When Life Creeps In...

This morning my four-year-old son, Charlie, wanted to be in his room, playing by himself without the nuisance of his fifteen-month-old brother and he has that right. The only problem was that when Charlie shut the door he didn't seem to notice that Jamie's tender little fingers were in the crease.

I was a few feet away, taking the dishes out of our dishwasher when the shrieking erupted. To experience sweet little Jamie in such pain nearly killed me, the wave of emotion riding through me was so intense. There's nothing more horrible than experiencing one's own child in pain.

The good news is that Jamie's hand was only a little cut and bruised, but man was that a moment.

This has kind of been my life lately. I usually reserve this blog for the positive, the insightful and the productive, but once in a while, what the hell. Life creeps in. It certainly has for us these past few weeks.

My family and I are in the process of pulling up stakes. This has required us to ship out about a third of our stuff to make our apt look 'bigger' and to allow a constant stream of visitors into our place to take a gander. My wife, who is an interior designer as well as a disciple of all those reality TV home improvement shows, has figured out to almost scientific precision how our apartment should be presented. It's a funny reality we're selling. Hand towels we aren't allowed to use. The high chair stowed away in the closet. Everything perfect. I mean, the overall message we're trying to convey to the prospective couples, mainly city professionals, who are all thinking of moving to this apartment and starting a family is : "Hey, you too can live in this pristine apartment with kids and no mess." Yeah, right. Of course, prepping the apartment into this state of being every time someone wants to come to see it with two energized boys mucking about is a little stressful. And when we're not doing this funky routine, the rest of the time is spent house hunting for ourselves. What a nutty song and dance.

Add to this is the new wake-up schedule of our two boys. I swear they must have a secret pow-wow every night before bedtime because invariably one of them will insist on waking up at an ungodly hour in the morning while the other will sleep in. The next morning they'll reverse their schedules. It's like tag teaming daddy every morning, which is making me go to sleep earlier and earlier as a result. I've been so foggy-eyed these past several weeks, trying to focus on the project at hand is certainly a challenge.

Anyway, there's my rant. The good news is that we have a serious offer on our apartment and in this market that's a good thing. As for the project...Stay tuned. The fog is (hopefully, please God!) starting to lift.