A comedy of errors

Today was a day that made me laugh and cry (mostly cry, and the laughter tended to turn into crying most times). We started out the day as usual, dragging 4 kids out the door, dropping 2 at school, and heading to the cardiologist with the remaining 2 (I think I can do the drive to UAB's 4th Ave parking deck in my sleep). We go to the cardiologist a lot (obviously), and we are always in and out quickly. But not today. Oh no, the devil declared full-on warfare today. So, as we are waiting and waiting, Ana does a nice little number in her diaper. No big deal. I take the kids to the bathroom pull out the changing pad, lay Ana down, get my wipes ready, grab the diaper...WAIT! There is no diaper. It is in the van in a parking deck a few blocks away. So, as mommies often do, I decide to improvise. Don't ask, and I won't tell. Let's just say that Ana walked out of the bathroom wearing a semi-clean diaper.

We race out of the cardiologist office to attempt to get to the boys' school on time to pick them up. And yes, I stopped long enough to make sure Ana was wearing a completely clean diaper. We make it in time, and we head home. I open the door of the house to a ringing phone, 5 blinking messages on the answering machine, 4 kids begging for lunch among other things, and an e-mail from a couple who was on their way to pick up something I was selling on Craigslist.

After feeding the kids, putting the 2 littles down for naps, and responding to a few calls and e-mails, I receive a call from Gary. He is house-hunting right now and has only a few days to find us a new address. We had scheduled to view 8 or 9 properties in 2 days time. However, all morning Gary had been receiving calls from all of the rental management companies letting him know that the properties we had scheduled viewings for had rented in the last few days. We went from 8-9 available properties to view down to 3!!! So, I busily start hunting online again. As I call to schedule appointments the responses are the same: "that one is not available until November," "that one currently has a contract on it," or nobody answers AND they never call back. We are moving our family of 6 to Portland in a few days and we have nowhere to live...AWESOME!!!! I start getting desperate and expanding our search, compromising on budget and on things that were high on our priority list (like a yard). I find a townhouse that has enough space for us, no yard, and 2 attached neighbors. As I pull it up online and prepare to call to schedule a showing (practically crying, I might add), Trey looks at the picture and says, "look it's perfect! We can live in this one, somebody else can live on this side, and somebody else on the other side. That way we can have friends!" Thank you, God for 5 year-old wisdom-once again. So, I call the rental company, give the poor woman my sob story about moving so soon and not having a place to live (with 4 kids). Her response is a comical, "you sound stressed about that". I assure her I am, but also tell her, "I am going to take a deep breath now and beg you to allow my husband to view this town house today". She asks for my husband's name, and when I give it to her she says, "Ohhhhh, yeah. You guys were scheduled to see two other properties today that were rented". Yes. Yes we were. She agrees to show him the property at 3pm. As she is showing him the home she says, "by the way, I am showing this property right after you at 4". SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!? At this point I think we should own a rental property in Portland. But since we own nothing but a house we can't sell in Birmingham, instead it just stresses me out! We were almost freaked out enough to just take the first thing available, but faith prevailed and we did not.

After leaving the town home, Gary received a call from the rental agent. Apparently either my stressed out phone call moved her, OR (and I'm leaning this way) it was her deep love for her niece with Down syndrome that made her identify with our family. But, she pulled some strings and found a way to allow us to view a property that we had inquired about a few weeks ago that is not even available yet. Gary will check it out tomorrow, and I am so grateful to her for doing that.

And on top of all of that, I had to say an official good-bye to one of my nearest and dearest today. She started crying, and I started crying...again. Really not fun. Love you, Angela!!!

Just hoping that tomorrow comes with less stress, less crying, more laughing (real laughing, not the half-laughing/half-crying I've been doing all day), AND an address :)