Can I see some ID, please?

The other day, I was in a contest with Jura. It was a rather silly contest. We were trying to see who was most successful at using their toes to touch their lips, pick their nose and brush their hair. This used to be a circus trick that I was proud of. No matter how un-athletic my body is, at least I had the flexibility to do that. Had... Because I can no longer do it as well as I used to. And it made me realize that, thankfully, I am growing old! No matter how quickly my body deteriorates, though, I know my heart will be a couple of years behind. That's right, I take pride in being young at heart! Which is a euphemistic way of saying I have the mental and emotional maturity of a 17-year old...

Having been a mental 17-year old for a good 20 years now, I have mastered the art of making a complete and utter fool out of myself (there is a reason why I take pride in literally being able to stick my foot in my mouth ;-) ). No one can car-boogie the way I do! I can get entire traffic jams to boogie along on the tunes playing in my car. I still sing loud and proud, even when I am not in the shower. Awkward situations (or good looking guys) can still make me blush ferociously. And I think my young heart makes me a nice person to hang out with. If only for the reason that I will make you feel much more mature and sophisticated!

My immaturity starts to be a problem, though, whenever people expect me to do grown-up things. Like, say, be a mom. Or sell a house. And not only do I lack the mental maturity to deal with these matters, I also have a severe problem with red tape. Anything slightly reeking of bureaucracy will have my brain switch to a state of well-practiced procrastination. Nothing will make my home sparkle with cleanliness the way a passport application that's due the next day does!

Nevertheless, life got the me in the situation I am in right now. A mom of 3 kids with her husband already at work in another country, blessed with the task of trying to sell our house we still "own" in Holland asap for a reasonable price. While still making sure said kids and dog stay alive as well. Yup. That's me. No matter how many people boogie along with me in their cars, at the start, I knew this would look like a very sloooooooowwww car crash happening right in front of me.

I hoped though, that with some expert steering manoeuvres, I could reduce the damage of the car crash to a minimum. Fortunately for my kids, my metaphorical car is equipped with the most sophisticated airbags available, called FAMILY. Throughout this ordeal, I knew I could rely on our family to provide support and to mitigate the impact this part of life's road has on our kids. For that alone, I am eternally grateful. Luckily, my car is also equipped with state of the art intelligence, like the interweb and direct phone lines to "people who have sold houses before" to ask for support, ideas and how they would proceed.

The actual steering, though, had to come from me. I say had, because it seems the car has almost stopped spinning and it is almost time to look what damage, if any, has been done. Tomorrow I hope to sign the initial real estate buying agreement, or whatever that is called in English, with the prospective buyers of our house. Almost there.

So, with our house almost sold, in a little over a month, one would think this car crash can't have been that bad. Hah. Lemme just fill you in what scenes can unfold when you allow me, with 3 kids, to do a job this big!

First off, for financial reasons, which I have questioned numerous times over the past few weeks, we decided we would not get a "proper" real estate agent. Instead, we would use a new format. An internet real estate agent. They provide the seller with the appropriate information and support and put the listing for the house online on the big search engine that all Dutch people use to look for a new house. The pictures and text for the listing would come from my hand and in case of anyone wanting a tour of the house...I would be the one giving the tour. Sounds like an easy job, right?

Right. Well, let me paint you some pictures of what happens when a lady who lacks basic maturity in the company of 3 children with a high go-getter mentality are left in charge of a job like this.

Let's start with the fact that in order to even start the process of listing real estate, there is a incredible stack of Very Important Papers (VIP's) that need to be gathered. These VIP's are generally not found in 1 place. Especially if you have left for Canada 5 years before. After collecting these VIP's from various relatives' attics, I just had to digitally send them to the internet real estate agent. No biggie. Except, at that point I was in my mom's home. She has a scanner, but I am digitally clueless and had no idea how to get that darn thing to work. So instead, I tried using my iPad as a scanner. Of course my iPad's battery needed to be charged, because my girls had been binge watching Netflix on my iPad. 'Cause that's the kind of parent I am these days.

So there I am, sitting on the floor, with my iPad plugged into the only socket I could find, surrounded by stacks of VIP's. By now, I am already late for having dinner with my brother. I'm trying to get this blasted app to work on my iPad, to scan the gazillion VIP's that I need to send in. It's a Friday afternoon and I know traffic to my brother will be bad. Just when I finally get the hang of this new app, my iPad informs me that I have by now exhausted the number of free scans you get with the free app and I now have to upgrade to the "professional" app. I grumble something that my 4-year old sitting next to me should not be hearing. My credit card fails. As I am looking for my wallet, to change my credit card number on my apple-id, I see that my dear 4-year old is FOLDING A PAPER AIRPLANE out of our proof of ownership papers!!! Let's just say we did make it to my brother for dinner that evening...

Or how about that afternoon I got a bid on our home for the first time! So exciting! Not in the least because I was in a playground with my 3 girls and my aunt. Imagine getting calls from your real estate agent, trying frantically to text your husband in Norway and trying to make up your mind about Important Financial Decisions, while making sure that your 4-year old slides down the slide and not the stairs to the slide. Or make sure that your 2 big girls do not take off there clothes to go swimming in the little pond this playground has. One would have thought that spending part of their childhood in North America would make them more prudish...well, the opposite happened to my girls!

I learned important causal effects, too. Like the correlation between me receiving an important phone call and Ms. E's digestive tract. As soon as she hears me use my grown-up voice on the phone, her bowels switch to immediate evacuation mode. I cannot count the times these past weeks that I have stood hunched over Eluin, trying not to drop my phone in the toilet while simultaneously hushing Eluin that not everybody needed to hear about "the surprise" she had for me AND keeping track of the conversation that was happening at the other end of the line. I basically have felt a lot like Houdini these past weeks...if Houdini had been a clown.

Unfortunately for me, I cannot blame all the mishaps of the past few weeks on my kids being there with me. Thanks (huge thanks!) to the FAMILY airbag, I was able to do some things without the little buggers interfering, too. Like sharing some of my plentiful awkwardness when I gave a tour to prospective buyers. Imagine explaining all the highlights of your beautiful home. And the potential it has for even more greatness! Like turning our storage attic into actual living space by insulating the roof and placing a couple of skylights. And then imagine me explaining that you could use that room for practically everything, from extra bedroom to sewing room. Now, I dream of one day having a sewing room in my home. However, as the words left my mouth, I realized "sewing room" is a Dutch slang word for the little rooms the prostitutes in Amsterdam have where they conduct their business with their clients. Whoops...

All's well that ends well, though. And I am glad we made it this far. I am glad we dodged a bullet by finding a different buyer than the one who made us a low ball offer and when we informed him we got a better offer, kept on pestering me with text messages, even in the middle of the night (how's that for maturity?!). I am happy that we got to stay with so many amazing family members that I have missed so dearly while staying in Canada. I am happy that Menno has been able to find us a formidable place to stay in Trondheim!

And I am happy that no-one, so far, has asked me: "Can I see some ID, please?" Even though I still feel I am still too young for this kind of grown-up stuff...