Telling Penelope

A couple of things went down the past couple of days. First, we had the home inspection (sorta) on the condo. We felt comfortable enough having my twin brother do the inspection because he knows everything there is to know about this kind of stuff, and the exterior/structure is the HOA's responsibility. I decided to meet him, my Dad, who is there to see it for the first time as well as be my brother's helper, and Mom who is the realtor, over at the condo for the inspection. It was a little bit of a circus. My brother immediately went to work checking outlets and inspecting things. I'm trying to show my Dad the place while he's trying to play Mr. Inspector as well. It's just funny because my brother HATES when he helps do any kind of fix-it or home repair work. Or even like those put-it-together pieces of furniture, he messes it up. He says he's like a bull in a china shop. He tends to break things. Anyway, I was showing him the kitchen and he turns the water on and off, looks in the frig, and we end at the stove. It's an antique stove. It's a Frigidaire electric stove with an oven underneath and one above with a glass front door. My Mom, Dad, and I are standing around it and my Dad says "Turn it on. We have to check it out too." As I am closest to the knobs which are to the right of the oven above, I turn on the burners. He says, "Turn the ovens on too. We have to check everything." I turn the knobs halfway. He said, "Let's let them get hot and we will come back." and we left to go check out the bedrooms. A little later I asked, "What's the smell?" My dad says "It's just getting hot." My brother gets around to the kitchen and goes to open the oven below. Smoke billows out. No fire, but the woman who owns the condo stored her wood dishrack in the oven and it's smoken! He shuts the door real quick and turns all the knobs to off. He stands there shaking his head like "Great!" I said "Maybe we can put it in the sink and run it under water." He says "It's going to keep billowing smoke." I said, "We have to get it out. But I'm sure there are is a fire alarm in here. Let's disarm it first." He said "No. I'll just run this outside." So he gets something to grab it, opens the oven, grabs it and runs it outside. I take a dish towel and fan all the smoke to disperse it so it doesn't set off any alarms. My brother comes back all judgemental, "Who decided to turn the oven on before checking it?" My dad said "Who puts a wood drying rack in their oven?" I told him I turned it on but only because Dad told me too. I said "Mom was there too." He just shook his head at us "I can't believe you didn't check the oven." I told him, "It never occurred to me. Mom and Dad never stored things in there oven. I would never do that. You know how bad my memory is. I'd burn something up. I'd only consider storing a pan or something that would go in there anyway." He said "My wife's family stores things in their ovens all the time so I'm used to checking." The place smelled like burnt wood. Like campfire.

Now we had to decide what to do about it. My Mom had been on the phone almost the entire time we were there with the mortgage broker talking about this and that. Mainly about whether or not we were at a safe stage we could tell Penelope. My Mom is fearful to tell her too soon because with the market the way it is, she has seen a lot of deals fall through. But usually it's due to the buyer doing something stupid, like go out and buy a living room set 12 months same as cash, before the closing. My Mom explained how Penelope is and that we can't tell her unless we know it's going to happen. The mortgage lender, probably playing it real safe, suggested not telling her until the loan is "Clear to Close" which doesn't happen until just a couple of days before a closing. Ugh! That can't work. I honestly wanted to tell her the day of the home inspection as it was an opportunity to get into the place and show her around so she didn't just have to take my word for it. But since we decided to go the free way and use my brother, and she can't be around him due to what she's done to him and his family, that wasn't going to happen. Plus it was during the school day.

The wood dish drying rack didn't catch fire but the underside that was touching the oven rack was scared pretty bad. I recommended taking it with us and leaving a note with 10 dollars. She's moving to Mexico and isn't taking any of this stuff with her. She is having an auction house sell it. My Dad wanted to put it back and act like we didn't know it happen. geesh! My brother didn't like either of our ideas but didn't have any suggestions. I said we should ask Mom since she's the realtor. She was still on the phone and had parked herself out on the balcony, next to the table my brother put the burnt dish rack. We motioned to her that we were going downstairs to check out the laundry area and garage. We looked in on the 3 car garage. My spot is in the middle. Then we went over to the laundry area and were trying to figure out which set of washer/dryers belonged to our condo. Each condo had it's own area in the ground level with a large storage closet. My Mom, still on the phone, found her way down to us. She finally got off the phone. We asked her which washe/dryer. We tried to figure it out and we thought we knew but weren't sure. Then I asked "Also, what are we going to do about the burnt rack?" My Mom said "What burnt rack?" Seriously? It was like a comedy skit. Both my brother and Dad were like smacking their foreheads, "Ohh. You were that oblivious on the phone?" "You couldn't smell it? You didn't see the smoke? You were sitting right next to it on the balcony!" My mom is going "What? What?" It was too funny. We asked her to call the sellers agent to find out which washer/dryer was ours. We had already looked at both in that section of the basement and were concerned because the older pair's dryer didn't have a vent hose or water bucket thingy - which needs to be addressed regardless but not by the seller if it's not hers. Anyway, while she is on the phone she tells the agent about the burnt rack. Again my brother and Dad are smacking their foreheads "Noo!" not believing that she just told him. Too funny. But the good thing is, everything looked fine. There are a couple older windows but the rest are new, and there are a couple outlets that need to be replaced but the electricity is fine. Nothing worth mentioning for the purchase.

Friday morning while I'm at work, I get a phone call from the Asst. Principal. Great. Now what did she do. He is calling because it's October 1st, and he was told to get from me a copy of my lease agreement or something as I told them that I had to move by the end of September. I told him that the information I had was incorrect as I didn't understand the process but the house is still mine until at least the 15th so we are still there. I will not be moving until the 15th. I told him I could get a letter from the mortgage company to that effect if he wants but I can't provide a lease agreement. He sounded frustrated and said that it's not up to him if that is acceptable or not, that he was told to get a lease agreement. I said "But we are still living in our house." He said "Are you? That is another question I have to ask. Are you in fact living in your house?" I said "Yes." He said "Because Penelope says the reason she is tardy all the time is because of the long drive in from Indiana." Ugh. I said "We have stayed out there because they help me with her but we are living in our house." He sighed and said "Well, we need something saying you are living here by Monday or we have to release Penelope from school." I said "Okay." I'm sure it doesn't help that the school secretary is our next door neighbor and we never see her. So, I called my Dad. We haven't been able to stay in the house this last week because my Dad broke the front door knob off by using a hammer to lossen it because it was sticking, and he has since lost the back door key. Yesterday, Penelope had to climb through the bathroom window to open the front door from the inside. Anway, we are moving what stuff we have there back this weekend and my parents will just have to come to us and stay with us when needed.

Regarding when to tell Penelope, I emailed her attachment therapist and told her the situation and what the mortgage broker recommended. She agreed with me that it is better to tell her now, that the likelyhood is slim that it's not going to happen so it should be okay. Better to be honest. I agree. I hated not being able to tell her. So I decided to wait until this weekend to do it. I wanted to tell her while showing her where it is. But my parents are going out of town this weekend and I wanted them to be there to support her in this news. So I needed to tell her Friday. I was talking to my Dad while they were at the house and he had gone to the grocery store so he couldn't wait around for me to get off work and it would be a waste of gas for me to drive all the way out to their house to pick Penelope up just to take her back to our neighborhood for 10 minutes. My Dad offered to do it on the way home. We discussed it and I said to go ahead. He didn't think she would take it as badly as I envisioned. I talked to him about 45 minutes later and he said "You were right." She must have bursted into tears and sobbed. She said things like "But I don't want to move!" "I'm not moving!" But she got herself under control. He had put her on the phone and I could tell she'd been crying and she was talking in her baby-voice which is something that hasn't been too regular of a thing lately. She said "Mommy? I don't want to move..." I said "I know sweetie, but we have to. But I think you will love the place." She said "I know. Papaw told me about my big room and my own bathroom." She then she started saying things that gave me the impression she is already starting to accept it. "I can take a bath and not hold up the bathroom so you can take a shower." I said "Yep." But I could hear the fear in her voice.

When I got home, she was sitting on the couch with her teddy bear and baby blanket watching TV. When she saw me she said "Mommy!" and gave me a really tight long hug. She sounded scared. My Mom had printed off a bunch of colored pictures from the listing and I had drawn up a floor plan. I sat next to her and showed her everything. I pointed out the little drawers in her bathroom vanity. She really liked that. She said "I can put everything in those." I agreed. She said she would like the bathroom to be painted pink. She didn't like the violets the woman had painted on the walls in there. So it seems it's okay. That's a good thing.