Thanks to everyone who has been wishing us luck with the house and sending all that lovely good luckiness this way. We are both complete wrecks. We have banned ourselves from speaking about the house and still I find myself turning to Beefcake roughly every 3.5 seconds and asking him if he thinks we’ll get the house. He has tried to suggest that I “not worry my purdy little head about it” and let him be “the man” and deal with it. He was trying to be funny and make me feel better but of course I was forced to punch him in the ear.

To take out tiny little minds off of the worries we face, the Easter Bunny decided to run a special treasure hunt this morning instead of the usual “race about the garden frantically trying to gather the most eggs” type of hunt. Each child had their own set of clues to follow, which eventually led them to their basket of easter sugar (except for Grub who received a small toy and did not have to follow clues because she’s a baby and, despite being somewhat of a prodigy in the gross motor skills department, she cannot read). It was a raging success and I think we will employ this tactic again. All of the children were in delightful moods after the fun start to their day and we had a great day spending time together.

I decided to indulge in the chocolate today as well because there were mocha hot cross buns and dark chocolate bunnies for fuck’s sake. This, it turns out, constitutes a significant error of judgement on my part. The resulting sugar rush saw me engaged in several very energetic wii games, which involved dancing and other complicated moves of a physical and exercisey type nature. I was so hyped up I even challenged Rhubarb to a “cool moves” competition on the trampoline. I don’t really do cool moves on the trampoline as a rule (read – I don’t jump on the trampoline) so I should have known it was the sugar talking. I blame Beefcake, he stood by and judged the whole thing, he must have known how I would feel later (I won by the way but Rhubarb feels that the judging was not all above board).

To cap it off, we all went for a long walk and I borrowed Rhubarb’s bike and RODE for quite some distance. I did some chin-ups on some of the play equipment at the park and helped Rhubarb carry his bike home (he burst the inner tube doing something silly and was worried about damaging his rims on a completely flat tyre). Now, I don’t do chin-ups and this was only the second time I have ridden a bike in the last eight years or so.

I’ll bet you can imagine how I feel now.

I will be even worse tomorrow, which is not convenient as we are having a large family lunch. I will be cooking and cleaning all morning tomorrow feeling like an arthritic old lady.

It’s evil stuff that sugar. I don’t usually touch it that much. I don’t even like bloody milk chocolate and I have consumed enough of it today to put a whale into a diabetic coma.

I’m not too bright.  I am not a grown up. I shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions on my own.

Seriously.

Oh and Happy Easter!!

So I suppose I should update people on what has happened with the house and things. Some people have been harassing me for information. I guess I have been feeling a bit weighed down by the stress of it all and have avoided blogging because I have been trying not to think about it.

Which is ridiculous because that is all I can think about all of the time.

So.

They turned down our offer. They have decided to be as uncooperative as possible and simply counter-signed the contract at their original asking price, some $25k over our offer. We do not have that money.The house is not worth that even if we did.

We have made a second offer of a few thousand more. They are now taking the long weekend to consider it. I am not sure why they need to keep dragging this out. They have no other offers on the table. We know this now. They can either take our offer or keep their house basically. I think that they must believe we have a stack of cash up our sleeves and if they keep us waiting we will become desperate.

We have pretty much decided to walk away if they continue to be so unbending following this offer. If they attempt to negotiate properly we have a small amount of room to negotiate with them but we are pretty much at our limit now anyway.

The thing is, as soon as we saw this house, I knew it was ours. We both did. We went to the inspection knowing how much we were willing to offer. We already knew we loved it. IT IS OURS.

I will still be devastated if we do not get it but I am having to face the reality that these people do not seem to want to sell their house at any sort of reasonable price. In the end, we may be thwarted by their unrealistic expectations.

It also may not be the right time for us to buy.There seems to be obstacles erected at every turn. Now the mortgage people are saying their may be some problems securing a loan against Beefcake’s income as he earns in a foreign currency.

So, so stressful.The strain has caused me to be an emotional idiot. I do not cry well at the best of times. Give me an emotional movie or book plot and I’m away but my own real life crises do not lead me to shed tears easily. I am irritable and nasty. I had a good sob over something I read on the internet last night though. Sometimes a good cathartic weep is what’s needed.

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The big kids are with their father and stepmother for a couple of days. We get them back tomorrow morning before we head to the in-laws for an Easter gathering. I have had two distressed phonecalls from Rhubarb because his quite highly strung stepmother had a fit and locked herself in her room. The reason? Her thirteen-year-old stepson wasn’t making polite enough conversation and she was angered, feeling that he didn’t like her. They were on their way somewhere and they turned the car around and went home for her to have her fit. Rhubarb hid behind the garden shed and called me. He told me she had also yelled at Poss.

It is quite comical really. Their father overheard Rhubarb talking to me and was concerned that he was talking to himself. He called Beefcake to ask if R had been in touch with us. They have interpreted Rhubarb’s monosyllabic grunting as depression and I think they felt he may be having some sort of episode. This is how in touch with Rhubarb they are.

They know him, not at all. He is a happy NORMAL teenager. He has heaps of friends and got a good report from school the other day. His stepmum had a big talk to Beefcake and we learned she has all sorts of bizarre ideas about the kids. It is such a strain for me not to march right around there and bring the kids home. Rhubarb insisted that he would like to stay but also said he doesn’t think he’ll be going back in a hurry.

We go round and round like this. He sees them. They are awful to him. He takes a break from seeing them and then gradually eases himself back into it and we are back where we started. They have no idea how to parent him and are not in touch with who he is AT ALL.

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It is not all gloom and doom. We were gifted with zoo membership for Christmas last year and had not had a chance to use it. Today we decided to take the small ones so we packed a spur of the moment picnic and headed off for a few hours. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The four of us had a lovely time and because it was free we didn’t have to try to fit in seeing everything, squeezing every last cent out of the exorbitant entry fee. I think we will try and use it a lot from now on, we had a ball.

I will post some photos tomorrow, or not, you know how it is.

Still no word on the house.

I am trying to remain calm.

The agent called again last night to say that we would definitely have an answer tonight. I can’t help but wonder what is happening at their end of things. Do they have another offer on the table? Are they negotiating with someone else to try and better our offer or the terms of the contract? If they are doing that, why not play us off against each other? I mean, not that we have any more money to offer them but still. We could negotiate on terms of the contract. I just can’t stand the fact that we have no power in this situation. No control.

To top it off, the mortgage broker informed us yesterday that there has been a change (as of this week) to lending conditions, which means we could not access the loan we were going to get. Cue scrambling about trying to gather more money together so we can still possibly buy this house.

We managed to do it.

Just.

Although we won’t be making any of the changes we had planned for soon after we moved in, if everything goes well and the wind blows in the right direction and the planets align, we will be homeowners again. Kind of. In that the bank will mostly own it but, you know.

I have things crossed left right. I can’t bear to think about not getting it.

Can.

Not.

It seems I am not cut out for this tense waiting business.

I am a bundle of nervous energy.

I went and spent the day with Patchouli! and Spawn #1 and #2 today. Spawn #2 is now three months old and he is chubbalicious and sweet and smiley and delightful. Spawn #1 is suffering badly from the green eyed monsters and displays his distaste for the state of affairs by quite weird and erratic behaviour. It’s a hard gig this Auntie business. I adore my nephews and feel very close to them but that leads to the temptation to tell Spawn #1 off when he is being aggressive and bizarre and that would not help at the moment. Poor little guy. He is giving Patchouli! a run for her money. She is finding it all a bit much and feels a failure as a mother. She is, of course, a wonderful mother and Spawn #1 is a gorgeous boy who is just finding life a bit hard to deal with at the moment. New babies suck the way they take all of Mummy and Daddy’s attention. You can see his little mind is crying out “Usurper!” but he is very sweet with his brother, poor little man.

Where was I?

Oh, the house, yes. We have not heard from the agent. Well, actually, she accidentally called tonight (meant to dial someone else) and told Beefcake to hang in there as the vendors are still “mulling it over”. This is good as it means, at least, that they have not said no to our offer. They are considering it. There is hope.

I think about it constantly. I have planned the kitchen (it needs a new one as soon as we move in because the current one consists of a stove and two cupboards) and priced the appliances I would like to buy. I have planned where all of the furniture will go and priced some built-in storage we would need in part of the house. I have chosen paint colours for some of the things I would like to change. It is not good. My poor little mind is struggling with the concept that they may refuse our offer. Beefcake is this close (about a milimetre) to telling me to be quiet. I am making him nervous. He is doing a remarkable job of going about his business and not worrying about it. I am reminding him every five seconds by messaging him links to an oven I like or a kitchen I think is shiny and pretty. He has told me I need to calm down.

I am trying but it is sooooooo exciting.

I shall fall apart if we don’t get it.

I can not be mature about it.

I shall simply collapse in a heap.

Somebody tell me something mature. Make me be a grown-up. I’m embarrassing myself.

I often spend time looking at real estate ads. I quite enjoy looking at houses and fantasising about what we might be able to buy eventually. I look at fanciful dream houses that we could never afford. I look at derelict wrecks that could be transformed into the house of our dreams. I look at houses that we just might be able to live in and be able to afford.

Back in February I bookmarked a sweet little house in an nearby area that we love. It seemed to be priced a bit highly and the ad informed me that it required a lot of work. That wouldn’t put us off, we’ve renovated a few houses, but we never bothered to look at it because it just wasn’t the right time for us to buy. On Friday we noticed that it was still on the market and so we decided to call the agent and ask to have a look through it. We arranged an inspection for late Saturday afternoon.

We were excited but realistic about the fact that there had to be some reason the house had not sold up to this point. We thought perhaps it was in pretty bad condition and the vendor was refusing to come down in price. This particular part of Adelaide sits on clay soil and as the soil dries over our long, dry summer, the clay dries out and walls crack causing pretty bad sturctural damage. It is managable if kept under control but it can get pretty bad in a house where no one is taking notice.

When we arrived at the inspection there were two or three other couples who had come to inspect as well. As we all waited on the footpath, the owner put leads on his two dogs and went off walking so that we could inspect. The place looked a little bit scary but from the front it was nothing like the worst we had ever seen. Not even close. We were opitimistic.

We went in.

Oh, how I wish we had not.

The house had been tidied, the bed had been made in the sole occupied bedroom. As I walked into the room, however, I was nearly overcome by the smell. There were large brown stains on the pillows. The stench of human and animal living side by side in that room was almost overwhelming. I can’t describe it and I don’t care to think too carefully about what had produced it. Let’s just say that I was thankful that Grub had fallen asleep in the car and we had Rhubarb with us to stay with her. We only had Pudding in the house and I could steer him and make sure that he didn’t touch any of the surfaces.

It only got worse. In the second (unoccupied) bedroom the cracks were so large that you could see through to the next room and the ceiling was falling down. The lounge room was covered in a visible layer of thick black sludge, about a centimetere thick. The smell and the grime and the structural defects continued. I was nearly overcome in the kitchen and actually dry-wretched. I grabbed Pudding and tried to use my best ‘nothing’s wrong, let’s be lighthearted’ tone to suggest we look at the back yard.

There was an outhouse toilet and shower that were so encrusted in filth I couldn’t do more than glance at them without nearly being sick. On the plans it stated that there was an inside bathroom, however the door was closed and no one dared open it. All of us stood out in the yard for a few minutes to collect ourselves for the trip back throught the house in order to leave. It was unanimous, we were all utterly shocked by the state of the place. One brave soul looked down the side of the house but suggested it might be best if I did not.

I have never seen or smelled anything like it in my life. It would have been a nice house only a decade or so ago. It had been renovated at some point but clearly the man with the dogs is unable or unwilling to clean and maintain it now. The agent is adamant that the asking price is just the land value but I don’t think they’ll be selling it any time soon.

After we left the smell and the grime and the feeling of darkness and despair that hung around that place clung to me. Beefcake tried to make a joke about my new bag having brushed against the walls and I just lost it. We were in the car driving with all the kids and I became hysterical, sobbing and hyperventilating. There are few things that can trigger an outright panic attack in me but apparently densest filth in combination with my new and most precious handbag is one of them.

I feel quite guilty about it now. Rhubarb was shocked. He had never seen me be upset like that before. Beefcake had only ever seen it once or twice. My precious Rhubarb gave me a big hug when we came home (after I had come inside and changed my clothes). He said “Oh Mum, I love you, it’s been a while since I’ve given you a hug”. That kind of made it all better, really. I steal a hug or a kiss on the cheek here and there but he never volunteers a big long cuddle like that these days. I haven’t had a hug like that for weeks. I still can’t think about the house without a shudder but at least I got the hug from ma boy.

P.S. Also found the house of  our dreams in the newspaper (gorgeous area, gorgeous, very doable house with just enough work to do, a price we can afford) and we made an offer today. Now we must sit and bite our fingernails while they decide if they’ll accept our offer. Wish us luck!!!

When we first moved into this house I was heavily pregnant with Grub. We were arriving home from a stint living in London and we just needed to find a rental that could be home – quickly. I was planning to (and did) have a homebirth so I needed it to feel right. We were lucky to find this place and we have enjoyed living here.

It was always the plan that we would wait a year or so and then buy a house again. A year has drifted by now and we are not ready. We have been a little free with the money that we should have been saving. We have kind of taken a break from the relentless grind of being careful and counting every cent. We definitely could have been a lot smarter but I think that we needed to do this before diving back into the mortgage thing again.

We have just gotten our act together and are taking the saving thing seriously when, wouldn’t you know it?

The landlord wants his house back.

He called this afternoon to say that he has decided to move back in himself and do some renovations ready to sell it. He had been planning to demolish and build a couple of cheap and nasty numbers to make a quick buck but he has decided against it.

He was very nice and apologetic but we now have two months to be out.

This is at least a decent amount of time.

I am anxiety.

I am distress.

I am fine with a bit of a change. I was the instigator behind the “let’’s up and move the whole family to the UK” thing. My feet are as itchy as the next person. – itchier.

I just would like to do it on my own terms.

My terms are as follows:

• That it happen in 6 to 8 months time.
• That we have won some money in the lottery, which I never remember to buy a ticket in.
• That we will find the house of our dreams and nobody else will be interested and we will be able to buy it for next to nothing.
• The dream house will be located in ideal position close to Rhubarb’s school in a nice, tree-lined street.

What do you think? Reasonable, yes?

Here is the reality of what will happen:

• Find a cheap rental that will accept a family with four children and a dog.
• Find that’s impossible and locate somewhere for the dog to board and cram children into two bedroom unit.
• Save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save.
• Buy ordinary house in bad location for the absolute maximum we can afford.
• Spend rest of life ferrying children to and from school.

I am unhappiness.

It is so hectic around here all the time these days.

On the one hand I have Rhubarb. He is the very essence of thirteen. He is moody and sensitive and temperamental. He is sweet and loving in moments but the TAAM never seems to be far below the surface. I teased him this evening that every single utterance he makes seems to be a cliché of teengageness, his response was “Whatever, Mum”. I couldn’t stop laughing. We all know all of the stereotypical teenage moody and sullen behaviours. I knew what to expect except yet I am shocked daily by the sudden, awful reality of it.

I have a distinct feeling of helplessness. I want to knock on his skull and ask if he is actually in there. There is just no logic to it, I could say something teasingly to him in the morning and incite a stream of moans and muttering and yet find the same thing would be a fun joke to share in the afternoon. I don’t know whether I am coming or going. It requires supreme patience and I can see so clearly how we could lose our grip, how he could become a complete stranger to us if we are not careful to keep some lines of communication open.  I think in this I have to have some faith that he is the boy I know, that he will remain so at his core as long as we can keep things in his life reasonably even.

I am decidedly paranoid that I will do something horrifically wrong at some crucial age and send him spiraling off into an abyss of delinquency. We will just try and do the right thing and hope that we make it out the other end of this teenage thing intact.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have a nine-month-old baby who has decided that she is ready to walk. She is most definitely not ready to walk, in my opinion. She is not psychologically ready for the reality of being that far from the ground and the physical aspect should be beyond her as well. Her balance is horrific. This does not deter her. She cruises the furniture at lightening speed now, she has taken up to two steps independently. Today she is nine months and two weeks old. This is far from reasonable. She is too short for one thing.

I have had two other children walk prior to ten months of age. It is not funny. I may have to fashion a baby helmet and padding for her because as it stands she is a danger to herself and others. The kind of danger she can get into while standing doesn’t bear thinking about. She tried to climb a large bookshelf the other day. She has also developed a passion for trying the various taste sensations that are to be found around the floor of our immaculately kept home. She seems to like things ’seasoned’ with dust and lint. She tried to take a large bite of the dog this evening, repeatedly. The dog likes to roll around in all manner of crap in the back yard. She is not a culinary delight.

Poss has been claiming illness all week. We believed her on Monday, thinking that she was coming down with our cold. This failed to happen. We sent her to school on Tuesday. Today she managed to pull out a temperature at breakfast time and Beefcake was forced to send her back to bed with her ‘tummy ache’. She has seemed fine all day. I suspect that she is fine but I have been wrong before and I do not wish to again retrieve a vomiting child from school under the accusing glare of the receptionist, who already knows we are bad parents.

Pudding is being his usual boisterous and vibrant self. This evening, whilst he demonstrated some new ‘moves’ atop Grub’s cot, we shared this:

P: “Mummy, you and Daddy are my parents”

Me: “Yes darling we are”

P: “I am very clever”

Me: “Yes you are”

P: “I am also funny”

Me: “You are funny”

P: “A poo comes out of a bum, ha!”

Me: Laughing more at his uproarious laughter than the actual ‘joke’ because really, poo has been done – “Oh you are hilarious”

Beefcake: “And you are very strong”

Pudding: “Yes, I know, and I have power.”

Things tick along with all of us. I wonder sometimes how I can do them all justice, they all pull me in such different directions. The volume and variety of children in our house leaves me a  bit torn sometimes.

In what directions are you being pulled?