Oy! Motherhood.

hi! remember me?

first of all, can you BeLiEvE how long it's been since i opened my yapper on here? i can't. i miss the land of blog. i mean, i truly, actively miss it. and every time i get a chance to say something it's 1am and i'm about to start drooling on the keyboard.

life is good. the school is absolutely fabu. i mean, so fabu it seems like some fantastical dream. i know, i know, it's not really a school yet, but it will be and we've even had a tiny article in the local paper. there are ads and flyers and brochures and stuff and just today i got two more calls from prospective parents. tomorrow is a little shindig to which we invited all the prospective parents. there could be as many as sixty peeps there between parents and children and sibs and everything. we can only take 20 this first year and although one never knows until the contracts are signed, we've got 20 on our list. next year we can grow to 40 (it's all about the licensing and certified teacher thing). we've had $32,000 in donations already.

i KNOW!

we've got a landscaper guy who will do anything to have his child in our school. even knock down an old rickety garage and build a beautiful new stone driveway and half-circle drop-off driveway. we've got parents saying things like, "how fast do i have to get my forms in to be guaranteed a spot?!" in the sort of panic that says we are making great strides. our amazon wish list has been loaded up and cleared off twice by one very generous person. we've spent thousands of dollars on supplies, furniture, and there's a strong possibility one of the grandparents of a student will donate our playground equipment. this has turned into an amazing community undertaking and i *love* it.

we're having so much fun we're almost not noticing how ridiculously hot it has been.

i'm almost not noticing that some kind of animal is living under our back deck.

and ohmigod am i loving my baby girl lately. i mean, she's still doing her crazy screaming thing when she wants something, but the smiles, the chubby toothy funny faced grins with squinty eyes and a head full of crazy hair, they're just melting my heart. she talks in full paragraphs and orders people around like she knows what she's doing. she is determined and tenacious and doesn't take no for an answer. i can't help but cheer her on, even when she's misbehaving; i know she's going to need that spirit later in life. because of that, i'm forcing myself to look for new ways to communicate with her and can feel myself growing as a mother.

my boy is suddenly so big. and handsome. and he just shines on his sister. he's always looking out for her. he helps her down the stairs, shares his food and drinks, asks for kisses and hugs and is genuinely offended when she won't give him any, *and* he's got the patience of a saint with her. all summer long i have thoroughly enjoyed watching him learn how to harness the strength and coordination of his soon-to-be gangly arms and legs. he is a fearless rider of bikes and eater of drippy ice cream cones. he's gentle and kind and good god is he loud! we're still trying to locate the volume switch.

and now i must take my leave because it's 1am and i may be about to commence with the drooling.

it's official

the school now has a home. thank. GOD.

and these are the days of my life

holy moly, my mother was watching that soap the other day and things just never change on there, do they? i think she's been watching for the last 38 years. seriously. how many times can the same people die and come back to life? i haven't seen it in years and it was like i'd never stopped watching. bleh!

this will be a random crazy person post--i totally envy the peeps out here who can put together a coherent beginning, middle, end, story-with-a-moral type post every day. no, i'm just in love with them. completely ass over teakettle in love. wet sloppy kiss love. yep.

okay, so the school thing is moving along apace. we'll know in exactly two days, five hours, four minutes, and 15 seconds whether this farmhouse will work. possibly 24 hours sooner. but no later. because there are lawyers and agents and whatnot involved. and just to add to the drama, another house we looked at and lost is back on the market. if the place we're working on now works it will be way better than the first place we thought we had but didn't.

anyway, we're on our way to getting all the copious paperwork to the licensing peeps who will review it in advance of their visit to our location. they love us because we are organized and ready to work hard. unlike some people who shall remain nameless at this time. i've set up the website, a zazzle shop (because at the time cafepress had boring, boring colors for tees), started our amazon wish list, sent out 16 letters with applications for admission, prepared 25 enrollment packets, and started files for the children we know are coming. including my own. we've collected $8,000 in donations and have been promised $17,000 more. materials and furnishings are mostly purchased, and peeps are lined up to do all the inspections and other things we'll need to get the doors open. someone has even promised to donate a pygmie goat. and some feed. and we even have a shed for the goat (and his friend, because goats need friends). the same person wants to donate a jackass. because it would be funny to have a jackass at our school. J is afraid of the jackass factor because of possible biting and kicking. i want a pig, but i'm not sure how to go about procuring a pig or even what pigs might need, other than slop (and even slop isn't exactly something i know about). we already have a rabbit (in my back yard). a school with animals! there will be spanish and music and cooking and gardening!

one thing that has been interesting is how the money really doesn't go very far. but i should probably have *known* that, because when does it? luckily we'll be able to have a summer program if we get this location and that will help us get through the year if all goes well.

not much else to say on that front for the time being.

my entire extended family was visiting during the last two weeks (which, incidentally, i spent running around looking for a home for the school). it was total chaos. five children--a five year old, a three year old, and three 18-month olds. i do not know how peeps with so many kids do it. truly. i was ready to run away after only a few hours of the mayhem. oh, and did i mention that with so many kids around there weren't enough places for everyone to nap, so i had to spend an hour and a half every day driving around with a sleeping baby in the back seat. and no, she wouldn't just sleep if i stopped somewhere because there is some crazy kind of connection between the car's engine and her eyelids. when one stops the others pop.

the parents of all these children were as cranky as the children. especially during the part where all the babies got a head cold and we all had to listen to my cousin's husband (what does that make him to us, exactly?) say, over and over again, "hey, she thought it was a boogie but it'snot." oh ho ho ho! ha ha haaaaaaa! and then my mother's cousin (the mother of the cousin whose husband was making snot jokes) would cackle and repeat what he said as if the rest of us hadn't already heard it eight frillion times.

during that visit i made a chocolate cake so tall that the top layer toppled over when it was cut. it had mocha frosting and totally kicked ass (i know, shut up. i never do the wednesday thing anymore. wednesday just seemed to come faster and faster and faster and i was so ill prepared i simply had to stop).

J has had a very good month at work, which we desperately needed and today i replanted the window boxes. anyone who wants to see them should come right now--the plants are certain to die within the week due to my a thumb of plant death. weeds are immune to the thumb of plant death. they have overtaken our yard with such vigor that thinking about attacking that problem exhausts me.

at least we still have the kid mowing the lawn. and we're much more careful about checking the gates.

the book will release on september 1 and my coauthor will commence the giant book tour. there's a chance we may get on the most coveted talk show in daytime television. and when i say "we" i mean my coauthor and our book.

the boy is being his boyish self. bouncing off walls and jumping from high places. as long as there is no blood and all bones are intact we're good. he's enrolled in two summer programs, leaving two weekdays free for all the boredom a five year old can muster. and muster it he does. he also slays me with his cuteness and all the "i love you, mom"s. he's suddenly a big boy with little boy teeth and the cutest little butt in the wide world.

the girl is a firecracker. she will climb anything. N. e. thing. and then she'll yell out, "'ook at meeeeeeeeeeee!" she love shoes. everybody's shoes. even mr. potato head's shoes. she calls mr. p-head "mr. apple head." she speaks in full paragraphs already (19 months old five days ago) and shows a definite leaning towards girlie girl things (she does not get this from me). the cape cod bracelet my mother gave her has not left her chubby wrist in over a week. she's getting long, curly, blonde hair and has about 16 teeth. she still nurses twice a day and doesn't seem to like dairy products very much. today she said "mama fart." and when she says, "i see mama" it comes out sounding like "hoochie mama," (for which i will probably receive many gratuitious hits). there's nothing hoochie about me, folks. not one single thing. sorry.

now that it's nearly 1 am i really must go.

rollercoastering around

it's been a wild ride these last few weeks. the whole school-opening thing--you wouldn't *believe* how crazy. really. i don't actually believe it myself and i'm right in the middle of it.

we started out the summer thinking we had a location and it was just a matter of days--possibly as much as a couple of weeks--before we could make our official location announcement. sure there would be work to be done. sure we'd be cutting things a wee bit close to our intended start date, but we are strong, healthy, get-up-and-go kinds of people--we could have pulled it off. and just a day or two after we submitted our application to the AMS and sent our membership info to the chamber of commerce with the address of that particular building on everything, we got word that the deal had fallen through. and there we were, suddenly back to square one. without even the tiniest warning. so convinced were we of our location that we had discontinued our search--we had. no. backup. none.

the people who were buying the original place are local business owners who were looking for office space of their own. they figured that if we all joined together we'd be able to get something really spectacular. what we got was a spectacular pain in the ass. they felt awful about the dead deal and offered to buy us a place of our own in the $300k to $400k range. i know that sounds like a ton of money and it really is, but here, on cape cod, that's eh...not so much. it was a tall order to fill, but we found several places we wanted to look at and ran around town like chickens without heads looking and comparing and looking and eventually we ended up at a place that made us all swoon. it was a farmhouse with one full acre of land. how perfect it would be for a school! a school with gardening and farming and cooking! after determining that a previously made offer was null and void the realtor told us that we were free to make our own offer. and we did. and we were oh so smug thinking there would be no way they'd turn us down.

but they did.

because the previously interested party thought they might be okay accepting the move-out date of december 1 after all and the owner is a man of his word and that was that.

we went back to looking and things got really frantic and crazy and there was even some yelling (yes, it was me) and we drove by that farmhouse every day wishing and hoping that something would go wrong--that the inspection would be bad or the potential buyers wouldn't get financing (and i know, i know, i am going to hell for wishing such things upon innocent people who just happened to be in the same place i wanted to be).

and we finally just gave up and decided to find someone who would give us a lease. and we found a good spot and were trying very hard to be very impressive to the building owner and were in fact in the middle of putting together a pretty package of things to send him when the phone rang.

me: "hello?"

k: "um, are you sitting down?"

me: [groaning loudly] "don't tell me something's gone wrong with the lease thing...."

k: "no! remember the first farm? not the smelly horse farm, but the nice, pretty farm?"

me: "uh...yeaaaah...."

k: "well, don't get excited, but um..."

me: "omigod! no! don't tell me this! no! i'm going to cry! are you going to tell me?"

k: [in a sober and very very quiet voice] "calm down. listen. [she's a psychologist and she was having to pull out the psychologist hat to deal with me] the sellers put a clause in their contract saying they won't be out until january 28th and the buyers are backing out. if they don't come back with an offer by 5pm today we can make an offer."

me: "oh. my. god. are you still up for this one?"

k: "yes, but the date thing may be a problem because they don't want to budge on that."

it was 3:30pm. that was the longest hour and a half of my life.

and then they called and said the house was ours to buy if we wanted it, but the date thing stood and we'd have to find a temporary place for the school in the meantime. so we set about running around looking for a temporary place before we decided that ENOUGH WITH THE LOOKING ALREADY! we just couldn't stomach looking around for yet another place and decided that they had to agree to be out by sept. 1 or we'd walk away from it. forever. and we'd be sad. forever. but we'd have a place for the school, in time, and it would be a nice place. we wouldn't love it, but it would be nice and we'd like it well enough.

we all converged on the farmhouse at 4pm today. and when i arrived the seller's realtor informed me that with an offer as high as the one we suggested they would agree to be out by september 1.

and i walked over to the wall and beat my head against it and walked back and asked her to repeat what she'd just said because i was sure my head was hearing things wrong before and now that it had been shaken up a bit it ought to be hearing things right again and she said it again and i heard it again and OH. MY. GOD.

so our offer is accepted and we're thrilled, but there's still one tiny little contingency that could void the whole deal and it's making us nervous, but we're going ahead anyway. even though it's a two week thing. and we're going ahead with the other thing too. so now we're in the unusual and very welcome position to be choosing where we want to go. hopefully we'll have the best possible news in the not-too-distant future and i'll suddenly have more time to blog because i won't be running around like a headless chicken looking at houses and yelling at people.