Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Eye of the Storm

This past week has been off the charts.  In four days, I looked at 20 houses.  So much of it is exhausting - the hope that rises up and then crashes down with everything is yuck or a no go, the effort it takes to schedule and try to arrange for sitters when necessary to see as many houses as possible, trying to corral D. when we're in houses that are not vacant, and then handpicking the top ones and going to see them with V. and family to see if one fits.  The big rush is that if we don't find one by tomorrow we're risking having to sell our house and move into a short term rental with hopes of finding a house.  Not something I really want to consider with 2 little kids and 2 cats.

Yesterday we set out to look at an additional 3 houses after a disappointing weekend of looking at houses.   To compound it all, V. is gone until basically October 12th.  Our realtor and I set out yesterday morning and to be honest, I wasn't feeling hopeful.  In fact, I had an emotional hangover.  Granted I was agonizing over this one property that we really liked but which just felt small.  I decided the night before that if this was my consistent impression of this house, I didn't want to walk into it every time for the next 30 years and have that be my first thought.  Once I realized that fact and that this was not the right house, I felt good about it until I realized I was back to square one and we had 3 days to make this whole concurrent thing happen.

First place was a bust but then we went to the next place, a place I almost missed in my automated list and had forwarded the night before to the realtor at 10:30 to say "let's look at this". We walked in and my initial thought was wow and I continued moving through it, I kept thinking "this is it, this is the one" which after looking at now over 75 houses I haven't had screaming through my brain.  Also turns out that the agent is a long time acquaintance of my realtor and as I was looking through it, she was talking on the phone with him.   V. was still in town yesterday and was able to come home early so we grabbed the kids and all went to see.  I. was so excited to see the big room that would be her bedroom and watching them run laughing and screaming in the backyard was a dream come true.  Well almost a dream come true since it's still not ours.  Long story short, we made an offer this morning and sweetened it tonight because there is a cash buyer out there trying to get it but at a low ball price.  We'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if we've got it.  It may be another Lunesta kind of night and Xanax kind of day.  All this not to mention the activities of our house being sold ie. the inspections, appraisal, repair requests, etc., normal life, volunteering at I.'s school, and V. being gone for awhile...

However while the storm swirled around all week, I had a peaceful, joyous moment when I got D. up last night before I went to bed because he was battling a bad diaper rash.  I changed him in our room and then impulsively just laid him in bed with me, snuggling him up against me on his side with my arms around him.  He took a deep breath of me and instantly fell back asleep and we lay like that for about 30 minutes.  He would move around but ultimately ended up on his side, face burrowed in my chest with his arm thrown across me as he dreamed.  I lay there awake, smelling the top of his head, listening to his breathing, and feeling the weight of his body against mine.  I knew that I was being selfish to keep him with me for half an hour and then put him back to bed because interrupted sleep is no fun (I would know) but with all this craziness, this quietness and reconnecting with D. is just what I needed.  It brought us back to those nursing days in the darkness of the late night and early morning.  Judging by how relaxed he was and how he didn't even wake up when I put him back in the crib, I don't think it messed up his sleep too much.  And for the first time in a couple of weeks, I was able to sleep through the night without Lunesta or constant night terrors.  I swear, the only time I have ever slept without nightmares has been when I've been nursing or now it seems, snuggling with my little one right before I go to sleep.  That is pretty amazing from a physiological point of view if you think about it. 

Prayers that our offer is accepted tomorrow morning and we can be excited without fear of disappointment.

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