Why I can't remember the past week

 A photograph of me at 12:32 today. You'll understand later.

On maternity leave, one probably imagines that I am at home watching Days of Our Lives (gag) and snuggling my 6 weeks old without a care in the world.

This is not that story. This is maternity leave on speed. Just kidding...I don't do speed. Unless it is an ingredient in Frosties, then oops. Anyway...

My earliest memory of the past week is last Thursday, when it was beginning to be HolyCrapWeAreListingThisWeekend time. I am not a procrastinator but being that I did have a baby on 3/18, a 3rd birthday party on 4/13, family Easter at our house on 4/20, and an actual 3rd birthday on 4/21, waiting til 4/24 was not THAT outlandish.

On Thursday and Friday, my mom and I tag-teamed the baby whilst doing 11 loads of backed-up laundry (not an exaggeration), arranging boxes of graham crackers to make our cabinets look "roomy", and de-peeing the bathroom floor. You know, when you spray down what you thought was a clean floor only to find that you are the most disgusting family in the world according to your grout.

I made my first Craiglist deal on Thursday, and as illustrated by the email responses below, I *may* have overpaid for the offered "gig". Those all came through within 16 minutes of each other. Oh well, $40 was a small fee to not have trash bags sitting in our garage until trash day and not have to find out where our local dump is located. PS, Ronnie was the winner.

Friday, the house went from "OK" to looking like mobsters came in and destroyed the place looking for a briefcase of money. You know how there is that stage of house cleaning where everything has to come out of its spot to find the correct spot? That was Friday. By Friday night, things were looking better and it was time to start focusing on actual cleaning (like, the shining/dusting/degriming part). Enter my awesome nextdoor neighbor Mo (who sells cleaning products--score!) She made our kitchen look unrecognizable while Matt painted our new doors and I kept de-cluttering. By Friday at midnight, we were in good shape. The dining room table was FULL of misplaced things and I contemplated just lighting it on fire to quickly solve the problem.

At 10:58 on Saturday, I was finished and so happy with our little house! At 11:00, our Realtor came for the big day of picture-taking, signing, and putting up the "for sale" sign. Here is the gist of the listing:

Hope you enjoyed those because I probably aged 2 years getting it to look like that. And I included the glam basement because it was like my life's work down there. It was never atrocious, but it was FULL, man. Full of laundry, tubs of baby girl clothes, just packed. And now, it is clean enough to be on a website. I guess if you knew homes in our town, you'd know that basements are typically of the dungeon/SAW variety.

As I talked with David, our Realtor, I got pretty excited about our chances in selling it. Inventory is low, demand is high. People are paying over asking price at times. While I know we need to move and to capitalize on our investment, I still felt sad putting it on the market. We brought our babies home to this house!! 

Fast forward to Sunday, when we are all living in a museum-like atmosphere. David got us listed Sunday afternoon and said that we might begin getting texts for showings as soon as Monday. He was right.

Monday morning, we got a request to see the house from 7:15-8:15 that night. Whoo hoo (except bedtime? Oh well, this is exciting-- who cares?!)  We sprung into gear, realizing that many things that were slid out of the way or tossed aside in photos would be visible to people in our house. Every hanger was turned the same way, toothpaste tubes were rolled correctly, and my organizing quirks got their chance to shine. You see, while I may not notice that something needs dusted for, oh, a year, I will rip something off the hanger if it is out of ROYGBIV order.

At 7:00, we had the house ready, all animals and children packed up, and were headed out for an "adventure". We turned the first corner probably 50 yards from our house and Zoe's crate went flying across the car and landed on Sebastian. Larkyn started crying because that upset her, and then Rhys because dammit, he's hungry. We moved from parking lot to parking lot, feeding one baby, going to Dairy Queen, and texting our neighbors who were spying for us. It was a little stressful, but kind of fun.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I told my mom I'd need to bring the dogs and Rhys over for our 5:30-6:30 showing. On my way to have a nice, relaxing visit with Julie, I got a text requesting a 12:30 showing. Crap! The house wasn't ready yet!  Visit was cut to a hello-hug-coo over Baby Eva-hug-goodbye and off we went. While furiously making the bed and swiffering, I got another text for a 1:45 showing. I had been at my mom's house for an hour or so when our entire evening was booked. We would have 3 showings at once from 7-8:00.

It all sounded exciting, but I soon realized we didn't have diapers for an 8 hour visit, a bad storm was headed in at 8:00 when we were supposed to leave, and we just all wanted to go home. This showing "thing" was quickly losing its charm.

While I was at my mom's, I was also receiving feedback from prospective buyers. Their Realtors leave it on the same system that texts us for showings. By 8 AM this morning, I had received my 4th feedback saying basically the same thing:  Your house is too small. "Cute house, a bit too small", "House shows well, but buyers need a bigger house", "Great finishes and yard. Move-in ready. Too small for buyers".

Ummm underneath all of those glamour shots of Miss Cute House 2014 is the damn square footage and "2 Bedrooms". Why would you waste our time to come see it if you knew it was small? Our part of town has the smallest houses in Columbus because the location is fabulous. Good LUCK finding your sprawling mansion in the same price range...that is what I was thinking this morning.

I got ready for our 12:30 showing and decided I was going to camp out on another street where I could see when the buyers left our house and I could go back. While eating my chicken pot pie with the sounds of dog panting and baby snores behind me, I saw something interesting. A car pulled into our driveway at 12:30. And left at 12:31. Open mouth, mid-pot pie-bite. WHAT are you doing, you idiots, that is the right house. Where are you going!? I waited for them to come back. And waited. Then I got mad.

I know I reference Cruella DeVille more than any normal person, but that is probably who I looked like as I "took the high road" and did not drive after them, but instead drove to Whole Foods. Where I had a meltdown in the parking lot. 

What did they hate about it now?!  Maybe word on the real estate street was our house is too small to even go inside?  I didn't know, but I hated that I cleaned AGAIN and uprooted the family again for people to just stand us up. After I called my mom and showed my emotional side (sorry, mom), I called my Realtor and was ready to show my assertive big girl side. But I was cut short.

"And I was out of sight so I could go back, I know they didn't see me but I saw them and they didn't get out. Who does that?! Can we find out who it was and what the problem was!?..."

"It doesn't matter."

"What?"

"You got a cash offer from the second showing yesterday. They put it together last night and sent it over this morning. Congratulations!"

So. We have an offer. Our house was on the market for 48 hours and it might be sold. We countered and are waiting to hear back, but this might be it!  Keep your fingers crossed for us:)