We're not the only ones moving!

So of course tomorrow is moving day and we have a handful of health updates. First, Josh went to the doc today and can now take his massive wrap thing (it was not a cast) off occasionally and even begin to rotate his ankle. Isn't that crazy? Doesn't it seem like I just posted the pictures of that ankle-wreckage? (Hell, I guess my sense of time isn't exactly telling as it seems like only yesterday I was posting my first entry about harboring a tiny little newt!) He goes back in two weeks and, hopefully, at that time can begin putting weight on it and, I guess, essentially walking on it. Yeaaah! I can go back to being a princess for the final weeks of the pregnancy! Alas, the way nature intended! ;)

Now, another little medical issue. I'm not sure what's going on with me or with Miss Baby, but I had to call the "emergencies only" line today. I hate doing that, but this pain I was experiencing was, well, painful. And not normal. The baby was still moving and rolling around like she normally would, and I was not having any other alarming symptoms of any sort. My midwife told me to get off my feet quickly and to flood myself with fluids. She said what I was describing could be mild contractions, but didn't seem too alarmed. Honestly though, neither was I - I like to err to the side of "not panicking". But I complied as best I could and taught my last two classes sitting down. I came home and took a three hour nap (oh that was SO indulgent and awesome!!) and then got up and began the upheaval normally referred to as "packing". Yeesh. I will never get this done. Luckily the house I live in stays in my family and I don't have to have everything out immediately. I'm not sure that's a good thing, that's "giving me an inch" and I have a feeling in the current state of things, I will take several miles. I have now decided I need to sit down and rest. The mystery pain still persists, but it's not unbearable and it's not like a contraction that has a "on/off" rhythm to it, it's just a constant ache. I'm actually wondering if the baby has dropped. That would be a bit on the early side, but nothing alarming. I am noticing that I'm breathing a bit easier and she doesn't seem to be up as high as she normally is...YIKES. Do I realize what this means?? I can't think about it just yet.

Let's just tackle one major life altering experience at a time..... *sigh*

New address tomorrow!!!

Home Sweet Home

Short post -- we're closing on our new house tomorrow afternoon! Yipppeee!! We did our final walk through tonight and it's just perfect. It's very much "home" and it is precisely what I picture bringing our little bundle home to. And, it's the house I finally get to start "nesting" in! Tonight I've been setting up all the utilities and it's just all so surreal. See, we have been looking to move, ironically, since the day we found out about our impending arrival and now to actually be moving puts such a capstone on this whole baby-having thing. Like we have one shoe that has dropped and now we sit and wait for the proverbial other shoe to...well, drop. (So to speak.) Mmm. So exciting. :)

Oh, and yes, Josh's leg is still broken - we've recruited a motley crew of movers who are hopefully willing to work for the sheer extravagance of beer and pizza. I'm sure they'll love two bossy, incapacitated, disorganized jerks (us) sitting on their tails barking orders. Who wouldn't, right?

I'd say it's a face of an angel...

The 3D sonogram was fantastic. She is just precious. I think we were both taken aback by how sweet she seems. I'm not sure what we thought we'd see, but she just seemed so angelic, very peaceful. Her dad says he was taken most with how "picture perfect" she seems. She was very bundled up in her own hands and feet thus making it hard to get a clear face shot. Oh, but one thing was really neat -- every time Josh or I said "move your little hands for us" or anything of this sort -- she DID! That's nice, in utero she appears to be rather obedient! Okay, so that's probably a bit presumptuous, but it was cute. Only having 8 weeks to go now, and having seen her this wait could be tough. :)














So surreal to see a person you've never met before, who has yet to join the world and yet you know her and feel such an overwhelming passion for her and her well-being. Really amazing.

*Insert some cliche title here...*

"Oh my stars, when it's rains it pours!" That seems like a suitable one. Seriously...it's pouring. Hard. So let this be your warning, this post will be a buffet of complaints, many of which lots of folks would give anything to have -- but I am not in a selfless mood right now. Brace yourself.

Well, first off, we have the leg situation. Josh had surgery last Friday and this just made a bad situation worse because after the surgery he required the kid gloves even more. Lots of ice, fresh water in his cup next to him, pillows to prop up the leg, pain meds, etc. And his being in this situation has not exactly brought out his sweet side. Being cooped up all day in one position has been been pretty stressful in and of itself (frankly, I don't see what the problem is, that's what I did all summer and I loved it!). Hopefully Mr. Crankypants will be at least on a walking cast in about 2 1/2 more weeks and this will eliminate his fussiness.

Now let's add another layer to this mess - I've been quite sick. As I've stated repeatedly, this is SO not my thing. I'm not a sickly person and I am typically too stubborn to do anything about a pesky sore throat or stuffy nose or whatever, but this has now officially been going on for going on 10 DAYS! And it's been pretty darn bad, too. Complete nasal congestion, a barking cough, a clogged ear, etc. Bad enough that I called my midwife and got antibiotics, which did nothing. NOTHING!! I guess it's just a virus and I should ride it out. Frankly, I'm over the ride already!!

Now, let's add yet another dash of mayhem - we're moving next FRIDAY! Which implies two things, 1. We need to physically MOVE (not our forte these days) and 2. all of the paperwork associated with finalizing the loan, insurance, title, etc. is enough to make me jump off a medium sized building. Random things like, getting a copy of my pension which I get a copy of annually (and apparently had not saved) this was NOT a small, quick phone call. After routing my way through the Pentagon, NASA, and various third world countries I finally found the guy in charge of faxing me my teachers' pension documentation. Well, after talking with Pension Man he indicated he would handle submitting the request!! "WHAT?! Submitting? Can't you just fax it to me??" Nope. Had to wait. Eventually it came.....BUT, alas, I digress. Let's just summarize: sending stuff off to loan underwriters never gets easy, no matter how many times you've done it. It's ALWAYS more stuff than you realized you would need. And every phone call takes twice as long as you had anticipated.

Oh, and in the meantime, I'm supposed to teach children everyday. Luckily I have good kids and I've yet to strike a violent rage with any of them. All has been going well at this point. But when all of this other stuff is going on, this is not exactly an audience who, well, CARES, frankly. "Kids, let me tell you about my how the inspection for our new house came back." "Kids, let's talk about mortgage insurance and the things Teacher is going through to avoid it." I'm pretty certain I would be greeted with blank stares and perhaps even a hint of a the stock "chirping cricket" in the background. So, I go to work and there's no real "water cooler" type opportunity for me to gripe it all out. Ultimately all of these stressors just rumble around inside my head and have minimal outlet. I'm sure that's super healthy.....

And finally, did I mention we're about to have a baby in like 8 weeks? Yah. That's kind of a big deal from what I've heard. So....we got that goin on... too.

*and...exhale...good*

Okay, Onto a bunch of exciting notes:

Our crib came in -- it's spectacular. I absolutely LOVE it! I did a colorful rendering this weekend (my mothers overzealous nature got to me, I guess!!) and we established exactly what fabric would go where. It was just too cool, and a little bizarre honestly.

Also, we "test drove" our two stroller/travel systems and carrying the two car seat infant carrier things was also a bit bizarre. I don't know how to do that...carry a baby? drive with a baby? I'm just hoping the "babies are so resilient" stuff is really true.

Our 3D sonogram is tomorrow!!! More excitement and reality colliding -- it's like actually getting to SEE HER! I don't think we are really prepared for the smack of reality we're going to experience when we see her. I'm rendered speechless even thinking about it. There will be pictures on here ASAP!

Okay, that's enough for now, I have my laptop sitting on my lap and my sausagey-rollie-polie feet are not elevated. They clearly need to be as I have not ONE PAIR OF SHOES that fit comfortably. So, I'll be elevating them now, while continuing to ignore the laundry that could most likely walk by itself at this point, and taking a moment to disappear in a nap.

Light a candle for us. Just try not to "burn it at both ends" Har har har!!

WOW! How's that for starting and ending with deliciously bad cliches?

Miss Baby makes her debut tomorrow!! Stay tuned!

Your dad, the super-cool skateboarder

Well Josh has definitely put an interesting spin on the last two months of our pregnancy. Yesterday in an attempt to hang with the cool kids he visited a new local skate park. As the story goes, all was well until... Well 'cool guy' completely dislocated and subsequently broke his ankle -- in two places. He'll go to the orthopedic tomorrow and get an official cast (his first in all 33 years! Sidebar: we do offer nice bone dna to our offspring - both of us are broken-bone free for all of our collective 66 years!) For now he's well-splinted and wrapped and sporting a shiny new set of crutches.

So the story goes like this, Josh had a class at 8 and then when it was over thought he'd take in a quick spot of skateboarding (unbeknownst to me). And here's where it all went awry. A quick recap of the call that came in to me:
Him: [in a very chipper, cheerful voice] Hey, I'm up at the skate park.
Me: Okay, cool, you want some lunch?
Him: No, I broke my ankle
Me: What?!
Him: Yeah, I broke it.

(noise of the other kids at the skatepark, staring and laughing in awe at the trainwreck at the end of Josh's leg which, now having seen it, makes sense as it defied all laws of general anatomy!!)

Me: Do you need me to come get you?
Him: No, the ambulance is on the way
Me: WHAT?!
Him: Yeah, it's bad. I don't want to be moved.
ETC...

Wow. That's a call I didn't expect.

Immediately all the ramifications of this incident started to hit me. Mainly, who's going to put pillows under my feet at night? Well, no, I'm kidding. Sorta. Actually we're supposed to move in like three weeks. That should be interesting. And he's supposed to take a practical exam for his EMT course in St. Louis in a few weeks. Should also be interesting. And I've become quite accustomed to how much he spoils me - the dog gets taken care of, I get lunch made for me daily, I get things brought to me, I get my car loaded up every day...the list goes on. Seriously. I get a lot of spoiling! And now, well, I guess this is the universe's way of training me to get off my can and do something for someone else. For instance, our first night at this new regime, Sir Pees-a-lot got up 4 TIMES!! So, each time, I help him up, get him in the appropriate location, (go visit the other facilities myself - of course), come back just in time to see him attempting to walk with these crutches which are not exactly operating as an extension of himself just yet. (More like some kind of multi-legged extra-terrestrial being where everyone and everything within a 4 foot radius should take cover) Then I get him back in bed with gently placed and ample pillow elevation under the peg-leg. I cover the rest of him and place fresh ice from the freezer on the injury, offer a pain pill and water (and I think I make one more trip the restroom myself, just to be sure) and finally I can crawl into bed. However, it takes me a good 30 minutes to fall back asleep - so each one of these trips was about an hour. And this was night one. What are the odds it's dramatically different tonight? I'd guess fairly slim. Hence, the theory that this is a little baby bootcamp sans the baby.

(Well, sans the *newborn* baby...ahem...)

Okay, use caution...here are the photos. They're graphic!!!
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Keep scrolling if you're feeling tough...oh, and by the way, i finally figured out how to make my pictures not so small. Great timing, eh??
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Skateboarding is cool.

Ode de toilette

Good grief. I don't think I could make it through the entire pregnancy without some sort of commentary about what this little princess has done to my plumbing. So here we are - the plumbing blog. First off, I'll make this one nice and simple: Jenny McCarthy wrote a book called Belly Laughs which chronicles the journey of pregnancy in an extraordinarily candid light, touching on subjects that many consider too offensive for casual conversation. She has one chapter entitled "Passing Stonehenge"...... let's just say, I get it. Totally. I so totally get it. Luckily, I have a new prenatal vitamin that seems to be a little more, ahem, helpful in that area. So, enough on that.

Alright, onto another plumbing function that isn't exactly performing up to expectation: Today I was at the mall and while walking at what felt like a snail's pace, the hike to the restroom seemed never-ending. I mean, I thought we were going to have an accident - it was bad. So I'm racing to the restroom - not the public riff-raff one, but the one in Nordstrom (always reliable!) which forces me to walk a little further than necessary for relief (thus, tempting nature - like passing a rest stop thinking you can make it a few more miles before stopping; you know you have to go, but you think you can cram in "just a few more miles"?) So, alas, I make it to Nordie's and, accidents averted, I prepare to be greeted by sweet relief when... Hmm. How shall I put this? I was expecting Niagara Falls and I experienced more of a kinked backyard hose. Nothing short of disappointing. How could "this" have been the culprit of this much emergency? I mean, I could have proceeded with the aforementioned "accident" and no one would have been the wiser. I'm sure there is some medical explanation for this, one I don't really care about...I'm sure we blame the baby for it, as that's what we do these days. But I felt ripped off, like I needed my money back! Nonetheless, I was able to drive home in comfort with my mind and overzealous bladder at ease. However, this feeling of consternation (and no, I didn't say "constipation") every time I visit the powder room can really have an effect on one's sense of satisfaction, ya know? And I think I'll just leave it at that.

:)

House update: We have a contract! We close September 28th!!!

Mimi and Poppa ordered our crib! Yipppeeee!!!This picture is the crib, but we ordered it in chocolate brown (cherry wood)





Mimi (Betsy Ross) is taking her advertising-agency-quality story board of fabrics and colors to the next level...her fabric samples are fabulous! I can't WAIT to see our Pink and Cocoa Explosion of bedding and accessories!



(this picture is just the fabric she ordered...not her handiwork. We will not be having any of those stuffy looking silk bow tie looking things. We've essentially decided our theme is "Whimsy Chic". We're like "Queer Eye" but way gayer.)

We're signed up for birthing class - October 14! The idea of our cynical, inappropriate selves trying to sit through this class with a bunch of "good students" just makes me laugh. I hope we don't get kicked out for too much giggling and not enough panting and ....whatever the hell else they make you do in there.

And finally, we also have some shower dates nailed down (more on this later as I have amazing friends



who will not do any of the cliche, ridiculous baby shower rituals we've all been witness to over the years and for this I will be eternally grateful!!)-- October is going to be a madhouse!

Alright, that's all for now. I have to visit the toilet. Wish me luck!