The Terrible Twos

Three turned 2 a couple weeks ago. The thank you notes from his party have finally gone out. We are making progress on life returning to normal. Other than the buying a house thing.

I am sure some of this is in my head, but I swear, since Three turned 2, the terrible twos have really let themselves out. My darling little boy has become quite the drama prince and is full of attitude lately. He is two, and he is already rolling his eyes at his mother! This does not bode well for the teen years. Perhaps boarding school will need to take precedence over college savings? When you tell him no, he either goes into a full out temper tantrum, or he gives you these puppy dog eyes that he has obviously gotten from his mother and just looks so gosh darn pathetic. Trouble that child is going to be!

Also, he is starting to repeat everything.

At his birthday party he got these toys. They are his absolute favorite thing to play with. You shake them, put them on the floor, and then off they go. Great fun on our hardwood floors. But sometimes, they run into the walls. A couple days after his party, I was getting ready for work and the husband and Three were hanging out in the living room while Three raced his cars across the floor. Every time the cars would hit the wall, Three would exclaim ‘Aw, cwap’.

Once the husband realized what Three was saying, he started laughing, there by reinforcing the phrase to Three, and rushed into the bathroom where I was showering to tell me the fabulous news. I was all, no way, you are making it up. Until one of the cars sped into the bathroom, and hit the tub.

‘Aw, cwap’ a little voice said. Just like his mama says, ALL. THE. TIME. With the same inflection and everything.

Aw, crap, is right Three. Aw, Crap.

Tales From the Market

The stars seemed to have aligned in our favor. For once.

The husband got some unexpected work in August, giving us an unexpected cushion. Housing prices are still falling. We got a little bit of our own bailout courtesy of my parents. Interest rates are low. We no longer fear that I will loose my job tomorrow. There is a possible case of baby fever developing.

And so, this weekend we started house hunting.

And, I proceeded to get pissed off at people. Oh, and MAYBE we found a house.

But first, the pissed off part.

We gave our realtor 3 houses that we wanted to go look at. One of them is a GIANT 3,000 square foot colonial that is for sale for a ridiculous price. We assumed it needed some work. It probably does, but we also came to find out via our realtor that its a short sale. The price was recently dropped by 30k, and will drop again this week if they don’t have any offers in a last ditch effort by THE BANK to get a sale before the house goes in to foreclosure. BUT, the family wasn’t allowing any showings this weekend. Okay, whatever.

So, we go house hunting to the other 2 houses. House #1 has a pool, which Three went nuts over, but the rest of the house was just not going to work. It was a 1500 square foot split level, and it was just too tiny. I felt very claustrophobic the whole time we were in the house. And no matter what my mom and the realtor said, the living room was not going to work for entertaining. It was barely big enough for the 5 of us that were there, forget having a party. I was just not in love. House #2 is on the possible list.

But house #3 and its 3,000 square feet were still on my mind. So since we would pass by it on our way home, we swung by. The reason the house was having no showings over the weekend? They were having a pool party. When they are more than likely headed into foreclosure.

I understand that people need to live and have fun, no matter what their financial situation is. But I feel like there is a HUGE section of this country who refuses to take responsibility for what they have gotten themselves into. Its always the big bad evil bank’s fault they have defaulted on their mortgage. Its the bank’s fault they are underwater. Recently, the New York Times ran an article that featured people who just stopped paying their mortgage for various reasons. They are now essentially living rent free in their homes while waiting for and delaying the foreclosure process. And I am sure they are also not paying taxes on the land that they are occupying in their towns.

I honestly do not understand how and why they get away with it.

Yes, I know that the banks are not always the most upstanding citizens out there. I know that there were a lot of ‘tricks’ played on people. I know that people were loaned more money than they could have ever realistically paid back.

But I also know that in order to take possession of that home, you had to sign YOUR NAME on the line.

Does personal responsibility really mean nothing in this country?

I say all of this as someone who is currently under water in their current home. We bought our condo in 2005 for an amount of money that it may never be worth again. Even after paying off our second mortgage (thanks, Mom!), we owe more on it than we can sell it for. In fact, our monthly payment is probably more than we can rent it for. This is going to directly impact the amount of house that we buy this time around. Its a decision that we will literally be paying for for a long time. And, I know, we are lucky that we can afford to pay for it.

So I cannot possibly wrap my head around the actions of the owners of House #3. They obviously NEED to sell. One way or another that house is no longer theirs. A short sale kills your credit, but not as bad as foreclosure does and they are running out of time. Wouldn’t you do whatever you need to sell? And if I was the bank, I would be pissed. They will get more money for that house if they sell it as a short sale then they will if they put it out as a foreclosure. But as far as we and our realtor can tell, the owners have not exactly been doing what they can to sell it.

I guess the upside for us is that there are dozens of foreclosures hitting the market here even as we speak. So at least we’ll have a lot to choose from.

It is Someone’s Birthday Week!

Pictures of the birthday boy have to wait until I finish designing his Thank You card. But I promise you, his 2 year photo shoot was ADORABLE, if exhausting for Mama and Pop.

This is from the recent newborn shoot I did for friends’ of ours who recently welcomed their second child. I am super excited to have some baby feet who belong to a girl around here. I am surrounded by blue. It gives me hope that if the husband and I ever lose our minds and decide that we would better off as a family of four, maybe there really is a 50/50 shot we’ll get some pink in our life too.

There is always that fear though that we’ll end up with one of each at the same delivery, and a family of five just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Twins run in both our families. Three may be an only child.

ANYWAY, Three turned two on Monday. Birthdays still don’t quite register with him. But I am very excited to report that he gets the whole present thing now. We didn’t wrap his gift (yes I bought it at Walmart, the husband is not happy, but it was $30 cheaper than anywhere else, and has actually gone up in price since I bought it) from us, because I figured it was way more fun out of the box and trying to put it together while he eagerly tried to play with pieces didn’t seem like a good time. My mom though, she wrapped the gifts my parents got for him. Many, many, gifts, despite having told me that they were not going to go nuts for his birthday since we had just gone to Disney World. Grandparents, I tell ya. ANYWAY, they came over for cake and presents Monday evening. The Husband had to help Three unwrap the first one (a set of Thomas the Tank Engine books) but after that, Three was ALL over it. Ripping wrapping paper and pulling toys and tissue paper out of gift bags like a pro.

The best part of the whole thing to me was watching how excited he was over everything. He had to play with everything for a couple minutes before he could be persuaded to move on to the next present (anyone coming to his party on Sunday, be warned, the gift opening may take a while). And all of the presents were just so exciting. Even the clothes he got resulted in squeals of joy. And it makes me sad that he is not going to be this easy to please for all that much longer in the grand scheme of things. Pretty soon we’ll decide what he is getting as his gift from a list of things he wants, rather than watching what he plays with when he visits his older friends. And when he gets it, I am sure he’ll be excited, but it won’t be the same.

I am thankful that Three is a happy, healthy, normal two (although if you ask him how old he is he’ll tell you Three - so eager to grow up he is) year old. I am glad that he spent the better part of this year reflux free, although I will confess that 99% of the time when he burps I still flinch and wish I hadn’t packed away all the burp cloths. It makes me smile watching him become a little boy. I hope he always manages to have fun doing mundane things.

And Babycenter.com? Sending me an email about my “Preschooler” while he was napping on his birthday? Not cool! Mama is not ready for that!