I thought, as the last days in our house drew near, that I would be nostalgic; I imagined myself walking from room to room, reminiscing about how Henry took his first steps in the yard and Charlie took his first steps . . . uh, somewhere, probably in the house, but who can really remember after all that time. I expected to feel a little sad about leaving, because after all this is the end of a significant chapter of our life as a family.

Instead, I am palpably crabby. CRABBY! And the house is pissing me off.

At five am, Henry bolted out of his room and into the hall and yelled, “NOSEBLEED!” Which was really not how I wanted to wake up. We staunched the bleeding and got him cleaned up and ready to go back to bed (because he really wasn’t awake yet) but then I realized that his BED was big old bloody mess, so I put him in MY bed and started stripping his sheets. Which was when I noticed that in the scramble to find his glasses, he had bled on two library books and the CARPET IN HIS BEDROOM.

At 5:15 this morning, I was cleaning the ugly green carpet, because on Monday, it belongs to someone else, someone who probably does NOT want my son’s blood on it. I was also breathing a sigh of relief that he bled on books with plastic covers, which wiped off nicely.

At 7:15, Wade left for work. He went in the garage and came straight back in because one of the florescent bulbs in the light on his side of the garage had FALLEN OUT in the night and shattered on the floor. He swept up some of the glass and left for work. I promised to clean up the rest.

At 8:30, after the kids had spent an hour WRESTLING in Henry’s room, I announced, “WE ARE GOING TO THE ZOO AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FUN, DAMMIT” and ordered everyone out into the garage. And THEN remembered about the glass, which was all the hell over the place, including RIGHT next to my car. So I did the only logical thing, which was to start yelling like a crazy woman, “STOP! STOP!!! DO NOT GET IN THE CAR! GO IN THE HOUSE!” The kids stood perfectly still and looked at me, and then at each other, and I know they were thinking, “Mom has finally REALLY lost her mind.” Or they were waiting for my head to ACTUALLY explode, since I’m always telling them it’s going to.

It didn’t. But there is still time.

The zoo was fun. Caroline and her sons came and met us, which was a miracle because the first thing I said when I called her this morning was “I AM IN A BAAAAAAAD MOOD.” It was the kind of mood that people need to be prepared for, though, because there was no way I was going to put on a happy face, after the blood and the glass. But Caroline is my friend because she’s smart and funny and can be both in the course of a playdate that involved dragging our kids all over the zoo (”Keep walking! Just a little further!”) and then taking them to lunch at McDonald’s and ignoring them while they played in the gigantic germ factory climber.

I felt much better after I complained to her for three hours. Or I did until Wade called to say that he has to go to work in the morning, which was totally NOT PART OF THE PLAN. And when I am crabby, you do NOT want to mess with my plan.

Our closing on the new house is tomorrow afternoon. The final walk through for THIS house is in the morning. We are not done packing, the house is a sty, and Wade may have to go to the office for a while tomorrow. I wish I had the time and energy to feel nostalgic, but frankly I have too damn much to do, and all of it is pissing me off.

I will miss this house, I truly will; we have been very happy here. But right now I just want to get the hell out before anything else breaks or anyone else bleeds. I suppose that’s a good way to leave, looking forward to the new house rather than pining over the old house, but I think I need to get over the crabby before tomorrow, when I have a long day of shuffling papers and handing over gigantic sums of money.

My internet will be turned off in the morning (I think) but I can send photos to Flickr from my cell phone, so watch for updates. Because what could be more fun than watching my head explode me move!