At the amazing half-way mark of twenty weeks' pregnant: Homes closed, opening new doors literally and figuratively to a grand new familial beginning. Wee ones wend their way up the produce chain with a cheesy coating and avid ears! And the dramatic move from newlywed love nest to gentrified land-owning nobility stutters along with several overextensions and plenty of help. Let the nesting begin!
The Gentry have (been) landed! (ok, technically, the "gentry" have bought into a condominium of which there is land and of which we own a share and access rights to an interior unit... or something)
I think we just propelled ahead several light years into adulthood: proto-kid, sure... but suddenly now we've got real property and a mortgage! Genuine and bonafide and Hancocked with an ocean of ink upon a rainforest of paper! Yes, we own a condo! Yesterday, the hubba-hubby and I arrived at the title company with two Brobdingnagian checks (each representing about a year and a quarter's annual gross income), and our game faces on.
We were met by our fabulous realtor and ushered upstairs into a signing room. Our mortgage agent came shortly anon with congratulatory coffee beans. Some carpal tunnel and several thousand documents later, we were roundly handshaken and set loose upon the world. The deed will be recorded today (provided no last minute snafus) and we'll have the keys this afternoon!
Moving truck and minions shall follow on Tuesday, since no weekend times were available with our preferred moving company (IRON MAN!!!). This naturally means I'm all alone in directing the moving men, so there will be a lot of pre-moving preparation required this weekend of Mr. Bike-and-chain. We are pretty well not-packed, although now we have flat boxes which may eventually be reinflated and used as reticules for said packing. They will need some tape and a little tlc first, I think.
In the meantime, the treadmill remains busted and pointedly neglected by the customer service nobodies at all the various fitness empires associated with my Sear's Sole F-80. We are growing weary and thinking it's time to toss caution to the wind and allow boy-toy David to have a spin with it if he's willing. And he seems to be. He had already researched replacement motors. Hell, it can't hurt at this point unless he manages to electrocute himself; he seems canny enough to avoid undue injury.
And to celebrate all that, my mom is getting gum surgery today. Because, why not? I guess it's fairly minor and there's no special anaesthesia involved, so something between wisdom teeth extraction and fillings in terms of intensity. I still don't envy her. Yet, she's still willing and able to help her pregger belly button popping daughter pack up her crap this weekend. Because we're both insane but she's momma-insanity, so would rather strain herself while in discomfort than let her daughter do something stupid overextending herself. It all works.
In the meantime, time to soak up my sedentary stationary work desk until the worker-bee boytoy comes along to gut it and investimagate further. At which point, there may be a walk. Because that's the kind of diligent workday it is today. After all the signing yesterday, I'm officially spent for the next several weeks!
Halfway to Screamalong Superbaby Time!
Twenty weeks, baby. How crazy is that? Squarely in my fifth month of gestation, I'm halfway there! And, I've got an almost popping omphalos to prove it.
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| Attack of the BIG BELLY and the explosive omphalis |
But produce! We've got produce from to pick! Drumroll please...
1. A banana! BANANAAAAAAA! One of my favorite words to insert randomly and/or to yell. My answer to any question for which I do not desire to proffer sincerity. And a favored evening snack.
2. A small cantaloupe. What once was my uterus, now shall be my baby. Size-wise. Sort of.
3. An eggplant. Ewww! They're all mushy inside.
4. A butternut squash? Really? The butternuts we have around these parts are usually like two or three pounds and gigantic. I'd buy a delicata or maybe an acorn squash, but butternut? That's a small butternut baby.
I love butternut squash. Adore it, but I think I'll embrace banana BANNNAAAAAAHNAAAAH! For this wonderful landmark.
And the wee one? In addition to getting its yellow peel on, she (so we presume lest our poor ultrasound tech be forced into early retirement) is currently absorbing my immunities! Pretty soon bloviating displays of unabashed confidence and good old fashioned parental guilt will be no match for my little Chiquita! Otherwise, it sounds like not too many significant changes from that last exciting acrobatic ultrasound. Still thrashing about. Still eavesdropping on all my conversations. Still covered in a cheesy vernix and developing her first poop while breathing the same amniotic fluid that she is also urinating and drinking (worse than dogs, these fetuses)... Still possibly kicking me in a fluttery sort of "was that... naw... but... maybe..." kinda way.
I personally am promised to begin my journey into the next several years of poor sleep. Poorer. The heat and discomfort thing will increase and pretty soon I should start snoring like a hippo. It's commonly advised, I hear, that by the third trimester, I might want to sleep in a separate room with a recliner or a very good body pillow. We'll see. Andrew might already be researching recliners...
To reaffirm what I already intellectually knew would be a struggle during this move, I am supposed to avoid lifting things of any weight and/or twisting much. Also, I still get overheated and might even start getting heat rashes to complement my other dermal quirks.
I'm instructed to seek out calm and soothing environments with pleasant soundscapes so that the little thrasher can get her twenty hours of beauty rest (that much? Man hard to imagine - she's so active on the ultrasounds). I rather prefer calm and soothing environments, so I'm down with that.
Still moving probably doesn't count as calm and soothing and certainly not a great space to avoid twisting and lifting. But really. I am going to try. Really. I swear. OMMMMM. I'll fail. But there will some pittance of effort, I promise.
In the meantime, I'll hold down the fort while mom-boss nurses her gums. For a while. She survived surgery! Whoooo! It took about an hour longer than predicted, but she came out fine (numbed up to have stroke patient lips, but fine) and spent much of her evening last night alternating between icing and gargling and otherwise obeisantly according all actions precisely to her release instructions. With the novocain having worn off, we'll see how she feels today, but I suspect that she'll be out for the day and I'm not writing her in for the weekend with any kind of indelible ink.
I may not be entirely "in" for the day either. I'll blame the little banana! But I'm not sure I was ever super "in" to begin with.
Besides, it's FRIDAY!!!! This weekend is a little terrifying, but can't wait to get to the middle of April. It's going to be so nice to relax in that "calm and soothing environment" that I'm supposed to seek out.
Sockses in Boxes And a Moveable Weekend
The grand 2015 move has begun in earnest. With zesty brio, Andrew pulled up a carpet in the basement (our version of smashing champagne bottles on imaginary hulls, I presume). And after no further fanfare, we were off! Off our rockers (and tumbled halfway 'cross the room) mostly. And maybe I was a wee bit off my game. Whatever my game might be (Space Cadet pinball?). I just could not help myself from trying to pack. I'd find boxes or tape I didn't remember having and suddenly mad afflatus would strike for an hour or two of fevered moving, taping and loading. Usually ending when I: (1) ran out of tape/boxes, (2) realized I was so light headed that I couldn't walk straight and nearly fainted, (3) further continued to feel like various little areas of my abdomen were rending apart (largely from the expanding belly bump, but twisting and moving has not been helping).
This is why I should not be left alone with boxes. It's too maddening not to attempt to fill them. And once their full, they need to be stacked. It's irresistible.
In the interim - to distract myself - I suppose I did also take a few walks and do the dishes. I'm not sure that helped as much as the few times I nearly managed to get myself nice and passed out on the couch. Inevitably those almost-naps would commence just as my industrious bike-wielding husband would return home from his bike-dungeon excursions.
Our last load was quite lovely though. He loaded, I continued throwing things in the boxes he'd brought home from U-Haul. We went to dinner and then to our lovely new palace. There, he *un*loaded, which I got to start unpacking. Just the beginning but oh how grand it felt.
Of course once we returned home, I discovered that the remaining stuff had bred once more and repopulated the entire house. Thus we must begin anew today. And perhaps every day until the plague of stuffness has been definitively eradicated.
Moving Monday Manias and Magical Working Respites
Phew, what a weekend. Andrew naturally focused on his bike dungeon. Specifically on the project that has evolved from "removing the carpet so that it won't get all gross and blechy anyways." First it came up pretty easily, but some things or other were nailed to the ground. And then there's glue. And now there are little pock marks in the cement. So Andrew will be uprooting things and filling holes for the next several weeks. But when he's done, it will be the perfect frigging floor for a bike dungeon. And he'll finally be able to move all the stuff that is carefully staged in the future "play room" (the other room in the basement area) into his dungeon.
Before then, we'll actually move, though. Because this is a long term project and the movers want our stuff packed up before they arrive on Tuesday.
Despite his particular focus, I think we made a pretty decent team this weekend. I naturally continued to overextend myself filling boxes (and moving heavy things from time to time), but he did finally intervene on the "moving heavy things into and out of cars and condos" part. And that was definitely the more important part.
He came home from his project a few times each day. Each time, he loaded up all the boxes I'd packed. I'd join, unpack the boxes, and return with said boxes for another round of packing. Yes, I'm doing most of the packing for "the household" but that moving part is pretty crucial. And I think we're clear that tonight, the Andrew study and clothing will be handled by Mr. Hubba-hubba.
So far, so good: A large portion of the household has been transported to the new place. The kitchen is down to the bare necessities to last us until the official move. The walls are bare. My clothes are down to a laundry basket of essentials. There's a bunch of garbage and Goodwill stuff enmeshed with the remaining essentials and that will take some sorting, but we're on schedule to be clean-outta-there before the final cleaning and key-divestment on Friday afternoon.
The kitchen is even somewhat unpacked at the new place! Thank goodness! Of course, I've emptied out most of our stores of back up food, so I predict an onrush of April "nesting" behavior as I strive to restock our generally extensive freezer meal collection. Or maybe just nestling into a comfy sofa somewhere and refusing to remove myself for the remainder of the month. I'm pretty beat!
But oh do I love our new place so far. There is so much room! I thought I'd miss the vast pantry at our old place, but turns out it was only needed because the kitchen was relatively smaller. Everything fits just fine. This is a lovely revelation.
Anyways, I've definitely gotten a jump start on that lower back pain that's endemic in pregnancy after the real belly burst. And I'm here for one fairly normal day of work before another blitz!
But we're so much closer! It's very exciting!!
Bye Bye Newlywed Shack - Hello Family Home
We will be back of course for the next few days, but today marks the official MOVE DATE. Young men are here hauling our ridiculously difficult furniture into a truck. By tonight, we'll be unwired (unless Andrew magically makes Comcast work with us quickly), and living in our very own condo.
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| nestling into our very own new bedroom |
I'm really thrilled to move into our first real official home, but this place will always have a soft spot for me as the place where the (W)rights first cohabitated. I can't believe it's been two years. Our anniversary is next Monday and we've lived here the entire duration of our marriage! We've had some truly beautiful moments of sitting in bed, watching the sun rise over the bay. We've thoroughly broken in that living room and cozied up on the couch space. We've battled extensively over the climate control (or lack thereof during the summer). And we've had a really wonderful landlady. I am so hoping she doesn't feel like the wear and tear we leave her with is a sign we didn't give the place our TLC.
It's a ritual sort of stripping of vestiges, watching the innards that made it home slowly flitter away. Once this is an empty shell, the resemblance will be minimal at most. But plenty of time to say goodbye between the grunts and panics of our very wonderful movers.
But I am so ready for nesting to commence soon. After the dreadful unpacking slog. We may have gotten a head start (thank goodness), but oh did we fill all of those boxes and then some today in the final rushes!
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