Step 1: Buy a 2 bedroom condo at the height of the housing market as an almost married couple.
Step 2: Be impressed by the bells and whistles (Hardwood floors! Granite counter tops! Stainless steel appliances!)
Step 3: Pump out three kids (on average one every 22 months).
Step 4: Watch the bubble burst.
Step 5: Start thinking about moving when you find out you are pregnant with your 3rd kid (let's say around October 2010).
Step 6: Do nothing for almost a year, despite living at the beach the entire summer--an ideal time to put the house on the market so that it can be shown without said three kids wreaking havoc and questioning why you are moving, organizing or storing any of their things.
Step 7: Start to wonder why every time you get into bed you smell A&D ointment. What we call in our house "moonie cream."
Step 8: Realize that not only had a certain Little Lady used it in some artwork she made for you, but had actually emptied the entire container on your bedside table and rubbed it into the lampshade.
Step 9: Turn lampshade to face wall.
Step 10: Finally contact a Realtor, spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning your stainless steel refrigerator so it screams, "I am stainless--please buy this house!"
Step 11: Shove as many things as you possibly can into drawers, cabinets and closets.
Step 12: Try to coordinate an 11 am Realtor open house, while leaving at 7:45 am, after having to watch your husband dismantle your 5-month-old's bed to open up the room, all the while hoping that things will still be in some sort of order after all three of the kids wake up.
Step 13: Profusely thank your mother and your amazing Tues/Thursday sitter for removing your children from their home with the hopes that these Realtors will come in, look past the still toy cluttered "master" suite currently occupied by two ladies and try to sell the place to another young couple with the promise of hardwood floors! granite counter tops! stainless steel appliances!
Step 14: Pray that people actually come to look at the place.
Step 15: Pray that it isn't in the middle of nap time.
Step 16: Pray the Little Lady doesn't find the new container of moonie cream under the bathroom sink.
