 2 different types of shipping techniques for this to come to fruition. (My life is complicated like that).

19. Call escrow people to make sure we can sign our closing papers early. This is still unsure. DAMN! I thought I would sleep tonight....

19. Lose power due to a tremendous thunderstorm and watch a tree almost come down in the backyard. Sit inside, in 96 degree heat and now 100% humidity until air conditioning finally cranks back on.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a bit more fun. I promise to try and find something a bit more interesting to write about.

Two

I wondered when this day would come. I dreaded it- and waited in morbid anticipation for the day when my easy going, flexible, loving, empathetic youngest daughter would begin to sow her two year old oats. I still haven't quite recovered from Annie's trip down the Terrible Twos and remember with absolute clarity a trip to Disneyland two years ago, when Annie laid down in front of Ariel's Grotto and kicked and screamed in anger. As the throngs of tourists passed us by with curious glances, I started yelling at her "Get Up! You will have fun! Do you hear me? YOU WILL HAVE FUN!"

One of my finer parenting moments. Remind me to submit that to Wondertime or something.

Anywhoo... about 2 hours ago, I witnessed Lucy hit her sister over the head with a wooden rolling pin. This was entirely unprovoked. Annie and I were busy unwrapping all of the broken crayons so we can bake them into monster crayon turds for a fun arts and crafts project.

When the wood came into contact with Annie's skull, I'm not sure who yelled louder. Annie was pretty loud, which is totally understandable, because rolling pins used as weapons can be pretty effective. But, somewhere in the recesses of my high school drama days, I conjured up a raucous angry voice that shook the rafters of our crappy rental house.

Lucy looked surprised- I truly believe her thwarted two year old sensibility was not expecting this outcome. She was just curious about what would happen if she throttled her sister over the head with a wooden rolling pin. Now, unfortunately for Annie, Lucy knows.

Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing

One of the things I will miss the most about Houston is my Friday playgroup. And I'm saying this because I really mean it, and not because they recently found my blog- "Hi Girls!".

Yesterday's soiree was a little different- our weekly host had a medical emergency, so plans were changed at the last minute to give her some rest. The impromptu change in plans did not affect our anklebiters one bit- they still created a staggering mess, and got into loads of trouble. Totally routine, folks.

However, there is some combination of trouble at this particular location, that always leaves me into fits of giggles. During a recent dinner party, the adults were too busy enjoying their chicken fried steak and sangria to notice the little ones had gone dangerously silent. Those without children may be perplexed into why adults actually fear QUIET children, but those in the know understand that silence breeds trouble..... messy, naughty trouble. This evening's ruckus involved pilfered lipstick- applied all over their faces, bathroom towels and cabinets. Not pretty. Not even Lancome lipstick looks good on the forehead.

Yesterday, we clearly spelled out the rules for them--- no playing in the master bedroom, no pilfered makeup and no serious messes. The host was babysitting the preschool's pet turtles for the summer, and we reiterated that the kids shouldn't touch the turtles, or take them out of the cage. All kids nodded their heads in agreement, without us realizing they had their fingers crossed behind their Gymboree backs. After we got caught up in talking, we suddenly realized the house was bathed in the sounds of silence.

Making a mad dash down the hall, we enter the master bedroom, to see my Annie sitting next to the bed. "Annie, I told you not to play in here." I say firmly. Suddenly, we hear giggles under the bed.

"C'mon girls. Let's go." Annie says. "And don't forget the turtles."

It Was No Baby Ruth

It's the beginning of summer vacation, and surprisingly, I've already been inflicted with the most serious of seasonal maladies: Public Pool Phobia. In Houston, when the weather turns from spring to summer, your hair becomes so frizzy you look like Beaker from the Muppet Show, your body begins to sweat if you even think of venturing outside, and the local pools become your only source of refuge. I went swimming five times last week folks, and that does not count two rounds of swimming lessons. I am already tired of packing picnic lunches, and my pool bag is already at a mid-August level of dishevelment.

I think public pools are gross. As my kids frolic about, I scan the other swimmers- and take silent bets as to who is peeing in the pool first. I wonder who was freshly showered before they jumped in, or who will be the first to close the pool for a "biohazard." (i.e. literally "dropping some kids off at the pool"). Two weeks ago, we were swimming at the local YMCA, and I noticed the lifeguards scouring the pool deck with round after round of Clorox Bleach. I started chatting it up with the 15 year old lifeguard, and congratulated him on his thoroughness. "Wow! This pool deck is cleaner than my kitchen floor!" I gleefully stated- suddenly feeling confident that this level of cleanliness will surely prevent me from having a bout of Pool Phobia this year.

"Hey lady, you've got to be kidding. You should have seen what happened here yesterday." He calmly replies as his eyes burn from the fumes of the bleach.

WARNING! If you happen to be noshing on something right now, avert your eyes away from your monitor.

Some eight year old kid was frolicking in the pool with his parents, when he suddenly became the victim of a gastrointestinal nightmare. He jumped out of the pool, screaming his head off, and pulled his pants down about 20 feet from the bathroom door. As the entire pool deck watched in horror, he left a poop trail of sickly evidence as he made his way to the bathroom. The parents, completely humiliated, kept offering to clean up the mess as the lifeguards played "rock, paper, scissors" to divide up the task.

"This happened YESTERDAY?" I screamed as I suddenly realized I was standing on the now infamous poop deck without wearing any shoes.

"Um yeah." pimply faced Lifeguard says. "I just remembered that my supervisor told me not to tell anybody today, so don't blow my cover, ok?"

Public Pool Phobia 2008 is now in full force. It doesn't help that I witnessed a friend's kid puking in a different pool last Friday. I think I need to go lay down now.

Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting

Just got back from seeing the new "Kung Fu Panda" movie. It was hilarious. I laughed out loud, and Matt certainly laughed out loud and the kids laughed because we were laughing. A good time had by all. Matt is making his famous stir fry tonight for dinner, and I may wow the dinner table with a few kung fu moves. I'm good at impersonating fat panda bears.

Moving On

The roaches are throwing me a farewell party. For the last 3 nights, they have been waiting for me in my bathroom. This morning, one was sitting in Lucy's Pottery Barn Kids chair, drinking some chocolate milk out of a Cinderella sippy cup and he waved to me and wished me a "Good morning.". I promise to take a picture of one before I leave- just so those of you that have never personally experienced the joy of a Texas Tree Roach can see that this is not a typical Kristen exaggeration.

We are getting ready. I have sold a bunch of baby stuff, thrown out more than my fair share of a landfill and even have my junk drawer organized into neat little ziplocs. We are going to put our stuff in storage, and stay at my more-than-generous mother-in-law's fancy digs in Laguna Beach while she is out of town for the summer. This will give us time to get our bearings and take advantage of the ever-decreasing housing market in Orange County.

We are also fighting. This is typical of any move, and really, I was just waiting for the action to start. Matt and I finally stayed up late last night and talked it through- after five days of living in the land of Passive Aggressivia. His basic complaint is that I ignore him- which has been true, but in my defense, my biggest complaint is that when he comes home from work he acts like a Grand Pooba, and really, who wants to hang with a Grand Pooba? It's a vicious cycle, my friends. That vicious cycle of the stay-at-home-mom that feels unappreciated and the working husband who slaves away and believes no one recognizes his efforts.

So last night we packed up our boxes and hightailed it out of the land of Passive Aggressivia. I feel much better this morning. If our next move could only go so well.