Category Archives: Moving

ode to Patsy

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I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I absolutely love Cate’s daycare. I feel like we were really blessed to find Patsy. I was so worried about starting back to work and leaving my pweshus widdle baybeee with someone else, and I had all of the stereotypical Mommy Guilt issues about abandoning my child and all of that. But Patsy just made it so easy for us. Don’t get me wrong, Cate took a while to warm up to her, like she does with everyone. She’s a very cautious little girl who takes her time in adjusting to new situations. Leaving her at daycare the first few times was awful. She would scream and cry, and I would have to leave, because staying to comfort her would’ve only made it worse. Patsy was great, she’d call me five or ten minutes later so I could hear Cate laughing and having fun, and I’d know that she was fine.

As time went on, the adjustment got even easier. Cate now reaches for Patsy to take her out of my arms as soon as we get there. And half the time, if she’s busy playing when I arrive to pick her up, she ignores me and keeps on playing. (Although there are days when she’s obviously had enough and is ready to go home. That happens when I arrive and she starts saying “bye” to everyone before I even get her shoes on her feet.)

But also, I just really love Patsy. She’s had this in-home daycare business since her son was two years old (he just graduated from college), so she’s seen it all. I’d be willing to bet that she knows more than practically every childcare book combined. If Cate is showing some weird behavior patterns that I can’t figure out, I can usually bounce it off Patsy and she can give me some ideas on what it is or how to handle it. She’s so easy to talk to, she’s so non-judgmental, and I’ve never heard her raise her voice to the kids, ever. She’s just awesome.

Yesterday when I went to pick Cate up from daycare, Patsy told me that she had met with a parent that day, and that she already has a new baby lined up to take Cate’s spot after we move. I almost burst into tears on the spot.

Logically, I know that there are a lot of really great daycare providers out there, I just worry that I won’t find anyone in Raleigh that I’m as comfortable with, or who Cate and I both just flat-out adore as much as Patsy.

This move is mostly a really happy thing for us, and we’re really excited about it. But I have to be honest and say that there’s a heck of a lot of fear mixed in too. What if we don’t like it there? What if only one of us likes it and the other one doesn’t? What if it doesn’t turn out to be the financial life raft that we think it’s going to be?

And perhaps most of all, how will Cate adjust? She’ll be 18 months old when we get there, and I imagine that throwing her into a new daycare situation will be a lot harder than it was when she was only 8 months old. The last thing in the world I want to do is be like, “Ok, kiddo, I know we just up-ended your world completely, but here’s another new and totally unfamiliar environment. Mama’s gotta go now, see you later!” I think that would traumatize her.

I’ve decided that after we move, I’m going to keep Cate home with me as long as it’s feasible (assuming I’m not in the middle of a work project, but right now there’s nothing on my calendar for the rest of the summer, so that shouldn’t be a huge issue). I might hire a baby-sitter to come to our house for just a few hours here and there to help us get by, and that will give me time to explore other options. Hopefully, if I give us a nice big window of time to adjust, we’ll be able to find a daycare that we love almost as much as Patsy. Fingers crossed.

random stuff

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1. We survived our house inspection yesterday, although we don’t really know the upshot of it. We heard back from our realtor that the major things we needed to be forewarned about are (a) a leak in the roof over the garage, which we wouldn’t have noticed because it’s way up in the eaves, but we’re going to have to get it fixed, and (b) “signs of rodent activity” in the crawlspace under the house. Which is apparently true of pretty much every house out here – I mean, hello, we’re in the boonies, of COURSE there are field mice everywhere. But they’ve done some damage to the insulation down there, so we’ll have to get that fixed too. But overall, it doesn’t sound like there are any humongous expenses that are going to come out of it. Which is great news.

2. The buyers’ realtor told us that she could use a barn cat or two, so she offered to adopt Cleo & Greta. I think that would work well for Greta, but Cleo is really a mostly-indoor cat. She only likes to go out when it’s really warm, and she’s not much of a hunter at all. So it might end up that we separate them and try to find another home for Cleo, which I didn’t want to do, but as long as I can find places where they’ll both be happy, I guess that’s all that really matters. Dave thinks that Greta would be really happy as a barn cat, since she isn’t very social at all, and she’s great at killing small things. Maybe he’s right. Anyone want to adopt Cleo? She’s a super-sweet cuddler and she’s got those awesome paws with “thumbs” (6 toes) that make her look like a little ballet dancer.

3. Even though we’ve technically sold the place, we had another showing this morning. Apparently this guy was bummed to hear that we had sold the house and asked his realtor to make an appointment so he might have a chance to make us a counter-offer. Hmm. Yeah, ok. I’m not holding my breath, and I’m fine with the offer that we got. I was mostly just annoyed that I had to clean up the house again for this guy to come see the place.

4. I think Cate is getting her molars. She has a runny nose, which initially made me think it was a cold, but she’s also been drooling like crazy and trying to shove her entire hand in her mouth. Poor baby, she really seems to be pretty miserable. And she woke up about once an hour last night, so neither of us is what you might call “well-rested” today.

5. My amazing cousin Cat and Cara (the lovely realtor that Cat & Tony introduced us to) are going to act as our representatives in North Carolina and go find us a rental house this Friday afternoon. I’ve told them that I’m relying on their fabulous tastes to make sure we get a nice place. Whee!! I can’t wait!

open house follow-up

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We had our open house today, in spite of the fact that our house’s status is “Sold Subject to Inspection” (LOVE that!). Renee had already put an ad in the paper about it, so… eh, whatever. I wasn’t expecting a higher offer from anyone who came to the open house; I really thought only the neighbors would show up.

I was a little annoyed that we were still having it because it meant that I had to clean the house from top to bottom, but then I found out that the buyers are having our house inspection done at 9:00 tomorrow morning, so I guess it didn’t really matter. I would’ve been cleaning like mad for the house inspector too, so better to get it all done at the same time, right?

Like I said before, my plan was to keep Cate awake until the open house began at 1:00, and then she’d hopefully sleep in the car and still get a decent nap. Yeah. So I tried to explain to Cate that I needed her to stay awake until 1:00. And at around 12:30, this was her response:

screw you guys, I'm taking my nap here and now
“Screw you guys, if you won’t put me in my crib and let me sleep, I’ll just lie down on the floor and take my nap right here.”

So she slept about 30 minutes and was wide awake in the car, but she was in a good mood for most of the afternoon. She fell asleep on the way home and slept from 4:00 to 5:00, which is when I woke her up, because oh hell no, child, you WILL go to bed at a reasonable time tonight. Mommy has a big meeting at the Giant Software Company tomorrow morning, and she needs a good night’s sleep.

Oh, while we were out this afternoon, we went to a mall and let Cate run wild and play, which was fun. I was going to take her to get a haircut since she’s looking so shaggy these days, and I’m terrified to try to cut her hair myself, but the kids’ hair salon was closed for remodeling. Rats. Oh well, no biggie, Dave and I hit the food court for lunch and Cate had a grand time rearranging all of the plastic chairs. They also had a kids’ play area that she thoroughly enjoyed. After that, we did a grocery run, and that effectively killed the three hours that we were supposed to be out of the house.

For the record, three sets of people (one couple, two families) came to see the house today. None of them were neighbors, but I don’t think any of them were very serious about the place either. Which is fine, since we already sold the house anyway!! (Sorry, but I’m not sure if that will ever stop blowing my mind.)

our status is now "subject to inspection"

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So… apparently we sold our house. I think. They made an offer, we counter-offered, and they’ve verbally accepted our counter-offer, but they haven’t met with their realtor yet to sign off on it. Apparently they’ll be doing that later today, and we’ll be having our inspection on Monday morning.

Assuming all goes according to plan, we’ll be closing – er, and MOVING – at the end of July. Holy crap.

But then, can you imagine if something this major actually sticks to a plan? HAHAHAHA!!!

Obviously, this hasn’t quite sunk in as being real yet. So I’m going to go start making my ten thousand to-do lists and begin my little Six-Week Freak-Out Session. (Six weeks! Aaaiiieeee!!!)

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of a cute toddler in a ridiculously oversized raincoat.

Cate in her ridiculously-oversized raincoat

Cold and rainy weather in June? Yep, won’t miss that one bit.

OMFG

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We have an offer on our house. I don’t know any details (like, say, the amount that they’re offering), but we’ll find out more about that in a few hours, after our realtor has met with the other realtor and all that jazz.

And btw, Dave called it. It’s the couple I blogged about before, so I guess the wife really does make these decisions. Ha.

Everybody start saying prayers and sending happy thoughts that their offer is at least enough for us to pay off our mortgage; bonus points if it’ll also pay for the movers.

open house

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With all the baby stuff I’ve been writing about, I think I forgot to mention that we’re having an open house on Sunday. So if you’re in the area and want to come by to check out all the stuff we’ve done to our house, feel free to drop by. We won’t be here, but you can meet Renee, our very nice realtor. And there will be cookies.

(I’m really half-kidding because I don’t expect anyone who reads this to want to go, but in the off chance that you do want to stop by but don’t know our address, email me and I’ll get you the directions.)

I’m not that worried about the open house because I think very few people ever show up for them. My parents had three when they were trying to sell their house, and the only people who came were the neighbors. So, meh, whatever. I am, however, a little nervous about the “Broker’s Open” on Tuesday, when a whole slew of local realtors will come tour our place. Mostly because I’m worried that they’ll tell Renee a whole bunch of things that we need to fix or change around the house, and I’m not looking forward to putting in any more work than we already have.

So yeah, Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00. It starts right smack in the middle of naptime. That’ll be fun. I’m hoping that Cate will fall asleep in the car and Dave and I can just go park somewhere and let the child sleep for a while. We’ll see how that works out for us. I’m going to bring a book, just in case it works.

more real estate stress

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So that last post brought up some interesting stuff. I thought about writing a whole long post explaining my personal religious beliefs – not because I thought I needed to defend myself, but just so I wouldn’t be misinterpreted. And you know what? If you’re curious, I think I basically summed it up in this post a long time ago. If you want to know more about my beliefs, drop me an email; otherwise I don’t think there’s any need to bore you with it.

Topic change: house stuff! We’ve had four or five showings now, which is good, although stressful. My child likes to disassemble… well, everything, really – toys, kitchen cabinets, her dresser, you name it – so whenever we get word that we’re going to have a showing, it seems to take a really long time to frantically clean everything up and get the house in good showing condition. And I’m really wishing we didn’t have so many cats, because vacuuming the house every other day is getting really old.

[Speaking of which, if any of you know anyone who might want to adopt Cleo and Greta? That offer still stands. I’m taking them to the vet next week to get their shots updated, and then I’m going to start talking to all of our neighbors and maybe put an ad on PetFinder to see if I can find them a new home. I won’t give them to a shelter, so if I can’t find a place for them, then I guess they’re meant to stay with us. But I’m going to try my darnedest.]

Anyway, on Tuesday, we had two showings for the same people; in the morning, just the wife came to see the place, and she came back that evening with her husband. (This is why I don’t know if I should say we’ve had four or five showings – technically five, but only four separate families.) They seem like the most promising so far. The wife really loves the place, but the husband has a laundry list of things he was griping about. This is all based on the feedback that their realtor gave to ours, so I’m not sure if maybe they’re just playing good cop/bad cop to see if they can get us to drop our price.

The story we heard is that they sold their house two years ago, and have been renting ever since then. They were planning to buy some huge 25-acre lot and build a house on it – not because they have animals, mind you, just because they “want privacy” (25 acres?!) – but they haven’t been able to close the deal in the past two years. The realtor says the wife is at the end of her rope, and she just wants a house already. I guess the husband is still hung up on this “dream house” idea. Dave said it’s pretty likely that we’ll get an offer from them since the wife usually controls those types of decisions. Which I knew, of course, it was just funny to hear my husband say that. I guess he’s already learned that expression that “a happy wife makes for a happy life” really is true. He’s a smart egg, I knew he’d catch on quick. Heh.

Regardless, I’m really surprised at how many people have been coming to see the place – we’ve had a lot of drive-by’s, and have already had to refill the flyer box on the “for sale” sign a couple of times. (I know a lot of that is because of nosy neighbors, but we don’t have that many people in our neighborhood.) So it’s good. Dave and I were trying to think of this on a 6-month scale, since that seems to be about the average time most houses take to sell these days. I was thinking ok, no biggie, at least we’ll be able to host Christmas at our new house. Now I’m wondering if maybe we’ll be in a new place by Labor Day. One can hope, right?