With change comes...

With change comes more and more things to do, I'm convinced, as if I don't already have enough on my plate! I've spent the past three days doing in-depth research online of houses in the Tampa area we are interested in. We've found several that appear to be great so I started doing a little more digging on each one to find our about property taxes, insurance and school ratings. Well, this particular little nugget we found is well-priced, even for the asking price and since it's been listed now for 214 days we're sure we can get it down. The taxes are another issue. I had my shock moment awile back when I looked up the taxes the first time on another property. Fortunately for us this one is a little lower - only a mere $6,000 per year! Yep, I said that right, hope you didn't choke on your cheerios. Now for the other clipper - insurance is only a mere $250 per month! And that does not include private mortgage insurance or flood insurance. That means that we'd be paying more a month in taxes and insurance than Katie and Efren pay for their duplex! YIKES! Surprisingly, these figures are on the low end of average for that area. So in comparison, this one looks great, right? Yeah, NOT! I pulled up the school info and found out the elementary school is a C school. NOOOO! The past ten years it has been A and B but for some reason this year it is a C. I'm tempted to contact the school and ask them about it - because we love this house! There are still several others to consider though so I'll keep you posted.

Emily spent the night Friday night with our neighbor's girls and a couple of other girls from the neighborhood. Daddy and I had Grace all to ourselves and it was precious. She was content to sit in the rocker and watch The Goodnight Show on PBS Sprout all night, all the while waiting for Caillou to come on. We thought by letting her stay up WAY late she'd at least sleep in a little but no, she was tapping my shoulder bright and early at 7am asking for gatorade. I took these pictures of Grace with Randy - she looks more and more like him every day. She's just too cute for words and has truly developed a great sense of humor. She's certainly defined herself as the baby of the family but is quick to point that she's not a baby since she wears panties now 'and only big girls wear panties so I'm a big girl except for at night when I wear a pull-up but I'm still a big girl because I wear panties during the day and I don't wet my panties because if Tinkerbell gets wet she can't fly and Tinkerbell has to fly because that's how she gets around but if her wings are wet she can't so I don't get her wet so at night I wear a pull-up because I still have accidents at night and at night she'd get wet and I don't want her to get wet....' Can you hear her saying that? Be sure to add in the Georgia drawl and you'll get it right!

I had a conference this week with Emily's teacher. Academically she's doing very well and is at or above average in all areas. Socially she seems to have a problem. Apparently she's a talker (no, really?) and likes to walk around socializing instead of sitting at her desk doing her classwork. She's also bossy (no, really?) and it tends to get her in trouble. So, we're working on that here at home. I worry about Emily. Grace is clearly the baby and always will be the baby but Emily's position in the family is less defined. She tries to be the oldest since she's Randy's and my oldest together, but she's not because Katie and Ryan are older. I think she gets lost sometimes in where she fits in. She is an oldest child, but she's not, she is a middle child, but she's not. She's been very patient with Grace this weekend - to the point where Randy and I have asked what happened to her! They usually fight like cats and dogs. I'm convinced she'll find her place and be just fine. I hope she adjusts well when she has to transition schools. Emily is the greatest follower even though she thinks she's a leader - she'll follow you straight off the bridge if you want her to. She wants to be the boss, she wants to be in charge, but she would rather not accept the responsibility. Gee, sounds like a lot of adults I've known over the years!

I was also told she's had a problem with being disrespectful and it took me everything I had to keep my not-so-little-butt in the little kindergarten chair! I was absolutely floored. The kids have colored cards for behavior and when they get in trouble, their green card gets pulled to the yellow card, then an orange card, then finally red, with various degrees of punishment. I told her teacher that first, Emily's never had her card pulled for being disrespectful so I was surprised to hear it, but that if it happens again, pull it to orange and do whatever is done at that level. I've already had a problem with this teacher. Emily colored with permanent marker on their carpet and then lied about it so when the teacher e-mailed me, I asked her to pull her card to orange if it had already been pulled to yellow (one color for each thing she'd done wrong). That's when I was told she never pulled her card, it was on green (good) all day. Yet this is the same teacher that has pulled it twice for Emily talking too loudly in the hallway and for not sitting at her desk doing her work. I'm sorry, but I think coloring on the carpet, lying about it and being disrespectful are much more severe 'crimes' than talking and not sitting in your chair. Randy and I dealt with it at home, of course, but it sent mixed messages to Emily about what is punishable at school and what apparently isn't. Deep breath - we're out of here in less than 2 months!