I've been trying to post for a few days now and something has been happening with blogger and it's been giving me a hard time.
This was the first weekend in the new house. We did several small projects. Don't get me wrong there are still boxes everywhere but it's starting to get a little more manageable. This a.m. I told Hubby his job was to hang all the pictures on the walls. I had unpacked them and leaned them here and there but was worried the kids would eventually break them if they didn't get hung up. Well this job entailed getting out the cordless drill and the search was on. Five hours later Hubby found the drill in the garage - in the meantime he did unpack, shelve and general straighten out the nightmare that was that mess out there. In his un-earthing he found a shelf that must have been in the bathroom at one time so I painted it and it is now installed with towels on it which is a big relief as there is NO storage in this house beyond basement and garage.
As time goes on I am less and less thrilled with the rental house. The basement REEKS of sewer gas which brings instant flashbacks to most of the buildings I entered in Ukraine. The landlords seem to be disinterested in fixing things but told us we could fix things and they would repay us the difference. I'm beginning to think that's the better end of the deal for them after I spent the afternoon putting in a bathroom faucet on Friday as the old one was leaking everywhere both above and below the sink.
The white trash neighbors have a whole heard of boys across the street that want to be friends with Sonny Boy and he thinks they are super cool, however they seem to have little supervision most of the time and when they do it usually seems to consist of an overwhelmed mother screaming because she's outnumbered and not listened to. Also it's a strange living situation, nobody is married and the parentage of each of the children is not quite clear. The oldest child came knocking on the door asking if Sonny Boy could come play the other night at 7:45 - Sonny Boy was already in bed as he's had a host of behavior issues last week and the kid nearly fell out that he was already in bed. Hubby took him over to swim in their pool (a small above ground job) the other day and visit with the parents and at 8:00 said well time to head home and get to bed and they were just getting around to getting their gaggle of kids fed. I know we all run on different schedules but 8:00 seems to be a little late to feed 6 or 8 kids ages 10 and under.
Sonny Boy and Igor are now registed for school. Sonny Boy starts next Monday and his teacher seems nice. We had a little issue with getting Igor into the pre-school program and I had to have a "frank" discussion with the elementary principal about federal law and what Igor is entititled to having an IEP. However after my discussion Igor went from being on the wait list to having a spot in the PreK class. My only beef is that is the afternoon class which will conflict with his nap.
I'll have to figure out something there. They won't let him start until after his birthday which is only three weeks after the start of school but I'm not going to fight them on that as I figure there are going to be bigger fish to fry later in the year in regards to his services. My day is going to be busy being bus service it seems though. Sonny Boy will go to school at 8:00, Igor at 12:15, and they will both be released at 3:00, at least they have one time scheduled together. The preschool here is also 5 days a week. More than I had bargained for and honestly I think it may be a lot of Igor the first few weeks till he adjust and we settle into a routine. To add a bit of irony to the mix if we lived on the other side of the railroad tracks (less than 100 yards) the kids could ride the school bus!
Last weekend we drove back up to WI to clean and put the house in show condition. After much discussion we bit the bullet and lowered the price again on the house. It's painful but it's getting time to fish or cut bait on the dang thing. Hopefully the bait we are dangling is looking more appealing as our agent seems to think an offer is in the works but if it's acceptable is another story. If the offer is decent it will be coming from the very first guy who walked into the house in March for a showing. Go figure. Honestly now I don't really care if we make a red cent I just want out from under the mortgage and the worry that something major will happen to it in the meantime.
The house issue really gets my goat - here we are sitting in the same situation as many people right now through no fault of our own. We didn't over extend ourselves on on mortgage, in fact we purchased way below what our bank qualified us for, we were living within our means, no fancy cars, boats, or vacations. Our most extravagent expense was our adoption of Igor (honestly I can't call that living large or anything) and we still get kicked in the shins. I realize it's not a personal thing against us but it sure stinks. As the say "No good deed goes unpunished".
The kids are holding up well. Sonny Boy had a round of acting up last week for about three days that made me wonder if the IL authorities would come get him for a few days of respite without it turning into a nightmare. Thank God Hubby was making it home at night both to give me a break and to dole out punishment as I can only take away so many toys, games and sit the kid in his room for hours at a time. A couple of days without Wii (and he had a new game he hadn't gotten to play) TV, a very early bedtime and a few well placed swats on his rear seems to have straightened him out for the moment. I am limiting the TV and games drastically though and keep the controllers under lock and key. The new cable doesn't have the ability to block out TV by rating like the old so I'm on TV show patrol a lot now. It seems his attitude is tied strictly to how much sass he sees spewed forth on TV from kids to their parents so we are back to watching nicer shows.
Igor is a real trooper. I don't think the kid has missed a beat. A couple of nights of adjusting to sleeping in the same room as big brother and that's been about it. Right now we are working hard at potty training and he seems to be getting the gist of it. I'm the lazy one and have to set a timer to remind my self to remind him to go, as long as I do that he stays dry all day and he'll even go potty completly on his own sometimes as well. Knock on wood I hope things continue as well and he'll be out of diapers completly very soon.
Well it's late and the chaos will start early in the am again. As usual my to do list is longer than my arm and I won't get half done but will be glad for the things I do get done.
Know we are trucking along and I hope to be able to blog more in the next week or two.
WINNIE'S LITTER Just a little blog of the ins and outs and ups and downs in the life of a mom.
2 comments:
House selling stinks, doesn't it? We, too, got bit pretty hard through no fault of our own. We were literally one of 4 houses in our area that wasn't in short sale. Yeah for that, but everyone just low balled us like crazy anyway. We, too, just wanted to sell the dang thing so we could get out from under it, have our family all together, and get our kids in school. I really hope your offer comes through!!!
Honestly, if it's within 15,000 of ball park, counter enough not to scare them away, but when it comes right down to it, just take it and run. We had 3 offers on our place. Our first one fizzled at $10,000 below asking price. Oh, that we would have taken that one! We would have come out $10,000 ahead of where we really ended up had we done so. Each offer after that one kept getting worse and worse. On the last one, we knew we had someone who really wanted the place, was qualified to buy it, was anxious to close, and we pretty much just dumped the place. We close in less than two weeks.
But, I think you really will find that everyone else who's selling righ now is in the same boat we are - they, too, just want to dump their places and get out from under the mortgages. So, when it comes time to buy again, remember that it works two ways. You can also put in low ball offers on places and you WILL find someone who just wants out. We ended up getting a rather lovely home in a VERY lovely neighborhood. It had been on the market for many months and the owners just wanted out. We ended up getting it for $35,000 below what it appraised for last October. We offered on two other places before that in which the owners wouldn't budge. Quite frankly, the house we ended up with is closer to family, is bigger, nicer, and in a WAY nicer neighborhood than the other two were in...and we got it for quite a bit less than either of the other owners would even consider.
Special ed preschool: I believe it may be federal law that they can't start until after their third birthday. We started with early intervention services as soon as we brought our boys home. That was a HUGE blessing. They seemlessly transitioned us to preschool the day after Matthew's third birtday. Check with the preschool teachers...they may also be obligated to bus your kids to school because they qualify as special needs. We lived less than a mile from our school last year and Matthew still rode the bus for free.
5 days may indeed be a little much for your little guy. Even 3 was too much for mine for a little while. Give it a try and see how it goes though. YOur little man has been home longer than mine was when we started him. If it is too much, though, you should be able to cut down every other day or just two days a week. Have him go on the days they work the most on his special needs areas like speech, ot, etc.
We were afternoon schedule as well. I actually liked it better after awhile because I ended up with a block of time all to myself in which I was more productive and able to enjoy more. I was able to go out with friends for lunch if I wanted or go shopping all by myself for 3 whole hours. Many stores aren't open during the full morning time slot. I was also able to get my little guy into therapy during the morning slots than I could have in the afternoon, simply because there were more openings available at that time.
As for naps, I didn't have any problem transitioning him to napping in the morning, either. I just made sure he was up with the rest of the kids early in the morning. By 10:30 or so, he was plenty ready for a nap.
Stick to your guns and make sure you keep on fighting for the services he needs. You'll get them. And, hopefully your house will sell soon so you can get settled in a better place.
so sorry. when you are settled give us a call, we'd love to have you out to hang out on the new deck (yes hubby that is "sit" not work :-) keep your chin up.
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