...today's highs and lows

Jesus. Is everybody's home-selling experience as ANNOYING as ours? The Beast from Alberta who is buying our house came out today to meet with a home inspector. They were supposed to be done at 4pm but didn't end up leaving until after 5pm which was a great inconvenience to us since Darren has a lot of work to do today. They stood in the doorway chatting and waving at us waiting up on the street. FO!

They finally let us back in what is still OUR house and what do we find? The upstairs toilet is clogged and won't flush and there is pee in the downstairs toilet. I'll tell you what, I marched right back outside where the Fugly Beast was standing with her idiot realtor and the home inspector at the top of our driveway and I said, "Excuse me??? Was there a problem with the upstairs toilet??? Because the seat was left up, there was toilet paper in it and now it won't FLUSH???" And they all just stood there and said, "Well... I don't know, I didn't use it...."

UGH.

Fucking pigs.

And our own realtor, who we really do love, is driving us crazy. This deal closes in three more days but as far as he's concerned we still need to show the place. So we are STILL having to clean up every morning and shuffle the kids out of here. Today a big group of realtors came through to preview it and I can't tell you the name of the hideous perfume one of them was wearing but I could make some suggestions. Eau de Fetid Bloat maybe.

On a more pleasant note, we took the kids to Jackson's SMUS tea party for the new Kindergarten class starting in September. It was a chance to meet the other families and for the new kids to make some friends. Each child was paired up with a current Kindergarten student who was their buddy for the afternoon.

Jackson was paired with a boy named Aiden who was so genuinely kind, I was amazed. He really took him under his wing and showed him all his favorite things about the classroom and later, the playground. At one point Jackson was trying to climb a wall using a rope but he slipped and hit his chin. He cried for a little while, mostly because he was frustrated at not being able to do it. Aiden heard him crying and called to him. When Jackson didn't answer he came over to us and asked Jackson what had happened. Jackson explained it and Aiden touched him on the shoulder and then told him a story of something similar that had happened to him, adding that he hadn't cried...

They played outside together with the other Kindergarteners and close to the time we had to leave Aiden called his sister over, who is in grade one, and introduced her to Jackson. Aiden is five years old! It was like nothing we've experienced yet with Jackson's preschool peers, but was everything I've been anticipating for the SMUS environment and what I've wanted for Jackson period. This is the kind of kid he is, and these are the kind of kids he'll do best around.

He really notices the difference too. Afterwards, in the car, he said, "Aiden is so much nicer than the kids at preschool. The other kids are always taking things without asking, and aren't fun to play with like he was!" It made me a little teary and I'm starting to sense the sorts of "moments" I'll be having over the coming year. I kid with Darren about the over-use of the word "thrive" with respect to describing how the kids do at SMUS, but I'm realizing there might not be a more appropriate term.