4 20 - 4 28 13
Dichotomies of the week
#1
Newborns sleep a lot. They wake up, eat and fall back asleep. And poop. They poop without even knowing it. Repeated three times, poop is a funny word. It’s funny that I just “said” poop three times and you’re still reading this. Apparently, you’re not offended by pottie humor.
It strikes me as funny and a bit dichotomous that I (single female, no kids, with no desire to have kids) made a road trip this week 2 plus hours to see my friends and their two kids (one 2 and one 10 days old). The two year old is the one I’ve referenced before; we played on the jungle gym at the fast food joint about two months ago, and I encouraged him to go higher and higher while his mother did NOT approve of my approach to encouraging him to be adventurous.
I’m totally enamored of him. He’s gonna’ get whatever he wants in life just by giving a wink and a smile.
He was skeptical about this woman who showed up randomly at the door, asking him, “How are you?” like he’s an adult. I refuse to talk down to him (or other kids). I expect that he will listen to me because I’m the adult and if I speak like an adult, he will recognize that. If I speak like a sing song-y grandparent, he’ll think I’m a pushover, which I’m not.
He and I spent our first hour together, reacquainting ourselves by playing on the floor with zip cars. I zipped. He chased. Win win. It was constant motion, and I wore his skepticism down. We then read books, he brushed his teeth, took a bath and after kisses and hugs, headed to bed a tired, happy kid knowing that mom, dad and Aunt Bernanny (that’s what they call me) had his back.
The irony here is that I’ve never had that maternal instinct to have children, yet I like hanging with them, keeping them active, bossing them around, and encouraging them to climb higher and be independent or to be daring and pick a woolly worm off a bush and let it climb up an arm, causing a giggle from the tickle while mom worries about the potential fall or germs.
The 10 day old did not wow me except for his neck-lifting abilities. He looked like a king cobra and it was impressive. He fell asleep 2 minutes after 10 minutes of teat suckling. That’s 12-15 minutes of awake time and then sleep time 2-3 hours. His skin looked great, though. Maybe that’s the key to eternal youth. Sleep 2-3 hours. Eat a small meal. Fall back asleep and poop in your pants.
Or not.
#2
Over the last 6 months, I’ve had a real estate agent who hasn’t performed well. So, when she said to me a week and a half ago, “Until you’re serious about moving forward, I’m not going to show you any more houses,” I decided that her decision was the impetus for me to get a good agent. I made an offer on a house the week prior to her decision not to show me any more houses only to have the offer refused without any input from her on how to proceed or counter. So, yeah…I had a real estate agent who didn’t want to help me purchase any real estate and who clearly doesn't know the definition of serious.
Fast forward to Monday, 4/22. I interviewed three newly-referred agents, asking very specific questions about their experience and how they would advise me in different situations. I hired an agent who found me the perfect house on day one. True story. Day one. I made an offer…and so did someone else. Drat! What to do? This wasn’t one of the scenarios I ran by the agents in the interview process.
Not to worry. She had seen this before and calmly advised me on a few approaches we could take. She said if it didn’t work out, we’d find another “perfect” house - maybe even one that didn’t have carpet that I would have to rip out. It felt great; we were a team working through this and I thought the bad agent would have let this house go because of my lack of seriousness.
Trading old for new/bad for good worked out just fine. I close on 6/6, and this week I’m open for suggestions.
