A new level of manipulation

Because this is my story and my life, it truly was impossible to imagine that all would go down without incident. True to life's gentle promises, we had a bit of a snafu Friday at closing.

The (now) former owners of the house tried to scrape every last penny from us that they could in the last few weeks. When we did the walkthrough before closing on Friday and the owner was there, we were less than thrilled. At one point when dr. J left me alone, she let me know that she had left a baby gate in the garage if we were interested. I was, but I almost told her to just toss it, assuming this would somehow end up on our final bill.

Fast forward a few hours to closing. Dr. J and I are signing a smorgasboard of paperwork with our realtor M and attorney. M notices that the owners have arrived so he goes to greet them and let them know we will be done shortly. But he come back with this odd smirk on his face. The owner told M that it was against their religion to do a cash transaction on Fridays. however, they can make an exception if we give them $5. Dr. J is deep in conversation with the attorney when M tells me this, and I completely lose all sense of professionalism and church giggle uncontrollably for the next 10 ish minutes.

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

- does his religion also prohibit them from notifying people of their religious restrictions on cash transactions in advance?
- how is this even their transaction, we are the buyers!
- ok so the religion permits sets of transactions. One was bad but two is good?

M and I scrape together $4.25 between the two of us, both believing that it is much more likely that we are funding their gas money than anything else. Dr J. finally notices my irrational snickering, so I go ahead and ask him if he has 75 cents. He doesn't even let me finish my question before he cuts me off, tells me he doesn't even want to know what is going on, fishes a buck from his wallet and tosses it to me like I was a pole dancer.

I can't say I've done heavy investigating on the matter but after about ten minutes of googles, my searches for religious prohibition of cash transactions on Friday proved fruitless. We have both resigned ourselves to the belief that we did, indeed, pay for a baby gate. Since M pitched in $2, we are calling it M's gate. Thanks man.

Every Man's Dream

And so go the house closings. Our first is today, closing on the home that we shared for the first 5 years of our marriage. Hopefully the second closing will be tomorrow. There have been a lot of hiccups in this home's progress, but I'm ignoring all that and assuming it will work out.

In any case, we are celebrating the sale of our first home today by making the first purchase for our next home. We'll head straight to Best Buy to purchase a ...

[drum roll]

a new vacuum!!

Our current vacuum was purchased for $75 when I was in grad school and has more than fulfilled its expectations. It has only survived 9 years because we haven't had many carpets in the house in general. Good job, little guy.

What a good man I have to let me take advantage of the 20% off of Dyson vacs before The TV Purchase. Dr. J has long awaited The TV Purchase. Much to the chagrin to our friends that are forced to watch Lost at our house, we have a 32" tube, that was generously handed down to me when my tv exploded about a week before moving from St. Louis to SC. It's still going strong, Erika! And now it's probably going to go strong in the guest room.

Plus, I personally love that The TV Purchase is going to happen right after Dr. J got his tenure. You deserve it babe!!

From whom all blessings flow

We've got a lot to be thankful for right now.

.... we have an unimaginable amount of stress, hence the posting at 4:30 a.m., but we've got more to be thankful for.

Near the top of that list is the survival of my grandparents from yet another tornado. These are two of the Godliest people that ever walked the earth, truly. Somehow, they have managed to ride their faith well into their senility. In case any of you are wondering, they do not do frequent local weather updates on either Larry King or on CNN. So if you are a political junkie, you may or may not be notified when there are two tornadoes passing through your town.

And if you are my grandparents, you will probably drive downtown looking for a good squash. Lord knows, if you don't get there in a timely manner, someone else is gonna get your squash.

As jawdropping as their continued behavior in the face of natural disasters may be, I think we (the family) have resigned ourselves to their stubbornness. Perhaps we all just need to up our prayers for their safety during tornado season.

Any of you reading this that actually know me, must be thinking by now ... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yes, I'm well aware of the irony here. And I'll close by saying that I can only hope to have the stamina to make homemade biscuits for my grandkids early in the morning AND stay up until 10 pm to watch Larry King when I'm 88 years old.

Rock on, Grandmother. Live it up.

Trauma Drama

So we are officially out of our house. Our first house that we lived in together as a married couple.

Pause for nostalgic purposes...

Well, we might have had a minute to consider this step in our journey together if only MONA HAD NOT LOST HER SANITY LAST NIGHT!

Mona has stayed with friends before, when we went out of town. She is often depressed when we leave her alone, so if we can, we find a place for her to stay. Oh dear God, I hope she's never done this to anyone else.

So what did she do?

We arrived about 9:30 pm, to our temporary home away from home, and Mona sat silent for approximately 12 minutes .... before the howling began. The howling and the crying that continued as we slept - correction - tried to sleep. About half way through the night she started propelling herself into the air, doing front flips like an Olympic Cat Gymnast, landing on her back on the bed, all the while continuing to cry. Gold medal performance for sure.

What on earth???????? She did at least 30 of those flips. FLIPS! That ended with her laying on her back! Without a doubt, we've been the cause of the most traumatic event in her kitten life.

So goodbye, little house. You were a good little house. You were all my little kitty ever needed.

Have Mercy!

Oh so many things happen all at once. My school year should be wrapping up as soon as all my little darlings take their finals ... and graduate.

It is so hard not to tell student stories on here, but I don't want to cross that bridge at all. I will say that final exams do bring out the strongest emotions in kids, and I remember those days clearly. Today I watched one of mine as he struggled to try and figure out how to manage all the stress. I could totally relate!! So, so, so many things are happening with me all at once. Some days I feel like I'm going to pop, not just because of the babies either. I keep thinking, if we can just sell the house, if we can just find another house, if we can just get tenure, if the appraisals / inspections can all go through, if ... if ... if. No matter what, I just know it's not all gonna get done before the boys get here. However, my mom is coming earlier than we originally planned and I'm SO GRATEFUL! Isn't it amazing how mom's can make everything better?

I do want you to know that I do not feel guilt when my students are stressed over finals - it's not my fault!!! However, I do feel for them. Even my little heart of stone that used to get grounded for crying, can only watch so many tears.

The Ugly Duckling

Or Leo the late bloomer or whatever children's story is a metaphor for our life as of late. Dr. J and I are both just overwhelmed with God's grace right now. We have just spent so many years reminding ourselves that the Lord will take care of us and there is a larger plan. And so we have just forged ahead trusting and praying.

Dr. J got tenure today. I'm so proud of him and want him to take time to appreciate the achievement. Which is going to be challenging with all the other things that have worked out for us lately. All of which are wonderful blessings - they just happened arrived in kind of a scary order. Right now, things are really looking up!!

Congrats Dr. J!!!

MUCH Progress

1. Our current home has been inspected and appraised and all has gone well. Close on May 27th - yay!!

2. Our offer on the next home was accepted!! Hopefully we can fast track inspections / appraisal / closing and be in by June 5th.

We love a lot of things about this home and are really excited about it. Photos of the front and back yard below.





Last but not least, I ran to the grocery store after work today to alleviate all the chores that Dr. J is now fulfilling. I thought I was going to have a heat stroke so I went to the frozen section and stood there holding a door open staring into the vast space of Ore Ida Potato varieties.

Smooth

This morning, Dr. J stepped back a little too quickly and almost knocked me and my decaf coffee over. The following then took place.

Dr. J: Whoa Mona! (because we have conversations by talking to the cat) I nearly knocked over a bus!!

Me: [stopped in place, slowly turned, furrowed my eyebrows]

Dr. J: [blink, blink]

Me: [stare]

Dr. J: I mean because you are carrying around two babies. [gulp]

Me: [blink, blink]

Dr. J: [smiling innocently] A smartcar??

Rollin, Rollin ... Rollin ...

It's hard to even think of a day of my childhood without my father singing the theme song to Rawhide (complete with the hi-yaw! and the whip sound). Right now, I can hear him singing it all the way from Hachie.

National Board Certification Portfolio Submission - check.

National Board Certification Test - check. (Passing score? Not so definite, we will see)

Offer on the sale of our house - check. (please, please let this work out!!)


Which means that pretty much everything that was out of our control has a check by it and we are about to be on a massive crunch to complete the finding of a house, purchasing, moving in, and finally ... getting ready for babies!!!

How many weeks have we until they arrive? 12 at MOST.

Gulp. .... and yay!!!

Hello 35!

A few days ago, I noticed a white (not grey) hair in the middle of Dr. J's chest.

Dummmm .... dum, dum, dum .... DUMMMMMMMMMMMM!

After realizing that it was not, in fact, a string, he claimed to be wearing it with pride ... except that he covered it immediately and won't let me see it again. I think whitey will get special recognition on Dr. J's 35th birthday this year.

Bada Boom, Bada Bing!

What a wonderful thing!

We had a 24 week sonogram today and thank everyone so much for their prayers. Both Benjamin and Lucas are looking good (and devlishly handsome, I presume) ... both have normal amounts of fluid in their brains and are measuring 1 lb 8 oz (Lucas), and 1 lb, 10 oz (Benjamin) ... which is right at the 50th and 58th percentiles. Oh to be so normal!

It's a good thing they didn't measure the nose or eyebrow percentile ... their father has doomed them to score well above average there. As long as they get his pigment along with it, I'll just teach them proper brow grooming early on.

The sonogram operator (I know there is a formal name for this) surprised us by giving us a 4d image of Benjamin's face. He looks strikingly like his father (see paragraph 2) and eerily like his Uncle Austin. Witness:

I'm completely preoccupied with trying to pronounce eerily right now. Don't look at it too long either, or you'll want to play scrabble.

Mambo

To the relief of my Colombian husband, these boys are already working on their Latin dances. Unfortunately for this American wife, their learning is at the expense of my bladder and ribs. Where are the days when they just randomly kicked?

We get to see the boys again on Tuesday - please pray for the health of both Benjamin and Lucas!

Superstar of the Week

This probably breaks every rule of effective superstition, but I'm gonna gamble. After what has been an unrelenting 23 week streak of steadily worsening heartburn, I've had three days of relief. My doctor finally told me I could take Zantac and oh what a relief it is (I definitely had a jr. High cheerleading cheer with those very words ... minus Zantac of course).

I get to cap off my week of shopping, eating (finally!) and leisure at the parents house with a baby shower today that I'm super excited about because .... who doesn't love parties with delicious food and punch???

I'd also like to point out that I'm completely in favor of squads of middle schoolers walking behind me and cheering me on. Especially about the lack of vomiting and heartburn.

Pigment-ly Challenged

Truly, life can be so unfair. I emerge from the winter months with pinkish blue blotchy skin that looks as though I've been infected by January. The first few days of sunlight force out all the acne that's been stuffed down into clogged pores for 4 months. My skin literally aches for Vitamin E.

On the other hand, Dr. J delivered some boxes to the post office on Wednesday and came home looking like he'd been on a Caribbean Cruise.

Cause for multiple exclamation points

I.

AM.


DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




I've decided to watch television tomorrow in the main office during my planning period to celebrate. In the meantime, I'm gonna go have a milkshake.

Re-entrance to Society is Near

I am almost dizzy with excitement. Today should be my last day of writing and then hopefully I can even get this edited today as well. I honestly haven't seen anyone but Dr. J, Mona and Ashley in three weeks.

I am so throwing myself a party ... and getting a pedicure ... and getting my hair done. The only good thing about having to do all this so quickly is that it is due before Spring Break, so I can actually take a break next week when I go to Dallas and hit the Gymboree Outlet (and Off Fifth Ave for me, but don't tell Dr. J).

I am totally going to pee myself.

To Ivanka: My iPhone

If I could remember what a Haiku was, this would be a totally appropriate moment for one. Out of respect to those of you that actually know the syllabic requirements, I'll not dare. In any case...

Ivanka, when I spent those 3 hours today thinking you had been stolen, I barely had the will to live. Thankfully, you were on "silent" in my bookbag ... where I put you, even though I can't remember doing it. I wish I hadn't made myself late to the doctor looking for you. I think he was pretty unhappy with me.

I measured 24 cm today which for singleton pregnancies is supposed to go along with the number of weeks you are pregnant. I'm 20 weeks and 24 cm ... so it looks like Benjamin and Lucas are growing steadily.

Oh yeah, we decided on names :) Benjamin Louis and Joe Lucas. Joe is after my dad and Louis is after Dr. J's granddad. But they'll be called Benjamin and Lucas.

Potty Training Prof. McGonagal

I'm oddly intrigued by this idea, mostly just to see if it really works.

Please indulge yourself in Mingus' Cat Toilet Training Program

The only problem is that Mona is extremely trained, do I really want to mess up a good thing? She did however, vomit all over the office for no apparent reason this morning. She's definitely seen me make it to the toilet, why can't give that a go?

And the results are ...

Well before we tell you the gender, there is a prayer request for one of the babies. Both had all thier appropriate parts and measured appropriately. One baby has a little bit too much fluid in the brain. Not a lot too much, a little, but enough they were concerned and wanted to make us aware. They will check again in 6 weeks and my prayer is that everything will look normal with the fluid at that time. I don't really want to go into a guessing game of what ifs yet, we will wait till the next sonogram.

After the nurse told us the gender my first thought was that I already have one Dallas Cowboy onesie and that should get us through football season, but I will need one more. At least I don't have to worry about hunting down cowboy cheerleader uniforms.

My dad is gonna have these guys welding in no time.

The Surge

In my last post I referred to the fact that I had a months less time to complete a huge amount of work than I thought. This means that it all has to happen in the next few weeks along with house selling, house hunting, parental visit and of course, work and life.

This weekend has been declared the surge and by tomorrow afternoon, I intend to have half of all the writing done that needs to be done. Which amounts to about 25 pages of writing. Of course, I have called in reinforcements for help with editing and so far have three offers. Ok, so offers and a plea. Karolina, you may be hearing from me soon.

And so goes ... my pre-oscar watching activity.