Dumb. People. Everywhere.

I mean, just for an example, I saw an episode the other day about a woman with a fairly standard townhome that had been on the market for 90 days with no offers and very little interest. She could not understand why! (Der! Duh!) Not surprisingly, she was way overpriced – she was asking more for her rundown center unit than a brand-new end unit was going for in the same subdivision. For that I blame her agent – a good agent should always keep up to date on your comparables, and help you set a competitive price. But why her agent never said anything to her about the HORRIBLE shape her house was in, I have no idea.

The front yard was full of weeds (no curb appeal); the house itself was full of temporary furniture (like folding tables), half-packed boxes, weird decorating choices, and tons of clutter; and the deck (which should have been a big selling point) was dirty and cluttered with garbage.

Well gee…I wonder why nobody wanted to even make a low-ball offer on your busted-ass mess of a house!

Sadly, this woman was very typical, and I say this from experience – I’ve known people who tried to sell a house and made some of the very same idiotic mistakes. And goodness news my husband and I looked at plenty of hot messes when we were looking to move up from our own townhome to the single family where we live now. Lucky for the woman on the show, a professional intervened and helped her not only set a reasonable price, but fix some of the crazy decor and messy non-staging that was going on.

Here’s a handy guide to what stupid people say about their messy houses, and what it really means:

“The house has character.” Translation: my house is full of broken shit, and I don’t want to spend the time/effort/money to fix it because I’m hoping you’ll buy my problems when you buy my house.

“I don’t want it to seem cold.” Translation: I don’t understand that seeing lots of personal photos and chotchkes turns people off. I’m too lazy or stupid to clear away my personal clutter and stage the house to look attractive to strangers. (Seriously – people don’t seem to get this at all. For better or worse, buyers have become conditioned by looking at lots of model homes to houses that are well-decorated but NOT covered in personal photos and artwork. Appeal to them!)

“I think buyers want to see a house that looks lived-in.” Translation: I’m too lazy to clean this place up. Guess what, Einstein? People do not look at YOUR clutter and imagine themselves living amongst it. They want to look at a house that is clean, tasteful, and uncluttered – because THEN they can imagine themselves moving in.

I’m just glad that a.) I’m not in the market to buy a house and b.) I’m not trying to sell my own house! I’d probably go insane!

Bean’s doctor called me last Friday to let me know the results, and they were a mixed bag. On the positive side, there were no arrhythmia’s of any kind. But the bad news is, the evidence of an accessory pathway did show up intermittently. In other words, she does still have WPW, although the intermittent nature of its appearance on the monitor means that the accessory pathway is most likely weakening. It might still go away on its own, someday.

Needless to say, at first I was pretty bummed. However, the doctor was optimistic. First, since she stopped taking heart medication three years ago, Veronica has never had any episodes of SVT or other arrhythmia. Second, as mentioned, the intermittent nature of the evidence of the pathway means that it’s probably weakening. He felt that all we needed to do was continue as before, and have her come back again to be checked out next summer. Further, he didn’t think that surgery was necessarily indicated next summer, even if the WPW is still present. He actually said that if the condition is still present when she’s a teenager, at that time we might consider the ablation that we had previously discussed with other doctors in the practice.

So overall, the prognosis is good. While I was a bit depressed and let down at first, on further reflection I’m actually feeling pretty positive about this. Honestly, every day that Veronica is alive is really a gift. I know that sounds ridiculously melodramatic, but let me just tell you…after you’ve stood in an emergency room hallway, watching eight people surround your three-week-old baby on a giant bed, trying desperately to find a vein where they can insert an IV to give her medication to slow down her heart, beating a wild 300 or so beats a minute; after you’ve watched in horror and disbelief as paddles are applied and her little body jerks wildly as they try to re-start her heart, which they finally slowed so much it stopped; after you’ve seen your baby strapped to a cart and attached to many machines rolled down the hall away from you to a waiting helicopter that you can’t ride in, to go to the regional children’s medical center; well… After all of those things and more, when you see that same little girl at four years old, happy and healthy and funny and creative, it really does seem like every day with her is a blessing.

Therefore, if we need to take Veronica to the cardiologist once a year until she’s 18, or have a Holter monitor every year, or even give her medication again at some point, I’m not going to complain. I’m just glad she’s healthy, and that at least she doesn’t remember any of those horrible things that I’ll always remember.

“She didn’t want to nap so she turned her cot over, hitting another child. She yelled and woke everyone up.”

“She threw her shoes at the teacher, then pushed her and pinched her.”

“She pulled all the books off the bookshelf and threw them at the other kids and the teacher.”

We were baffled. Stern discussions with the Bean herself always had the same result: she said she was sorry, and promised to be better. Her manners at home were good, and tantrums were very rare. We had a hard time reconciling this pleasant, helpful child with the violent demon that seemed to emerge at daycare every day. What was causing these tantrums and outbursts? Daycare was unclear – Bean “didn’t want to nap” or “didn’t want to wait in line” or “didn’t like it when Child X sat next to her.” I suspect it was more a result of bad influences – she certainly didn’t learn pinching at home, where nobody has ever pinched anybody else.

In any case, I solved this problem in three ways: two relatively cheap, and one very expensive.

First, we instituted a new “reward chart.” I had purchased this book of charts from Amazon some time ago, and we’d already used one to help with toilet training with good results. So I pulled out the “good behavior” chart and hung it on the wall where we can see it as soon as we get home from daycare. Then I got special Barbie stickers. Every day that Bean is good at school, meaning there are no reports of tantrums or acting out, we put a sticker in the box. When all the boxes are full, I have promised her we will start planning a trip to Disney World. (We were planning to go anyway, shhhh, don’t tell her!)

Second, I bought this book, “1-2-3 Magic,” based on the recommendation of other parents I consulted with in an online forum. So far, I like it. I’ve read the first half and hubby and I have started putting the “counting” method into practice. I really think it’s helping! It definitely helps cut off tantrums before they escalate at home. Most important to me, it’s keeping to a minimum the amount of yelling that goes on, on both the part of the child and the parents. I have to admit, it’s kind of darkly funny when my husband literally screams at our daughter to “be quiet!” but I also know it’s not effective at all. The techniques described in this book are MUCH more helpful.

Third, we decided that part of Bean’s problem is she’s bored. Take the napping issue: according to state regulations, apparently, all little kids up to Kindergarten have to have a “quiet period of rest” every day. At our daycare, that means everyone, even including the four- and five-year-olds, has to pull out a cot for “nap time” every afternoon. And nap time lasts for over an hour! Bean is so far past napping. She almost never takes a nap at home, unless she is REALLY tired out from some activity. We don’t try to force her to nap, because at this point she can play quietly on her own and she doesn’t need a nap (she goes to sleep every night at 8pm with no problems). In addition, I don’t think she’s being challenged anymore by the activities offered at daycare. Our daycare teachers are nice, but they’re not really teachers, and I think the Bean has out-smarted them at this point.

So we found a new solution that will not only challenge Bean intellectually and physically, but they also don’t force the children to take naps (just 1/2 hour of “quiet time” on mats on the floor). It’s a more structured environment, yet also more self-directed, and I think it will really help prepare her for Kindergarten. Our solution is Montessori pre-school. She’ll be starting in the Fall, and is already excited.

Of course this solution is the crazy expensive one. (I bet you thought the trip to Disney World was the expensive solution!) The tuition for our local Montessori is slightly more than twice what we currently pay for daycare. Think about that for a minute. That’s a whole lot of disposable income suddenly…disposed of! In addition, we have to buy her uniform pieces, and have to give her breakfast each morning and pack her a lunch every day (all currently provided by our daycare center). I’ll be honest – at first I thought it sounded like a big, expensive hassle. But gosh…when we toured that school, I fell in love. Rooms full of calm, happy children, actively engaged in self-directed learning activities. Beautiful, spacious classrooms. A gigantic, well-tended outdoor play area with new-looking equipment and a garden the children help with. Optional ballet, karate, and soccer classes. And unlike many of the other daycare centers near us, it’s not faith-based in any way, which is fairly important to us.

So yeah, we got discipline. We are now the MASTERS of toddler discipline. And starting this fall (well, this month really, when we have a gigantic deposit including a month’s tuition due to enroll her), we’ll hopefully have careful budgeting and cheaping out wherever possible mastered as well! But we justify it to ourselves by saying, “Well it’s only for a year, then she’ll go to public Kindergarten.” And that’s true. Only a year – possibly a slightly challenging year, but just a year. And I think she is SO worth the investment. It may sound corny, but when I filled out that application form, I really felt like I was making a decision that would completely change the Bean’s life, and give her a better start towards better opportunities.

I think I’m right. I think WE’RE right. I just wish being right wasn’t so expensive!

I’m working at home today, writing test cases for a product that is, itself, quite interesting. Sadly, the test cases are not so interesting – you know the drill (maybe): verify basic functionality, try to break it, repeat endless variations. Anyway, I took a short break just now to go downstairs and fix myself some lunch. While I was eating I caught a little bit of the Ellen show.

OMG! She had this 9-year-old guitar player on and he was AMAZING. He explained (through his interpreter, since he doesn’t speak English) that he started playing when he was 3 and said his favorite musical inspiration was Ozzy Osbourne. Then he played Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” and just shredded that mother to pieces. If you check out Ellen’s web site, it’s on the front page today.

Anyway, after he played, Ellen told him she had a surprise for him and guess who strolled out from backstage – OZZY!! At this point I got a little choked up because the look on that kid’s face was priceless – I thought he was going to cry or scream or faint from pure joy! And Ozzy was so sweet (isn’t he always?). Then they gave the little kid a framed, autographed photo of Ozzy in concert, or something.

Seriously, check out the look on this kid’s face. So awesome:

Pure joy!

That was a really nice lunch break.

“But I am writing because I don’t know what else to do as yet another relationship curtain falls on an increasingly decrepit stage, bereft, half-hearted encore complete and shoddy. I just want to exit stage left.”

“The tires squealed as he burned away in my Jeep. I had my laptop, my cellphone, my bank card, and woefully thin white shorts. I sat on a rock and stared at two squirrels dustling in the nearby forest and I took out my cell phone to be picked up by someone, anyone, other than him.

There was no cell phone service.”

“I pulled away with one of his hiking boots, some battered Okanagon fruit, and an intact heart, stealing glances in my rearview mirror at the fury that surrounded him.

I’m OK. I’ll float on. Now I can tread water, and I know how to look out for sharks.”

There is no shark big enough to devour your talent and your spirit, Kristin. Thank you once again for raising the quality level of this “blogosphere” thing. I am in awe of you.