of hamsters & laundry chutes

Buying a new home is not for the faint of heart...it has been a crazy few weeks for us. I'll try to do the brief update. Two weeks ago we made a family trip to the Lou to do a laundry list of chores:

1. Show Michael and Lucy the house (yeah, he hadn't seen it yet...weird). They both liked it, Lucy liked the laundry chute and the hamster (I have been really clear that the hamster doesn't come with the house, but the laundry chute is ours to keep).
2. Lucy's academic testing for kindergarten, and speech/hearing screening (she passed).
3. Meet with contractor, floor refinisher, electrician, etc...about work to be done between closing and move-in (we are going to be SO poor...)
4. Go to Cards v. Cubs game (we lost, but I was just happy to be at Busch...oh, and I made Michael buy his first Cardinals cap...unbelieveable, really, that he's never had one! he says he felt pressured to buy it, which i'm fine with...i let him pick which cap he wanted.)
5. Took kids to City Museum (we could totally live there, it's the coolest place on earth), and otherwise toured our new neck 'o the woods - found our grocery store and dry cleaners and Starbucks and etc...
6. Went to Christopher's t-ball game (and ran into people i graduated with...weird, they were married, to each other, and had kids and all...that part of life will be strange i think - running into old friends in a new life and all...)
7. Did medical/insurance paperwork pertaining to Michael's new job (translation: I sat on the floor of the lobby of some nondescript office building with two tired girlies for a looooong time referreeing the stealing of crayons and paper from each other while Michael met with important people)
8. Went to meet new neighbors of our new house, which was fun...the seller arranged this and it seems like we're living amongst tons of kids and really cool, fun people
9. Ate dinner with 3 of the doctors in Michael's group and their spouses at Blueberry Hill...also very fun - cool people, very laid back, beer-drinking sorts. We'll get along just fine...
10. Michael & I had interview with board members of Lucy's school (we passed, too...)
11. Did random and sundrie St. Louis errands...needlepoint stuffs and really fabulous shoes to wear to sister's wedding, etc...

And we did it all in 3 days. Fatigue was our friend. It all went very well, as noted, but we aged about a year for each day we were there.

I managed the fatigue by thinking, "after this trip, we will have crossed so much off our list, we can sit back and relax and just enjoy life in jxn..." Ha. The last 2 weeks have been a daily nightmare of pulling together paperwork for our home loan (i mean, they needed stuff you would not believe), including needing to have proof of homeowners' insurance (on a home we don't even own yet), which means reviewing policies and deciding on how much we are worth (?!?! as previously stated, we are so poor, but apparently we can be sued for ungodly amounts), and which requires obtaining documents that live in our safe deposit box at the bank, which we discover is stuck shut and must be bored through by a locksmith, which the bank has not yet located to do said unlocking, etc...it's been a zoo.

I proclaim myself officially off life details duty for this week.

Thursday I head to Disney World with Lulu...and I'm about as excited as she is, just to GET AWAY FROM HAVING TO BE AN ADULT.