Meet Our Landlords

As many of you already know we moved in 2 months ago. During this time we have not been very pleased with our landlords. This story is a prime example of why.

Yesterday evening they came over to power wash the house. While I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner and Sergio is bathing Hannah, we hear the door bell ring. Since we have a glass window in the front door, I could immediately see it was the wife. The dogs are barking at the front door like they are going to eat whoever is on the other side. I put them outback and walk back to the front door to answer it. I started to get annoyed because I had no idea. However I was not shocked because this is not a first. She has showed up on my door step when I'm still in my PJs feeding Hannah breakfast. And more than once. Turns out she called and left a message they would be coming. A message I never received. Of course I said don't worry about it, but was annoyed they came over without actually confirming with me that this was an appropriate time. Which is common courtesy and in our lease. While I'm answering the door I see Oski and Maverick go darting out of the garage and down the street. Then her husband comes out of the garage and says, "The dogs are gone. The back door was opened and they ran through the garage." (As for why the back door to the garage was open I'll explain later.) At this point my blood is starting to boil. I'm not even done opening the door, and her husband is already in our garage. PRIVACY. Excuse me, but I think you're supposed to ask permission to enter our garage. And her response to him was, "Oh don't worry they come back on their own". Oh I was about to fall over. Sergio went looking for the dogs, while I finished bathing Hannah and putting her to bed. I then went back to the kitchen to check on my chicken. It ended up being dry and over cooked because I couldn't get to it in time. By the time Sergio came back his dinner was cold. Hannah ended up not being able to fall asleep from the loud noise of the power wash. Once we got Hannah back to bed things calmed and we brushed the whole incident off.

Then this morning I put the dogs out to the bathroom and I was in horror as I saw this...

Then I go to take a shower. After I step in the shower I look up and see this...

mess on my skylight. They come over to do something and a) don't finish the job and b) always leave me with a mess. So now I have to clear my flower beds of a layer of pine needles, mud and debris. The pictures above are only a section of the beds.  You don't create a mess and not clean up after yourself!!! 

Even the garden lantern has mud on it. Ignore the grass in the pictures, the gardener comes tomorrow. Actually that makes me even more mad because we pay good money to have our yard look nice. For Memorial Day I raked while Sergio bagged over 30 lawn bags of pine needles. The lack of respect for their tenants, is just astounding. The skylight however, how are we supposed to clean that. We're not going to risk Sergio climbing on the roof and falling off to clean a skylight. So now everyday I get to be reminded of why I can't wait to move on base.

We were told the repairs and maintenance on our house would take no longer than a couple weeks. Well 2 months later, the landlord's to-do list is still not half done. Maybe if they came more than once every couple weeks, and stayed long enough to finish a project it wouldn't take so long. And a couple other things that make me mad, he always leaves gasoline in our garage and now the ladder outside. He's left containers filled with gasoline and gasoline powered equipment in the garage. This causes the fumes to build, which is so dangerous. You never store gas in a garage! And not only is it dangerous, but the dogs are garaged when we are not home. To keep the fumes from building we leave the garage door to our backyard open to air it out. Thus the reason it was open when the dogs ran yesterday. And the ladder. He left it fully extended against the house up to a second story window. Just love the thought of someone coming through the window while we sleep. So much for our ADT alarm.

We do have a property manager. We did let him know of the situations in the past and that we were not pleased. However he came back blaming us. He said we pushed to move in before the house was ready. Umm the landlord jumped at moving us in, because he wanted the rent. At that point we'd been in the house for 4 weeks, and only a mailbox had been put in. This was all before the fence was fixed and our dogs had to be on lines to go out to the bathroom. But how dare we ask that they fix the fence as promised. He then told us we left him out of the loop and we are not supposed to be in contact or talk with the landlord. Well if the landlords are doing the repairs and maintenance themselves and come over unannounced, how am I supposed to not be talking to them. Once the fence was up we stopped caring if they ever finish. We just don't want them creating a bigger mess, and would like some boundaries. Come next spring if we find out this is Sergio's duty station for 3 years, we'll be moving on base. At that point we'll be at the top of the wait list. Otherwise we will be off to CA or Japan. Too bad for them. They could of had great tenants for another 3 years. The fact that we're willing to pack and unpack once again, tells you how displeased we are.

Reflections

After many requests I'm finally going to blog.  I have thought about blogging on many occasions but just decided no before.   Why the change of heart?  I've realized there are so many little things that I'm going to forget and want to start writing down.  Most of them are little moments of a mother's heart.  But there will be plenty I'm sure that has nothing to do with being a mother or Hannah, just thoughts.  So here's to a journey of motherhood, military life, growing, and my random thoughts.

Since the day I found out I was pregnant, motherhood began.  No I hadn't held my child in my arms yet.  I didn't know she was a girl, or had a name picked out.  But I was her life source, her only way of survival.  Everything I ate or did, would potentially effect her development.  On Saturday, August 26, 2008 the pregnancy fairy told me I was blessed with an angel.  What I didn't know at the time was the beauty of watching a life grow.  We immediately nicknamed her Bean.  That's how big she was and looked like.  Just a little bean in me.  At a certain point we realized we no longer could call her bean because she wasn't anymore.  To think a little bean can grow into a little baby with arms and legs.  We would watch as those legs kicked in my belly and her bottom moved around.  Being as small as I am, I could  see the outlines of her legs as they'd raise up a couple inches and distort my round belly.  We already knew she would be an awnry one with a mind of her own.  And that's just how she entered the world.  Screaming with a clear apgar of 10/10 giving us her two cents.

We then got to watch that little baby learn to hold her head up.  Use her arms.  Legs. Gain the strength to sit up right. Lift her tummy off the floor.  And crawl across the floor to eventually learn to walk.  But the amazement doesn't stop there.  Everyday I get to watch the mind grow.  Awareness, memory, identification, noises, vocabulary.  The little things (well maybe little to the rest of the world, but quite the big deal for a little tike) I get to witness everyday just makes me feel so blessed.  Today (I guess yesterday, since it's now past 12am) I placed Hannah on the changing table after her bath.  I was getting ready to put her diaper on, and she reached over her head for her sandal.  She then tried to put the sandal on her foot.  To me it was the cutest thing because she not only knows the sandals are for her feet, but she wants to put them on herself like a big girl.  Since she started eating solids at 6 months, I've always given Hannah her own spoon to play with.  Over time the spoon was properly held.  Then she pretended to dip the spoon and put food in her mouth.  Four days ago food finally made its way on the spoon, and without falling off into the mouth.  Another moment in my day that made me smile, and instantly grab the video camera.  The next night we went to Pizza to celebrate a friends birthday.  We placed Hannah in her high chair and I knew she was hungry.  But every attempt I made to feed her she rejected.  Because we were sitting at a tall table she was lower than the table.  So she started reaching for me, and I placed her on my lap.  She instantly reached over and pulled her bowl and spoon to her and began shoveling food in.  Turns out she was hungry, she just wanted to feed herself.

When you are pregnant everyone tells you about how wonderful having a child is, but they don't tell you about the little moments of sorrow.  As she's becoming a toddler and "big girl", as she thinks, I'm so proud and over joyed.  But there's always that moment of pause where I realize changes bring an end.  I didn't realize till today how I miss feeding her.  I'm sure this is only the beginning of her independence that's to come over the next 17 years and a lifetime.  I just pray I never forget to enjoy the preciousness of a beautiful gift from God.

Now that I've summarized my heart on my first year of motherhood, today I had a little rite of passage as a parent.  I signed Hannah up for her first "extra curricular" activity. Swimming lessons.  I've been planning before ever becoming pregnant to place my children in swim classes at the youngest age possible.  Last summer Hannah obviously was too young.  And it's not really an extra curricular activity as it is for water safety, and she won't exactly be putting it on her college application someday.  However that being said, I had a moment while writing the check for her lessons.  It really felt like a rite of passage.  I wanted to xerox the check and someday be like this was the first check I wrote for lessons.  I remember watching my mom every Tuesday writing checks to my coach for my baton lessons.  And so it kind of tugged at my heart to think I'm now the Mommy.  A new generation has grown, and another begun.  Funny thing is I probably wouldn't have stopped to think about it if I'd been paying with card.  Kind of funny how technology and advancements change our thought process.  The check instantly transported me back in time watching myself sitting on the gym floor as I put my batons away.  My coach going over some reminders and my mom in the chair next to her getting her checkbook out of her purse.