Still waiting for my gold star...

... for "sleeping" on an air mattress all last week. My neck and back is somewhat recovered. The in laws were lovely and Leila was thrilled to have them here, but it is nice to be able to get her to bed before 11:00 (11:00!) and to be able to walk in the house w/o tripping on people and/or suitcases. That 3rd room and basement in the new house should make all the difference for future inn-keeping.

And speaking of the new house, we did survive settlement on Friday - I have a lovely bottle of Signature Mortgage label Cabernet to commemorate our closing costs and cramped hands from the hundreds of signatures. We possess a key, but chances that the sellers are out before the remaining 56 days of our rent-back agreement have passed are about -0. Their 1st choice purchase is a short sale, with a backup contract on a for sale by owner... seems a bit nuts to me, but whatev... That puts us in the last week of May and I have enough to tackle in April/May w/ Leila's school auction, her birthday, then Cesar's 35th birthday... yeah, and all the organizing and purging and packing and furniture ordering that needs to be done.

And the kid - who is now about 3 weeks shy of 3 - CRACKS ME UP like always. She's always spoken at a somewhat - not to brag - advanced level, but the words coming out of her mouth these days are unreal. I thought her use of "actually" was impressive for a while, but the most recent one she's tossing off, in proper context no less, is "otherwise." Otherwise? For reals? I don't think I even use otherwise in my routine parlance and here she is stating "Mom! I need to go potty, otherwise I am going to wet my underwear..." etc... It is something. Last night, in lieu of her book before bed, we were occupied with a "celebration." "Mom, sit down over here, we're having a celebration for Ella's (a school friend) birthday...mom, we have cupcakes for the celebration...mom, what else did you bring for the celebration?...no, you can't clean up these yet, we haven't used them for the celebration..."