Hope4Peyton

On this last day of our stay here in GA, the kids and I ventured north to check out where our *hopefully* new residence will be. We scoped out the neighborhood – OOH, is that an in-ground pool?  We want to make friends with THAT family!  YOWZERS, check out that tree fort, they are definitely invited to the housewarming party! – because it’s good to get a lay of the land.

I got Jessica (the world’s greatest and MOST PATIENT realtor) to meet us at the house again so I could make with the picture snapping as the sun finally came out and graced us with it’s gorgous presence.  I have to tell you, MAH house? Is super sparkly, shiny, yummy in the sunlight.  Sort of like Edward.  But without all the fangs. And makeup.

I would love to show you the pictures, but I still feel a little GRRRR because of the fiasco of getting myself and everyone else all worked up over the Barbie Dream House only to have it snatched away by Murphy’s Law of House Buying, which states: The chances of your house sale crashing and burning like a meteor is in direct proportion to the number of people you TELL about the house.

So, again, I will talk endlessly about something in the most vague, frustrating mentions possible.  I will tell you that my house? Really makes me happy.  It doesn’t bowl me over with its splendor, it doesn’t intimidate me with it’s sheer vastness, it doesn’t make me break out into a cold sweat thinking about how we can’t afford to furnish it and therefore will have the nicest empty house in the entire neighborhood.

MY house?   Is not perfect or DREAM house or anything remotely exceptional.

It’s just a great house, that I can’t wait to move into, to bring my kids home to, to start building memories in, to turn into our safe haven, to indulge in our dreams and hopes and giggles and tickle-fights.

I’m crossing my fingers that I haven’t already told you too much.

ps…A big happy birthday to my sister, Angela.  Growing up she was always the one who was always more responsible, better at everything and although I loved her, I loved to hate her too. It’s awesome that all these years later, she’s still more responsible, she’s still better at a LOT of things, but now I just love to love her.  She’s my dearest friend, my conscience, my grounding point. I love you, sis, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

*I would like to just preface this entire post with the details that the night before we went on this house-hunting extraveganza the kids got into bed at almost 12:30 in the AM and they were all feeling more than a LITTLE stab-y the next day during our precious time with the realtor.  After turning an 8 hour trip into an 11 hour travesty, I had a fair share of the psychotic tendencies as well.

If you’re really lucky, the next segment in this series will be “How to ensure your real estate lawyer also becomes your divorce lawyer”*

1.  Repeatedly, and sometimes vehemently, threaten your children with being left behind in the one of the empty, creepy, non-heated nor water-capable houses through which you’ve been tromping…with accompanied shaking of fist or evil wringing of hands.

2.  Completely blow a gasket and have yelling fit that nearly leaves child in fetal position on the ground after realizing that said child has left a door open on the van while you’ve been touring a home.  During south Atlanta’s best attempts to pretend it is actually, in fact, Seattle…or perhaps day 39 of 40 in Noah’s little ark story…which results in complete soaking of the entire passenger back seat and carpeting and two boxes of Girl Scout cookies that you neither needed or wanted, but felt compelled to buy because the mom who yelled at her daughter for crying about how cold it was in front of the Chili’s near Sylvester, GA at 9:45 PM needed to have HER ass handed to her, and my only real recourse was to buy some of her stinking cookies and hopefully get her home in a warm house sooner rather than later….because I? AM A LOVING MOTHER! SHUT THE DOOR NEXT TIME or I will force you to ride the entire trip back to Florida strapped to the luggage rack!

3.  Continue mumbling under your breath how badly you are in need of an alcoholic beverage.

4.  Take a fall down a flight of stairs that exhibits the sort of grace usually reserved for the Russian Ballet *snort*, maintain sprawled position on stairs because pain is so severe that you fear you may have punctured a kidney or shattered your elbow. Try to get children to stop comforting you with their loving yet excruciating hugs by giving them a distraction, but later realize you may or may not have yelled at them to “not touch me, go find something to do, count power outlets or bathrooms, just leave me alone!”

5.  Discover from looking at realtor’s expression that perhaps she does not, in all honestly, find it humorous when I lure my children into a closet, slam the door shut and flicker the lights on and off….killjoy.

6.  Send loud, shrieking children to their ROOMS! In a strange house. That is not ours. And is empty. And the children actually turn and go hide out in bedrooms.

7.  Motion to somewhat eerie, random, under-the-stairs storage spot and try to convince child that this IS IN FACT the bedroom ALL HER OWN that we’d promised her.  Come on, everyone’s seen Harry Potter, right?  We all know you can live in one of those and still come out pretty sane and emotionally stable.  Right?  RIGHT?

I d believe that there is a fair chance that our realtor’s sudden burst of high-power, laser-intense home-showing prowess, that has resulted in an offer being made on a house that will not be disclosed, shown or SQUEEE’d about until such date that closing has occurred and keys are in hand, is directly proportional to her complete lack of desire to spend one more day with the CRAZEEEE lady and her brood.

I’m just saying.

But the house? Perfect and I can’t wait to BE able to share it with you.

I tease.  I know it sucks.

Who says farting around on the Interwebs all day can’t teach you anything?

Because of people like this and some like that, I can identify a good con coming from a mile away.

And OH BOY did I almost get taken in. This particular grifter has been honing her skills with surgical precision.  I hardly saw it coming, so smoothly and cleverly was this little act of treachery constructed.  I didn’t fall for it though.

Many were not so lucky.

So, I just want to share this information with you so that you too can be safe from any common hustler.

Step 1 – Confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or a naïve expectation of good faith.

Like, say, when some cute 5 year old tells you that they lost their first tooth so that you can get all excited and ask her if the tooth fairy came to visit her.  When a negative answer is given, the mark is both shocked and slightly offended on behalf of the con artist…the natural progression is  for the little  scammer to ask if they wanted to see where the tooth USED to be.

Step 2 – In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task

Seriously? It is a empty spot on the gums….not EVEN the actual tooth, they’re just being promised the fabulous goodness of looking at NOTHING.  Empty space. Anti-matter. {Insert pitiful face here and affect the winning trifecta of shyness, vulnerability and hesitation to show the empty tooth socket as proof that said tooth did, in fact, come out}

Step 3 – A principal method of separating victims from their cash is the use of short cons, swindles that are quick and need little setup and few helpers.

By sadly letting the mark know that she received no tooth fairy cashout (which was TOTALLY her idea because she wants to keep it in a glitter-filled baggie..WHATEVER!) and feigning reluctance to expose the goods, it inevitably led to someone digging deep in their pocket to make up for the loss of financial windfall in hopes of seeing the payoff of a big toothless grin.

People, I KID YOU NOT, she came home with $10 in her greedy, swindling little hand.

I’m just so, so proud.

Next, I think we’ll work on three-card monte.

Would this face scam you?  Pffft, she’s already starting to send out emails as a lawyer from Nigeria.

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Don’t forget to head over to win yourself some free Splenda in my latest giveaway!

Tuesday night Peyton got up on stage again and strutted her formidable THANG down the runway for the Fashion Funds the Cure event, benefiting the Pediatric Cancer Foundation. *hint: if you want the video on the FFTC link, you may see last year’s runway performance and  just tear up the teeny tiniest bit*

Last year, she was one of the main models, dressed in frills from head to toe and glamming it up for all the world to see.

This year, I had to explain that she wasn’t getting a frilly dress…SHE was getting a big girl shirt that was for all the special girls who had “no more chemo and ports”.  She got it. She is so proud of that shirt!

AND the purse…she was pretty proud of the purse too.  I totally coveted.

We missed so many that couldn’t be there due to illness and those that we’ve lost over the years.  How proudly our girls walked to raise money for research that will make it possible for more girls to be on the runway year after year as survivors.

For more pictures of the fun night, make sure to check out our Flickr photostream.  She and the other girls there were just amazing and beautiful and stole my breath away.

And I REFUSE to apologize for it.

I keep hearing rumors that the mommybloggers are the red-headed stepchildren of the blogging community…considered the lowest form of the genre and that if you have nothing better to do that write about how often your kid takes a dump, you should just go ahead and turn in your pass to the blogger’s club.

*oh by the way, should you have, or in fact, BE a red-headed step-child, I’m sure both you and they are totally lovely and should really find whoever coined that phrase and just beat the snot out of them.*

I do not write about politics, the wonders of how to be a better whatever or anything terribly self-important. I don’t sit and brood about how best to stir the minds of America.  I don’t thrill on drama or conflict.

This is IT, folks.

I am a mommy.

I have a blog.

I write about my kids.

OH, and Twilight. I can’t forget Twilight.

Cookies, those are good too.

But, you know what I’m getting at.

And just to prove that I am 100% proud of that label, not in the least intimidated by the idea that some people out there think less of me as a writer or a blogger because I have nothing more fulfilling to write about that those aforementioned kids:

My baby girl lost her first tooth on Monday.  She wants to keep it in a plastic baggie and fill it with glitter. I think that’s awesome.

I’ll talk about it every day this week if I want to and you know what?  You’ll LIKE it!

You want to tell me what I write about isn’t important?

SUCK IT!

It don’t get more important that that.

It is timeless, it is forever.

Cause long after whatever political debate or social injustice has ceased to be a big deal, kids will STILL be making their mamas cry over that gaping smile and remarkable milestone.

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The winner of the IPod Touch has been announced and thank you to everyone who entered.

Check out for a Splenda giveaway next!