Waiting for Godot: The Quest for a New Home, Part II (LOTR Style)

After stopping off at our storage units (by this time, we were up to three), we made the long journey (16 miles) to our rental home. Smack dab in the middle of Crackville Heights. It was a cute house, built in the 40's, adobe, with thick walls. There was a tiny dining room table, a kitchen with a huge island, and a small living room with a TV. There was the narrowest hallway I'd ever seen, a bedroom for Tyler, a laundry room, and then the master bedroom, which included the only door to the backyard. But the backyard was huge and well contained. Tyson and his cousin James had put the chest freezer in the master bedroom. The master bathroom had red sinks and black vanity. The guest bathroom had a bathtub. Our items took over the living room and kitchen - we never saw the island because all of our stuff was on it. Tyson let me know that a friendly neighbor had stopped by earlier to greet him, saying "Don't worry, I'm armed! Let me know if you need anything!" Somehow that wasn't reassuring.

The house wasn't childproofed, and Tyrien had just learned to crawl. It seemed like I couldn't walk down the hallway carrying him without bashing his head into a wall. We set up the pack-n-play in the master bedroom because that's where it fit. But remember how I said Tyrien was screaming his head off the entire time I was mopping the floors of our old house? It turned out, he took seeing our home converted into a vacant house had terrified him, and in the rental house, nighttime seemed to be terrifying to him. He was still recuperating from his hospital stay. In retrospect, he probably had another ear infection and we were just too stressed to realize it. All I know is, he cried more than he has ever cried in his life at night in that rental house. Every night he would end up in our bed, nursing. He nursed so hard so often that he was soaking through double-stuffed diapers. Each morning around 4am he would finally fall back asleep, and I would sneak away from him to go climb in bed with Tyler, so I could have enough room to fall asleep.

We thought we'd only have to stay for a week. We taught Tyler to do his homework at the tiny dining room table. We lost worksheets regularly. We had re-routed our checks to Tyson's mom's house - now our mail was taking weeks to arrive. We crated Vader daily. He was as stressed as Tyrien, and got sick often, in the crate. There was one rug that was non-washable, the homeowner wrote in her instructions, "This rug is special to me, and is not washable. Please refrain from bringing drinks in the bedroom. Please do not spill anything on it." Vader got sick on it. So much for getting our deposit back.

Things went awry with the Holmes House. Of course they did.

Oddly, a random real estate agent attended our home inspectection. He wasn't the seller's agent, and he was a blabbermouth. He pointed out problems with the house - "All the irrigation needs to be dug up and re-done." "Thieves broke in and vandalized the living room and kitchen." "Someone stole the A/C compressor." Seriously. One of the A/C units had been stolen from the back yard. It is hard to inspect an A/C when it has been stolen. We needed roof repairs. We needed skylight repairs.

In an attempt to close on time, the sellers decided to give us cash to cover the cost of the repairs. We made every effort to close on time. Then the loan guy dropped the ball, and didn't get the papers sent to the sellers in time. Our closing was pushed back even farther. Debbie inquired as to whether we could negotiate a possession prior, pointing out that we could transfer our renter's insurance from Crackville Heights to this house, protecting the seller from further insurance claims. Plus having vehicles at the house would decrease the likelihood than anyone else would break in. The sellers were cranky. After all, they had bought the house for $100k more than they were selling it for. Debbie had negotiated them down by over 10k, and negotiated for them to pay our closing costs and the repairs. We were insisting on another A/C inspection after they replaced the stolen compressor, which wasn't covered by their insurance since the house was vacant. They were pissed that now we weren't closing on time.

So we had to rent the Crackville Heights house for yet another week - the third week. By now, we had spent more than we would have at the condo or apartment. But, hindsight's 20/20, and we did appreciate the big yard and how close we were to work and school.

There was lots of unusual traffic in the area at all hours of the night, and plenty of GhettoBird activity, but everyone left us alone, and no one broke in.

We finally got to sign the closing paperwork. Debbie met Tyson to give him keys. Tyson spent that first night re-keying. It was only then that we realized just how many doors this property had. 17. 24 locks to change. He texted me at 2am asking, "I have like 7 more doors to go. Can I stop working on this now and just come home?"

That weekend, Tyson's dad and his friend John came to help us move everything from storage to the our new house. Tyson's mom helped me move everything from Crackville Heights. Tyson had to rent another truck with a lift. Tyler loved operating the lift and coordinating our movements. Tyrien mostly just played with Anne Marie.

Vader was in heaven. The moment I let him in the backyard, he ran out, jumped right over the divider wall, and ran around the yard.

He later escaped the backyard. Fortunately I had sneakers on. I heard Tyson say, "Your dog just left." I took off running after him, dropping my phones as I ran, and finally caught up to him as he marked his territory three blocks away. He sure can run fast for being so old.

I tried configuring our couch several different ways in our living room. Our couch that was perfect for our small little Treece house is too big for our much larger Holmes house. It is weird.

I told Tyson we should offer to buy John dinner for helping us all day. Instead, John said that his wife wanted to bring us dinner becaues we'd been moving all day. So we spent our first evening in our new home, unpacking and enjoying the company of good friends. Tyson's mom stayed long after they left, until I finally gave up trying to stay awake - I went to bed on the futon at 1am, and found Tyson sleeping on the couch in the morning. Not exactly how I'd imagined waking up in our new home, but we got right back to work unpacking.

Tyrien, still seeming to have some lingering trauma from the hospital and multiple moves, attempted to crawl after me in this house. Ah, but it has multiple passageways. Whichever way he was traveling, I could go a different way to evade him in my hurry to get work done. He cried alot for the first couple of weeks. He got very fast at crawling. He continued to lose weight.

Vader was struggling too. He was still getting sick often, not eating much, was happy to sleep in his crate, and had lost alot of weight. Then he hurt his leg one night, and couldn't seem to recover.

Tyler was fine. Each morning after he was dressed and had eaten breakfast, he'd go out front and explore the front yard, just beyond the wall, watching lizards and birds, and checking out the different plants.

We had tons of mosquitos. The grass was super long. We met one neighbor when he followed a stray dog onto our property, and Tyson helped him rescue the dog and contact the owners. Another neighbor came over with gifts for the boys. I loved the short commute to daycare, school, and work.

Just two weeks after we moved in, Tyler had his tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy. We felt so relieved to be in our new home for this! I took the week off from work to hang with him during his recovery. He asked that we keep Tyrien home too, to cheer him up. I got Vader medicine for his leg, and he perked right up. Tyrien learned to either keep up with me as I walked through the house. Tyler was just happy to eat popsicles and watch TV all week. And our house began to feel like a home.