Friday is share day in my son Jackson's kindergarten class. Share day, for those of you not savvy as to twenty-eleven lexicon in the halls of certain North Shore learning centers, is the equivalent of show-and-tell.
So this morning was witness to me and my newly minted six-year-old son braving the bowels of our Edgewater home to nab some indescribably describable part of our shared history for Jackson to bring in front of his mostly five-year-old peers to share and explore.
The mannerisms of our kids are a glory to behold if we are patient to observe the miracle as it unfolds. Like most parents I want things to go a certain way. And like most parents with whom my wife and I associate we try to not intervene too much as our kids experiment in making choices and letting who it is that they are come to the surface and bloom.
And so it was this this morning as we entered the boys' downstairs playroom looking for today's just right share.
"What do you have in mind, JC?"
"I'm not sure," he responded. The subtext resonated with a hearty "I will know it when I see it."
Exploration has no better undercurrent than this. We will know it when we see it. Like love, the home to buy, the car to drive and the way to part your hair, we know it when we see it. And after a few minutes of rustling, shuffling through stuff and rearranging things Jackson had three distinct piles of possible shares.
Few things are as beautiful as our kids when they look over to us with a sense of accomplishment. And such was the case as JC beamed over to me that he had three piles with his share possibilities. There was a shiny blue plane from a toy store in Dallas, a sleek train from last Christmas in Paris and a bucket full of shells we plucked from the sand a few years back in Palm Beach.
His choice? The sea shells we salvaged from the sea shore. Though when later my wife asked him how the share went he recounted that these shells were from Europe.
The good news is the share went well, the day was successful and he loves his school, his teacher and his classmates. And for us the joy is simple and inexorable - it's seeing the miracle unfold each day as our baby gets more comfortable with knowing it when he sees it.
This attitude I describe with Jackson is something I see during the open houses I host each weekend as I market Chicago real estate listings. For my part I engage in show-and-tell with the public of my listings. They tend to come into the homes and condos that I am selling a little reserved, not wanting to be sold anything but resplendently grounded in the sensibility of "I will know it when I see it."
And so they will. One of the best ways to get a sense of the real estate market is by visiting open houses. But another gem that will fall in the laps of many open house visitors is they will meet the real estate professional with whom they will want to entrust one of their largest-ever investments. Bear in mind that not every real estate professional is wired the same nor do they conduct their business in the same way. But the point of this show-and-tell enterprise is to go to enough open houses and meet enough agents that you gain a sense of what you like and don't like and discern the person with whom you want to work to find your next home, the person you will trust to assist you with one of life's largest expeditures.
By the way, you will have two opportunities this weekend to see if I am the person you should choose to help you buy or sell your next home. On Saturday October 15th in Bucktown I will host from 1pm to 3pm an open house of my stunning duplex penthouse condo listing at 2150 N Damen in the 60647 zip.
And Sunday from noon til 2p in Andersonville I will host a bright and flowing townhome at 1801 W Winnemac in the 60640 zip.
I will be thrilled to see you at either or both open houses. And as always, I welcome your calls with questions, suggestions or showing requests. My direct line is 773848.9241.
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