A March Madness of Our Own

March Madness is rearing its head in more ways than one. From Oregon upsetting Kansas to the UConn women continuing their crazy winning streak, to beginning my second tennis season as head coach, accepting a new job beginning next August, selling our home, purchasing a new home 30 miles away, enrolling our oldest in kindergarten, our oldest breaking her arm at recess, and finding a new preschool for our youngest, March has, in fact, made our four person family a little mad. Though the changes we have and are making will be best for our family, maintaining the calm throughout our own March Madness has proven challenging.

changeFor years, we have discussed selling our home and buying one in Lee’s Summit. When we saw an open house posting on Facebook from a friend, we decided to check it out. Though we didn’t purchase that particular home, we met our forever real estate agent. We asked her to sell our home — and within two weeks, and much to our surprise, it sold the first weekend on the market. Our agent let us bring our children and dog over to her house while our house was being shown more than 30 times. Let’s be real, we moved in for the weekend!

Also in that two week period, an English teaching position opened up in arguably the best high school in Lee’s Summit, and I jumped on the opportunity. I worked tirelessly to prepare for the interview, and thankfully, was awarded the job. All within two weeks. Now both of us would be teaching for the Lee’s Summit School District, on the same schedule, just like we had hoped for, but we didn’t have a house in Lee’s Summit yet.

Though we were beyond excited about the changes we were making, I was soon to begin tennis season, and we weren’t prepared for the meltdowns that our children were about to have about moving. With comments like: “We don’t need a new house. We have this one,” and “I don’t want to leave this beautiful house,” we struggled to convince our five year old that moving is best. As we paraded our children through house after house, they only showed interest in homes that contained toys. We simply weren’t finding anything that we thought would work. Houses were selling so quickly that with my busy coaching schedule, I was pretty much sitting on the bench as our real estate agent and my better half looked at even more houses.

Then, I got a call from my daughter’s preschool saying she had broken her arm at recess. Now, we added multiple doctor’s appointments to our already full schedule. Eventually though, despite all the madness, we found the house for us, and through negotiations, inspections, appraisals, etc., the deal is done. We are feeling relieved.

This feeling of relief though is about to be turned into an April hangover as we load moving trucks and make the 30-mile trek to our new abode. We are embracing this moment of calm and attempting to prepare our children for the grand move. Though we attempt to have calm, teaching conversations about moving — what it’s going to look like (boxes, trucks, etc.) — and why it’s all going to be OK, we have to hide some of our own uncertainties about the many changes we have and will go through in the months to come.

We have survived the March madness, now if we can just survive the April hangover.

2 COMMENTS

  1. My family and I are in our own march madness! My husband was offered an opportunity in Kansas City so we are leaving Louisiana and heading that way. Just found a home in Lee’s Summit so the next few weeks will bring a new level of crazy to our lives but we’ll make it! Also going through the struggle of finding a school for the toddler, a job for myself, etc. good luck to you!

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