Sleeper

At 5:00 this morning I heard my daughter shouting and crying from her room. I figured she was asleep because if she was awake she would have just climbed into our bed. I went in there and as suspected she was curled up in child's pose in the middle of the room with no blankets and likely freezing. But she was sleeping for sure. Usually by 5:00 am she's already snuggled up with us for more than a few hours so this was a pleasant surprise. I put a few blankets on her and went back to bed but then thirty minutes later she came in first with her pillow, then her blanket, then her other blanket (I'm serious, she made three trips) and then she crawled into bed for her last hour of sleep. I can't figure her out. But literally every time I blog about how she sleeps half the night with us, she ends up sleeping basically the whole night in her bed. So I am going to dedicate this blog entirely to her sleep habits so I can continue to get some rest. Just the thought of that is putting me to sleep so it's already working.

The Other Plague

The eleventh plague, which no one ever talks about, but which is second in severity only to the slaying of the first born, is the plague of the matzah crumbs. We have matzah crumbs in every friggin room in the house. I mean, who brings matzah into the bathroom? Probably no one - you just can't contain the stuff. It travels. This is the only week of the year when we allow shoes in the house because I swear matzah crumbs will tear your feet to shreds. We sweep it up, it comes right back. I even go so far as to wet the matzah so it's a little more supple but it still crumbles.

And all this without even mentioning the constipative qualities of matzah. I mean if we really wanted out of Egypt fast God should have made Matzah the first plague and ordered the Egyptians to eat it for a week. By the third day they'd have been begging the Jews to leave. That conversation would sound something like this: Alright alright Moses. I'll let your people go if you let my people "go".

Pissy

I thought it would last a day or two. I was wrong. Several weeks ago (months? I've lost count.) my daughter was suddenly terrified of taking a bath. This is a girl who used to lie down in the tub so that only the tip of her face - like her nose, eyes and pursed lips - was sticking out of the water and bubbles. While my son was whining about getting his head wet she was snorkeling for tub toys. We called her the baby beluga. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, she freaked out about going in the bathtub. I put her in and she was literally shrieking to get out. My son was already in so I knew it wasn't too hot. It was the same as any bath day. Same amount of water. Same gnarly bath toys. But she was having none of it and made that clear with blood curdling screams. Step aside Ronald Regan, this girl is the Great Communicator.  All the while she was also ranting about poo poo. So I figured she had to go. I put a diaper on her but she didn't go. And then it occurred to me that maybe she was worried she would have to go. Two days before she had pooped in the tub which really upset her (though you'd think my son would be the one with the hang-up now. Yes doctor, I have a latent fear of floaties). 

Anyway this has been going on for a while and the only way I can get her in the tub is if I go in first which as you can imagine after a day of work and scrambling for dinner and an hour at the park, the last thing I want to do at 7:30 at night is get in a luke warm bath. A spa, sure. A sauna, no problem. As long as I'm alone. In Baden Baden. But the luke warm piss tub is not a fave. Although now she even gets nervous with me in the tub and I see her kind of holding her crotch which says to me that the feel of the water is making her want to pee but she's not comfortable peeing in the tub (she used to just pee right on her brother without a care in the world. Again, we wonder why he's not the one troubled by the bathtub). So here I am telling her, sweetie, it's okay. You can pee in the tub. I've lost my mind.

So how is this going to end? I don't want to force her but she stinks. My son went through a brief bathtub boycott when he was about her age. Younger actually. We came to understand, at least we think, that he was afraid he would go down the drain. So I sat his butt on the drain and he felt a little tickle of suction which made him laugh and maybe he realized that in fact neither his giant tushy nor the rest of him would ever fit down this drain. But his anxiety only lasted a week. This is going on months. I even put her in a  swim diaper (I mean I am pulling out all the stops here). That worked for a few minutes until she likely peed in the diaper. She's going to end up being the stinky kid at school that no one wants to be near. Just pee in the goddamn tub. We all do it. It's your one opportunity to pee standing up. You'll love it. It's liberating. 

No can do.

Sleep Saga continues

The sleep situation is not improving. She's taken it to the next level and now when she comes to our room she actually brings her own pillow and blanket. I hear her pad in around 3 am, she hands me her pillow which I put long ways in the middle of the bed since that's the only way it will fit. Meanwhile she's gone back to her room to get her blanket. So, I mean, this girl's wide awake and fully functioning in the middle of the night. So she claws her way up the bed and over me to her bed away from bed and falls back asleep immediately. I just don't get it. And more importantly, I just don't know how to make it stop. We tried bringing her back to bed. We tried having her sleep on the floor in our room, instead of the bed. She's having nothing of that. I need a solution that takes into consideration the other person sleeping in her room and the fact that she doesn't sleep in a crib anymore and can get up at will.

I've mentioned this problem to friends and it turns out that EVERYONE'S kids are coming into their beds. As old as six or seven! I never knew this. I was that obnoxious parent who swore by sleep training (since it worked so well on our oldest) that I think other parents just stopped confiding in me about their nighttime disruptions for fear I would judge them. Which I would have. Now I know better. Although now I'm even a bigger proponent of sleep training when babies are young because while doing it at four months is hard (emotionally) I am telling you that doing it after the age two is IMPOSSIBLE.

Why is this uncle different from all other uncles?

We had Passover Seder at my brother's house last night and as usual the highlight was a surprise visit from Elijah the Prophet. My older brother knows the drill at this point (I have two brothers - one hosts, the other is the prophet). We wrap him in a sheet and a tallis and he wears a wool Rasta hat and sunglasses and then walks in doing the customary Elijah jig. He grabs the wine glass and shimmies out as mysteriously as he arrived. I'm not sure why he takes the whole glass but that's his shtick. The adults are cracking up at this point and the kids are vacillating between fear and exhilaration. My son turned to me in the car later and asked if that guy was Santa. My nephew is almost six so I'm not sure how much longer he'll believe in our Rastafarian prophet. So far no one has made the connection between the entrance of Elijah and the disappearance of Uncle Aaron. I guess we're good for another year.

Kiss my Fannie Mae

Apologies to my loyal readers. Both of you. I have been on the schneid. I've been preoccupied with a number of pressing issues and have neglected you. I am sorry. But first, a bit of house-keeping:

I am soon to officially launch my new delicious art prints business Mishmish Studio so if you want to be part of the launch and get on my mailing list, which is opt-in only, then please go here. It takes three seconds. Then they send you an email to confirm (another three seconds). I promise to send only the occasional email announcing new designs, new collections or upcoming promotions. And I won't share your email with anyone ever ever ever, except for maybe with one nice Nigerian diplomat with whom I have been corresponding lately regarding a substantial sum of money...

Then you can help me create some buzz by forwarding your newsletter to anyone and everyone. Some suggestions: Oprah, Angelina Jolie, the Obamas, Ellen Degeneres, Martha Stewart, Madonna…he he.

But on to more pressing matters. I have two words for you. Fannie friggin' Mae. Yes, people. There is a reason why Fannie Mae, the supposed government-sponsored enterprise chartered by Congress with a mission to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets, is named Fannie. Because they are full of shit. I've been hearing for months about this making Home Affordable campaign and how it's supposed to help not only those poor people who are looking at eminent foreclosure, but also those of us who got caught in upside down mortgages after our home values plummeted. Yes, we are one of those people. Or so we thought.

The back story: we bought our home, which is technically a condo (that's another whole story), in April of 2004. It was a small fortune for a two bedroom but with a little bit down and a double mortgage it was affordable. Did we put down 20%? No? Was that a mistake in retrospect? Probably. But we made enough money to cover the mortgage and we weren't planning to stay long. So the 5-year ARM worked for us and we had a 4.25% rate so the world was our oyster.

But the market is a fickle bitch isn't she and when all went sour in the fall we started to think about refinancing because five years later we're still in this tiny house and it wasn't looking like we could sell it for as much as we bought it for. Not good. And we tried to find a mortgage lender to help us but everyone wanted an 80% debt to value ratio and we weren't even sure we had a 100% debt to value because home values had dropped so much. But the deal with appraisals is that you pay for them no matter if the bank is willing to give you the loan or not and they cost $500. Except for Bank of America which doesn't charge you if they don't end up giving you the loan but there's no guarantee they'll send an actual person to appraise the house. They may just do a "desktop" appraisal which means looking at comps, doing a calculation and spitting out a number. That would be bad news for us because our home is very unique. It's half a duplex so it looks like a single family home with a yards and all but in fact it's considered a condo. Though if I can ever reach Brian Lombard over at the County Office of Santa Clara, I might be able to change his mind about that erroneous designation.

What to do? All the while I'd been hearing how Fannie Mae would help millions with debt to value ratios higher than 80% (that's a magic number, as well as $417K. It's a little bit like being in LOST with all of the magic numbers). So I thought, OK, any day now the banks are going to start rolling out these new terms and we'll refinance and a great hush will come over the land and all will be content. So we waited and waited and meanwhile no official word came out but now we're getting calls that sound official except they're from schemers and liars and cheats trying to hoodwink an already down and out population by pretending to be associated with the government and wanting to help out soon-to-be foreclosed homeowners. What is wrong with you people? Did you not have parents? Did no one tell you that deception and thievery is wrong? Don't get me started. Too late.

So finally we just decide to bite the bullet and apply for a loan through the Stanford federal Credit Union because we trust them (non-profit), they only do walk-through appraisals (which only cost $250) and there's only like three guys who work there so we have their ear when we want it. We filled out all of the paperwork, set an appointment for Daisy the Appraiser (she's friends with Dora the Explorer) to walk-through and then prayed, literally prayed, for an appraisal of $525K which would give us an 80% debt to value ratio. I had everyone I know doing the $525K mantra. We even prepared a one-sheet for Daisy listing all of our home's improvements and virtues. And I coached my husband on what to say to her on the day of the walk-through. We actually practiced his little speech. Five agonizing days later we got the call. $525K. I'm not fucking kidding you. Daisy came through and our debt to value was 80%. This meant we could get a loan and we didn't have to pay private mortgage insurance on top of it. Woohoo.

But wait, the plot thickens. I go to seal the deal with my buddy Alex at SFCU and he tells me that because we own a condo, I either have to pay 3/4 of a point on the loan (that's 3/4 of a percent on the entire loan or $3,800!) or tack on a quarter of a percent to the interest rate. This is written nowhere on the website and was never mentioned in previous conversations. So I am livid. And I let Alex have it realizing of course that he is only the messenger but I can't help it. And why this new ridiculous stipulation? Because of, yes you guessed it, kiss my FANNIE MAE. As of April 1st all condos that don't have a 75% debt to value ratio have to come up with this extra cash.

So not only has Fannie Mae not helped anyone who's underwater, they're actually sticking it extra to the people who happen to be above water and want to do the right thing by getting into a normal and stable loan. Fannie Mae, you suck. You heard it here first. Go to hell Fannie Mae.

So this is where I've been. On the phone with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Lending Tree (never use these people - they are a giant scam), Alex at the credit union, Brian Lombard's goddamn answering machine, Daisy the queen of all appraisers and Fannie Mae herself.
Anyway, our appraisal is good for three months so we'll be making some decisions soon. If Brian changes our house to a townhome or, even better, an attached single-family, then we're really in business. Of course, he'd have to return my phone calls for that to happen. Otherwise, we will just suck up the extra percentages points and refinance and continue to live out the American Dream, grateful that we still have a home at all.

Name game

I painted some new designs last week and got them on the web this weekend. Enjoy. I think my favorite thing about this product line - the name prints - is that I get to use all the names in the samples that I would have wanted to use for my own kids had I married an American. I was never the type who had elaborate plans for my wedding day nor dreams about having babies. But I will say that I did play MASH as a girl where you draw a square and pick future spouses and future cars and future kids and you had to pick one clunker for every category. MASH stood for Mansion, Apartment, Shack and House (please tell me other people played this game...). The clunker in the car category was always a "pool man" car, whatever that was. (a camino maybe?) So I definitely had kid names in my head for a to be determined future date when I'd have a few to name, not realizing I'd be marrying an Israeli with his own ideas about baby names. Or anyone for that matter who might have ideas that were different than mine. Preposterous!

Anyway, these fun little drawings let me finally use my names. Lucky me!