Thursday, May 1, 2008

Thinking Outside The Box

The days have been so long lately, but establishing a routine (read last post) has helped the time to go by faster. Today, I got things a little out of order and it interrupted the flow of the day, but sometimes you just gotta roll with it. After the kids' hour of cartoons was over, they were not content with toy time. They had several fusses over "mine" , which is rare for them, so I felt it was time to step in. I went to the toy box and pulled out all the blocks I could find and put the kids on top of the pool table with the block pile. They were as excited as if they had just received a brand new toy, and played quietly for at least 30 minutes. The blocks were there all along, but the toy box is so full of stuff that they are probably overwhelmed by the selection. I think it is easier for them when things are compartmentalized. So I decided when we get into our house, I am going to try and do that with their toys: books here, puzzles here, finger-sized animals and people there, etc.
Speaking of houses, we think we have settled in on one house. I have some issues with it, which are mainly:
(1) Its remote location away from anything I am familiar with or anyone I even know by name
(2) its closeness to the houses on each side
(3) the condition of the neighborhood is kind of run-down, mainly due to the fact that it is an older neighborhood with couples on the brink or well into senior citizenship who have let their houses and yards GO (albeit safer than young rif-raf, I guess).
(4) There is no rear entry to the backyard, which is a good size, but the kids will have to have 100% supervision anytime they want to go outside--how often will I be able to do that with an infant?

The pros are:
  1. It is a cute house, especially on the inside. The real estate agency accurately described it as "a doll house". It has been recently remodeled with new cabinets, floors, and paint.
  2. It is move-in ready and we wouldn't have to do any work to it.
  3. The owners are motivated to sell and it looks like we will get a really good deal on it, which means we will be able to purchase some new furniture (direly needed).
  4. It has a dishwasher!!!!!!!!!!!!
  5. It is close to the church we will be attending.
  6. It is ten minutes from John's office.

If all goes planned, we are going to make an offer and see how it goes!

1 comment:

Natural Mama said...

Do you have a link where I can see a picture??

I used to buy a Rubbermaid everytime I went to Wal-Mart. I put the puzzles in one Rubbermaid and the animals in another, the coloring books in another, and trucks/cars in another, etc. This works well for 'table time' (aka 'pool table time'). :o)