For Sale...

My husband and I figured that our lives weren't complicated enough lately, so we decided to sell our house. We love the house we have now, but with two VERY active kids running around and two businesses being run from the house we have determined that we need more room.

This works fine for my husband. He is out on calls all day, so when people are viewing the house, he is out in the field. I have the pleasure of keeping the house in "model house" shape with two kids running around it. I am beginning to think it would be easier to learn to fly a plane or speak Latin over keeping up with the mess of two young kids.

Here is a typical morning interaction with my kids:
Me: "OK, now don't pull out too many toys in case someone comes over to look at the house."
Son: "But mom, I want to play Rescue Heroes!"

Note: This is going on as my daughter is throwing toys out of the toy box over her shoulder. I don't think she is looking for a particular toy so much as she is looking for the bottom of the toy box.

Me: "I know you do, but if someone comes over to look at the house, we are going to have to clean up quickly."
Son: "Mom, when are we going to sell the house?"
Me: "We're trying son. That's why we have to keep it so clean."
Son: "But when is someone actually going to buy it?"

This is about the time I get frustrated. One time, in a bit of frustration, I told him that someone would buy the house on Friday. Guess what he does every Friday? "Mom, is someone going to buy the house today?" I suppose that's what I get for giving him an answer to get him to quit asking me.

I also made the mistake of telling my son that the next time someone came to look at the house, we would go to Toys R Us. With absolutely no intention of buying anything, I loaded up my kids on a weekend two weeks before Christmas, and went to Toys R Us. How many of you can claim THAT type of parenting blunder?

In the past 10 days we have had over 30 sets of people walk through our house. About 20% of those have come over with about 15 minutes notice. Have you ever tried to clean up after two kids in 15 minutes? Remember, this is not just a "clean up because you have company coming over" type of clean but a "the house needs to look sterile" clean. Thanks to my kids this usually includes reorganizing my son's closet floor because he wanted the toy at the back of the closet that he hasn't played with in three months and replacing the 50 movies that my daughter has pulled off the movie rack while I turned my back.

Between that and picking up renegade Cheerios that have somehow ended up in the hallway, I've often wondered if it would be easier to keep the house and sell the kids. Of course, if I did that I would need to keep them clean instead of the house. I guess I like to pick and choose my battles.