March is marching on

In the last 14 days we have had 14 showings.

Two of those we heard didn't actually happen, one due to a missing key snafu (what kind of realtor doesn't put the key back in the lock box?), but still. Almost an average of one person a day looking at our house. It's getting a little exhausting, being this clean. I love it, though. Every room in our house is clean. Every day. Levi and the kids are being wonderful. Especially (not really especially, maybe surprisingly?) Nathan, who doesn't even want to move. He never neglects to take his dirty clothes upstairs to Alice's laundry hamper since we're no longer keeping a laundry basket out downstairs. Yesterday morning we were running a little late to school but he remembered to make his bed. I was so pleased I didn't even yell he was making himself late to school (he wasn't). We had a showing on Sunday and so he made my bed for me as I was running around getting everyone ready. Sometimes that boy can be so sweet. Alice has been putting her shoes and toys away in her closet as she gets ready for bed. I've been really enjoying all this putting-awayness. I hope our house sells before the inevitable backslide into clutter begins. I'm hoping this will start new habits for everyone, including me. I've never been a bed-maker, but now I am. And it makes such a difference.

A few things about our family as of now:

Peter has three favorite playthings: electrical cords, bookshelves, and the contents of any cabinet he can open. He is the direct enemy of all the cleaning we've been trying to enforce lately. This morning I had the upstairs clean so I closed all the doors. When he crawled upstairs and couldn't get to any of his favorite play spaces (the bathroom cabinet and the bookshelf in his bedroom) he cried and cried. He's had a cold for quite a while and was getting grumpier and grumpier until I finally took him to the doctor. Probably shouldn't have waited so long, as Peter became the first of my kids to be prescribed oral antibiotics. Poor little guy with hurty ears. He's much better now.

Alice has recently made a large leap in dialectic capacity, both in vocabulary and sentence complexity. Today she said, "I don't like bugs because they creep me out!" The other day my mom laughed when she said, "What the heck?!" and so she kept saying it, getting louder and with more pronounced facial expressions and head movements. We're taking a break from potty training since she was getting more and more resistant. I think we're making progress towards starting up again since she's no longer insisting she's a baby, and has even gone so far as to admit she'll go potty when she's big, and that turning three will make her big. She's also said she'll be big AND go potty when she's five, though, so there's that deadline to look forward to. She has a "robot" she made with Nathan's help (an empty yogurt container with freezer tape wrapped around it) that we have tried and failed to get rid of. She fills it with little princess figurines and totes it around. It comes to preschool with her. And heaven forbid one of the toys be missing--she will notice. I'm looking at you, Prince Eric--what were you thinking, being in the van all by yourself?

Clara is pining for kindergarten. She comes up with elaborate plans every day: parties, mostly. Every day is a letdown. Where are we going today? What are we doing? Who's coming over? Why isn't mom planning elaborate celebrations all the time? Clara I think wishes she could live in a Fancy Nancy book. Every day life is just too humdrum. She's been riding her scooter a lot lately and is getting pretty fast on it, as opposed to Nathan, who can't be bothered to practice. She's back to happily doing online preschool every day, and is making a lot of progress. One day Levi found a list of the names of our family and commented on why Nathan didn't know how to spell Peter. It was spelled something like "Pedr." When I told him Clara had done it on her own, he was much more impressed.

Nathan has recently made a big jump in schoolwork. Every day he brings home a book from his classroom for reading, and he'd been working on level E or F. One day he was so excited. "Look at my bag, mom." He'd jumped from level E to level K. That burst of confidence also got him over the hump on a math test level he'd been stuck on. It's so nice to see the daily frustrating math and reading practice translate into progress, and to see the satisfaction for him. He's also become best friends with a little boy who it turns out lives just in the cul-de-sac across the street. So at every available opportunity, he's wanting to be over there. Or up the street to play with some other boys who are always outside. This is why he doesn't want to move.