Life in Amherst

We Lost the House, But We Had a Good Day

Well, we lost the new house. We had our open house today and not only did we not get a buyer, we didn't get any people to come and see the house. We had a grand total of four groups at the open house. I know it only takes one person to buy a house, but none of the four were willing to buy it. As such, we had to rescind the offer on our new house (side note: we misread the terms of the contract and realized that we only had 72 hours past the inspection before we would lose our earnest money. Many, many thanks to Kim's mother for pointing this out to us.)

I had to get the kids out of the house for four hours today while the open house took place, and we really had a great time together. We went to a nearby zoo and spent a wonderful afternoon together.

At one point, Ella said: "I think its time to send baby sister back to the pet store for good!" (this was when Maisie was grabbing at Ella's ice cream cone).

Ella also wondered about the purpose of chewing gum. I gave her a piece of gum and she promptly swallowed it. I advised her that gum was to chew until it lost its flavor. She wondered what flavor was. I explained it was 'taste'. She then had another piece of gum and threw it out the car window. She then had a third piece of gum (while in the car driving down Interstate 95). Moments after I gave it to her, I heard Maisie chewing loudly. I asked Ella what Maisie was chewing, and Ella replied:

"My gum" (panic sets in on my end, as I'm driving down a freeway at 70 mph and an 11-month old child is chewing a piece of gum).

I shout "Why is she chewing your gum?????"

Ella: "It lost its flavor, so I gave it to baby sister."

After some guidance from the front seat, Ella managed to wrangle the gum out of Maisie's mouth.

Here's some pictures from our great day together. Ella HATES HATES HATES getting her picture taken, so she'll do everything within her power to ham for the camera or get out of the picture. Maisie, on the other hand, loves the camera. Maisie also loved chasing the peacocks all over the zoo (strangely, they roamed wild on the zoo grounds). I think my favorite animal was the Siberian Tiger. I think Ella liked the carousel the best. Maisie was equally wild about the peacocks and the tigers.

Maisie likes dirt

Racism lives

The other day, Shana was walking down the street with Maisie and Ella when a man from down the street (not sure who it was), stopped Shana and asked her why we were moving (we now have a 'For Sale' sign in the front yard, much to our horror). She said we were out of room and wanted a better school district, or something like that. He said, "yes, the neighborhood has changed a lot". She asked what he meant. He clarified that 'ever since the coloreds had moved into the neighborhood, it has changed'. She was horrified, but didn't get the chance to respond, because at that very minute Ella fell down and skinned her knee.

Am I so naive to believe that people still think these things? I reitterating this conversation with a wonderful man and his wife down the street, and they nodded in (what I thought was) agreement about the nature of this racist statement. Instead, the wife said, "Well, we don't say the 'coloreds' are moving in, but we definitely do think the neighborhood is getting 'darker'). She then followed this statement with: 'But I guess they have a right to do that' (they being the coloreds, I guess).

I'm still shocked by all of this. What I love about this neighborhood is that Ella's friends are almost exclusively kids of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Her friends are Hispanic, African American, Bangladeshi, and yes...one white girl. I shared these comments with a great woman down the street who I used to work with who is African American. I asked her if she was shocked by these comments and she wasn't...at all. She said that when she and her husband first moved in ten years ago they planted some flowers, and people acted shocked by their planting of flowers. She said it was almost as if people didn't expect Black people to keep up their yards.

This is all very interesting in the context of us wanting to sell our house. We have an open house tomorrow, and (contrary to our earlier beliefs), we will need to rescind our new house offer by Monday if we don't get a buyer tomorrow (which we won't--we don't have any false pretenses about that).

What I do wonder is what our desire to move to a different house says to all of our neighbors with children. Doesn't it imply that this area isn't good enough, that the schools aren't good enough? Pretty much. Sometimes I feel that instead of sticking around to make the schools work, we are jumping ship and running to the same white school that everybody else is running to. When you read about other people doing this, you're horrified. But when you do it youself, the feeling is that you are entirely justified because its your kid, and they deserve the best of everything.

I don't know what to do. Comments like the ones above make us want to stay and make it all work. We love our neighborhood; we like our house enough. It would be cheaper to stay. It would be less work to stay. But there's lots of reasons to move, as well, including the house safety issue.

I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

House Inspection Day

Today, we went forward with our house inspection on the new, yet unpurchased, house.  The inspection really went pretty well.  The air conditioner should be replaced at some point soon, and there are some small ticky tack things around the house that should be addressed, but nothing major, such as the house sinking into the ground and disappearing or the roof caving in on us one day.  I did argue with the seller's agent about keeping the curtains (believe it or not, I'm itotally into their curtains, so I tried to bargain as hard as I could for her to get the sellers to leave the curtains.  But, the agent is a curtain maker herself, so she was pretty adamant that they wouldn't leave their curtains, but I think it was in her own curtain-self-interest that she didn't want me to discuss curtains with them).

In some ways, the inspection felt a little bittersweet, because we don't know if our house will sell in time in order to go forward with purchasing this one.  So, I tried to be somewhat reserved in my enthusiasm for the house, even though I really do love it.

In the meantime, our house is being shown twice today, and was shown twice yesterday.  Nothing has come of these showings so far, but it could be that people are mulling it over in their minds and deciding whether they want to buy our house or not.  I'm trying to be positive.  These showings have meant that our house has stayed extraordinarily clean for two days, and our children have been more or less forbidden for playing and/or making much of a mess in the house.  God love Shana...she is doing her best to keep them out of the house and entertained elsewhere.

There must be a buyer out there somewhere, right?

We have just 24 days left to sell our house...

Performance Tampons

The other day, Kim received a huge shipment of tampons at her work place, addressed to her. The tampons are Playtex Sport Tampons, and the box promises 'high performance for everyday protection and confidence'. I am guessing that she received this box because she is the athletic director of women's sports at her university, and the Playtex company figured that since she was in charge of women's sports, she must also be in charge of women's periods. Go figure. Maybe in addition to providing feedback and encouragement as it relates to performance on the field and court, she is also to offer feedback and encouragement to female athletes regarding menstual maintenance.

At any rate, once you open the Playtex Sport tampons, you find individually wrapped tampons. Except these aren't any common individually wrapped tampons. These tampons, which I shall call motivational tampons, have little messages on the wrappers. The messages include:

'Dance and be happy'
'Persistence pays off'
'You'll always have half-time' (but I'm wondering how this applies to the bowling and equestrian teams)?

and finally,

'Who needs a leak?'

So, I'm presuming that one would open the performance box of tampons and read the inspirational message, which in itself, guarantees better performance? It seems as though nothing about the tampon itself is different, so it must simply be the motivational message that does the trick.

I really should give them a try, menstruation or not. I played in our first outdoor soccer game of the season last night, and I must say, my performance was lousy. I couldn't do anything right. Just now, I'm realizing it was because I wasn't wearing a motivational tampon. I do believe that Kim was indeed wearing a motivational tampon and I'm quite certain her performance was much better than mine.

So, next week, even though I won't be having my period, I'm going to wear a motivational performance tampon. I'm sure it will do the trick.

Maisie

She is cute.

A mostly bad day

I have to admit...after we found out our buyer backed out of our house, a dark cloud hung over our heads for most of the day. Its really too bad, because it was a beautiful day outside, and Kim's old friend from Texas, Kaz, came for a visit. And, we had our first outdoor soccer game of the season, and we always look forward to that.

But, we're just really angry/depressed/disappointed that the whole house thing fell through. We spent a good amount of time negotiating with this woman, and also spent a greater amount of time keeping the house clean and finding creative places to take the kids while she came back to look at the house 2-3 times while she was making her decision. All of this is a big deal when you have two kids at home all day. It would be one thing if we left for work in the morning and the empty house sat all day for people to come and see.

Anyway, I guess we need to stop obsessing over it and move on. We are pretty certain that the people that we are buying the new house from (or were buying the house from), will put the house back on the market and try to get it sold quickly. They have a Hubbard on another house they want to buy, and it really is in their best interest to get their house sold and move on. We don't blame them, but it is disappointing.

I think Kim and I are both big believers in fate, so we try to tell ourselves that if its meant to be, its meant to be. This is really such an easier thing to say than it is to believe.

Anyway, here's some nice pictures from today, both of Kaz and Kim as well as of Howie and the girls.

Unbelievable...

...the buyer of our house has backed out.

After the inspection yesterday, she had second thoughts and decided she really wasn't ready for the responsibility of owning a house. Apparently, the inspection was fine in that nothing drastic popped up about our house that caused her to back out. Our realtor said that the buyer's mother (the buyer is about 30) never really liked our house, and our realtor thinks that she influenced her daughter not to buy our house.

At any rate, we are crushed. The inspection of our new house has already been scheduled for this Wednesday. What to do? Our realtor says that we have until May 18th to get our house sold before we have to back out of the contract on the other house. She thinks our house shows very well and it should sell soon, but you really never know. If it doesn't sell by May 18th, though, we are out of luck.

For such a beautiful day, we are very depressed.

A Day in the City

Ella and I took our second (well, technically third) trip into the city today. We had to get out of the house for a couple of hours so our house buyer could do her inspection, so I thought since it was such a beautiful day, we might as well enjoy a day in New York.

We had a great time, and spent the entire day outside. It was officially spring in New York, and all the trees and bushes had really started to bloom (strangely enough, we've had little bloom here in New Haven, though I am starting to see some evidence that blooms might begin the in the next couple of days). The cherry trees were beautiful. And, it seemed that all of New York had bought capri pants to wear, as I'm not sure I saw a single person all day long that wasn't wearing some form of capri pants. It was as if long pants have been completely outlawed over the winter.

We spent some time watching the polar bears nap at the Central Park zoo, and had a nice lunch outside there, too (note: Ella's fear of ketchup has entirely passed. Last time she and I went to New York, she had a weird allergic reaction to ketchup, and has been very cautious about ketchup or any tomato-based sauce ever since. Today, she insisted on eating three little containers of ketchup alone, with some fries added in from time to time). From the zoo, we walked over to the playground and had some ice cream and hung out in the sandbox meeting other New York kids. After all this, we headed to FAO Schwartz to dance on the piano and osentibly buy a toy, but by the time we got to the toy-buying part of it she was pretty pooped and ready to go home (fatigue saves money!).

As with the last time we were in New York together, she fell asleep in the stroller near Central Park and slept for the entire walk back to Grand Central. She continued to sleep as I hauled her and her stroller down two separate escalator rides to get to Grand Central. She continued to sleep while I stopped at the ATM to get some extra cash, while I stood in line at the magazine shop to get a soda, and after I loaded us onto the train, and transferred her from her stroller to the train seat. She finally woke up in Stamford. I love how this kid can sleep (as opposed to that other wiley child of ours, who refuses to sleep under any circumstances).

On the car ride home from the New Haven train station, Ella said:

"Mommy, you're the best mommy I ever had!"

I reminded her that Kim and I were pretty much the only mommies she has ever had, though I did consider starting a conversation about previous lives, but decided against it.

Then, Ella said:

"Mommy, you're the best mommy in the whole kingdom!"

I asked her to clarify which kingdom she was referring to. And, she said (knowingly):

"The Kingdom of Ella!"

And that was that.

Daily Report

Every day, we get a wonderful email update from Shana on what she and the girls have done that day.  We usually get the update around 3:30-4:00, and I know that both Kim and I look forward to it.  Shana has a knack for making each day seem wonderful and exciting.  She even has the ability to frame Ella's occasional bad moods into something positive.

Again, we are so very lucky to have her.  She's just amazing.

Here's the update for today:

We have had a very nice day.  Maisie was really tired
this morning, but it took her a while to fall asleep.
As soon as she finished her bottle, she got fussy.  I
rubbed her tummy and that calmed her down.  It looked
like she was even trying to copy me.  She was making
her arm go in circles in the air.  She eventually did
fall asleep at 9:20. 

Ella was so proud of herself as she was able to fold 2
pairs of pants all by herself.  She actually did do
quite a good job.  I was impressed.  After we finished
getting the laundry going, we played in the basement.
I caved and played mean Captain Hook.  She told me
that there were 4 Captain Hooks.  Grandma, Lisa,
Erika, and Myself.  She was so happy with that fact. 

Then I was Peter Pan.  I tapped on Wendy's window and
woke her up.  She got the Mariah doll to be Michael or
John (I can't remember which).  I told her that my
favorite thing was listening to her read stories.  So
she got several books and sat down on the last step.
Michael and I listened as she read to us.  She was so
cute.  She was pointing at the words and pictures as
she read.  Such a precious moment.

Then Maisie woke up around 11.  We went up and got
her.  Ella did her usual jumping in the crib routine.
Until she realized that Maisie had pooped, and she
quickly made her exit.

After I changed Maisie, I took the girls to the Pet
Store.  I told you (Kim) but not you (Kristin) that
Brendon brought home 2 Anole Lizards that he bought at
the Yeah Baby Expo.  We have a terrarium set up for
them.  It's actually pretty neat.  So I showed Ella
the kind of lizards they were and what we had in our
tank.  She was interested, but the fish got more of a
reaction out of her.  She kept saying, "oh my they are
so wonderful" as loud as she could. 

Maisie really liked the fish too.  She had this
surprised overwhelmed look on her face every time one
would swim by.  We walked around to the grooming
section.  Would you believe Beethoven was there?!
Ella was thrilled.  I was more intrigued by the pink
poodle, but that's just me.  Maisie got sooooo excited
by the birds.  She was yelling and talking to them so
loud.  She was bouncing up and down and flailing her
arms trying to get them.  She scared one and he jumped
up and feathers went flying.  She laughed out loud
when this happened. 

Then we came home and had lunch.  I tried to convince
Ella to play outside while I got lunch ready, but she
only lasted 2 minutes before she was supposedly
chilly.  I made that chicken and penne.  Both girls
loved it.  The only bad thing was there is no chicken
leftover because Ella liked it so much.  But there is
plenty of pasta left if you want.  They also had
strawberries, and beans and corn mixed together.