Of shop vacs and improvisation

Hello, blog. (Blows virtual dust off of virtual interweb space.) I know, I've been neglecting you. Yes, I've been busy. And actually, I've been having quite a lot of fun, now that I seem to have the hang of this mom-thing, and I have lots of awesome new mom friends in my neighborhood to hang out with. Yes, I've been neglecting you for coffee klatches on H Street and addictive chicken cutlet Philly-style Italian sandwiches at Taylor Deli and playdates in the park in the lovely spring weather in DC which only lasts like, a minute, so you have to get out and enjoy it. It's true. And am I here to write about all the fun we've been having? Of course not, because why would I do that? It's boring. Suffering really has much more pith and drama to it, don't you think?

So. The baby has her first illness. Just a mild cold, nothing too bad. But she's all snuffly and snorty and stuffy and has a pitiful little cough, and she just cries sometimes because she just doesn't feel good, and isn't quite her usual happy smiling, wiggling self, with the slightly glazed eyes to match.

This morning, I decided to kill two rubber duckies with one stone by taking a long shower, and putting the stuffy baby in the bathroom with me to have her snuffliness soothed by the hot steam. I wedged the bouncy seat through the narrow door, strapped Helene in, gave her some toys, and hopped into the shower. It was strangely quiet within a minute. I peeked out, and there she was, sleeping away, still holding a toy. Awww. I finished my shower in a leisurely fashion. When I got out, I realized the baby was (a) still sleeping soundly; and (b) totally blocking the door. Do I try to get her out of the seat and into her bed? If not, how do I get out? I dripped and stared and thought for a moment. Then I shrugged, picked up seat with baby in it, moved her away from the door, and left her in the bathroom to keep napping in the warm steam. Her head was elevated, which helps the snot, the steam was soothing her nose and throat, and it was certainly cozy-warm in there. I did sneak back in to put the baby monitor in there. And she slept for a good 45 minutes, and woke up happy. Huh. I'm a genius.

***

When I realized the baby was actually sick yesterday, I tried to coddle her, holding, nursing and carrying her a lot, and torturing her with the snot sucker only when really necessary. She took more naps than usual, and was relatively happy playing between them, so I decided to cook an awesome dinner with our CSA veggies and some tuna steaks. I made mango salsa, set the rice cooker, tossed squash, asparagus, and spring onions with olive oil, salt & pepper to prepare them for the grill, and marinated the tuna in maple syrup and soy sauce. This would be a great dinner. I chilled a bottle of Virginia rose, and resisted the urge to open it now.

And then it started to rain. And rain. And RAIN. And rain harder. And harder. And HARDER. I have never seen rain like this in Washington, DC. If I still lived in Florida, I would have evacuated already for the hurricane. Trees whipping. Rain going sideways. News saying something about possible golf-ball sized hail. I kept looking nervously at our new skylight, and examining the floor for water, hoping our roofer had done a good job. Then I remembered the basement. It used to occasionally get water under the door when we forgot to clear out the storm drain. It didn't matter when it was just old cement floor down there. But now there are closets and books and fancy electronics. Better go take a look. I carried Helene down and propped her on her play mat.

The water under the door started as a trickle, and I stuffed some towels against the door. Which worked for about ten seconds. The water kept coming in. More towels. More water. Oh crap, the Danish teak table that we're going to refinish. And the boxes of books. And Seth's poker table top. What's in the closets, since water is going under those doors? Suddenly, I was barefoot and ankle-deep in cold rainwater and soggy towels, frantically rescuing things from the oncoming flood. Which was headed towards the Very Expensive Electronics. Oh yeah, and the baby on the floor. Who is starting to cry because she is miserable and stuffy and tired and sick.

"This is why we got ceramic tile and carpet tiles!" I said reassuringly as I sloshed around, moving boxes and pulling up sodden floor tiles. The baby was not reassured. Then the phone rang. Seth. He was late getting home. Yes, I was glad he wasn't drowned, but could he please COME HOME RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE BASEMENT IS FLOODING? Thanks. Must go, floodwaters still in force. I continued to carry heavy, wet carpet tiles to the utility sink. Helene continued to wail. At least the rain seemed to be letting up. Maybe. I could see water still pushing against the glass basement door. Opening the door - not an option. Carrying baby out in downpour to examine drain? Not an option. Leaving rolling-over baby in house with encroaching floodwaters while I go outside - also not an option. Where is Seth and why is he so DAMN LATE?

Seth arrived, and went outside to see to the drain. It was indeed clogged. With seeds from some tree that are weirdly, cosmically, exactly, precisely the size of the holes in the drain. I hope they were from the stupid tree in our backyard. Which we are having removed soon because it was stupidly planted incorrectly by the stupid previous owner, and it's root-bound, strangling itself, and dying anyhow. Seth unclogged everything, and I saw the water drain away. Now there was more water inside than out. Seth was dispatched to Home Depot for a shop vac. I hauled the last of the carpet tiles, rescued what needed rescuing. The water had stopped just short of the giant new TV. Oh yeah, and the baby. Who was still whimpering. So I hauled her upstairs, sat on the sofa, and decided catch up on my Tivo'ed "Deadliest Catch" episodes while I waited for Seth and the shop vac. Because footage of crazy Arctic storms at sea and immense walls of water dwarfing fishing vessels seemed appropriate.

Sink full of sodden FLOR tiles.

And then water started to drip quite loudly and steadily through the doorframe of the back sliding glass door. In the newly renovated sun porch. I looked over at it, looked down at the tired baby in my arms, and wished for a large slug of scotch. I turned up the TV volume and tried to ignore the dripping.

Sick baby. Flooded basement. Leaking roof. Trifecta!

Seth came home with an alarmingly large shop vac. I put the baby to bed, and went downstairs to slosh through the basement once more. Seth had the vac almost together. I helped him finish it, and left him happily sucking up water off the floor (He's always wanted a shop vac, it turns out. He is sure that he and Helene can make more messes that will merit the vac. And we can suck all the debris out of the storm drain with it. Which is much more fun than you, know, sweeping.). And I went upstairs to make my planned awesome dinner, damn it.

We will hug it and pat it and call it R2D2.

One delicious dinner, one bottle of wine, and one slug of scotch later, the basement was almost dry, the roofer would be called in the morning to fix the very old roof that we stupidly left over the very new addition, I'd caught up on "Deadliest Catch," and stayed up too late, and the baby amazingly slept soundly. We're still drying out here today - the basement, the sun room, the roof and the baby - but I think we'll make it as long as we don't lose the snot sucker, can pay the roofer and figure out how to get those carpet tiles to dry faster. All the domestic f-ing bliss you can stand.

Yeah. I had these great plans to take photos of the finished, decorated, furnished, fabulous new basement for the final "after" shot of the renovation. But instead, you get this.

It was supposed to be like this

Children. Plans. Hah, says the universe. It was supposed to be like this: Helene would have slipped out of my body into a warm tub, the waiting hands of her father, and would have then been placed on my belly, umbilical cord still pulsing between us. We'd be into our dream daycare, just a few blocks from our house, and our baby would happily lie in her father's arms and drink expressed milk from a bottle. I would have had a miraculous Mirena IUD placed in my uterus, without complication, to be removed easily with a tug upon the occasion I decide to reproduce again. But none of that is what happened. This is what happened: I had a surprise breech baby, a murky nightmare of a Cesarean section. We have no childcare; only a vague promise of "fall looks good, " and a muddled running of numbers, researching of nannies. Helene has refused with all her might and screaming to drink from a bottle, after doing it happily for a couple of months. The Mirena, in a one-in-a-gazillion occurrence, slipped up sideways into my uterus, and now lies there awkward and useless on the right side, to be removed only by laprascopic surgery. These things were not supposed to happen.

Here's Helene's room.
The one that we were supposed to bring her home to, just about six months ago. Well, you know how that went. Recall what it looked like in the "during construction" phase. You know that we were still in the rented beige apartment when Helene was born, that we brought her home there, because our house was still a dust-covered deathtrap construction zone until the end of January. I guess it doesn't really matter, since the baby has slept in our room (wherever it was) since she was born. But I missed it, that lovely frantic hormone-infused nesting, nestling, getting everything clean and pretty and placed and ready for the beautiful known surprise. Better late than never. Except for this stupid mobile, which I got as a shower gift.

Which says it's good for ages '"0 to 5 months." Well, fuck. Because my baby is just about six months old so I'd better just take down this insanely mesmerizing mobile that I JUST PUT UP. Oh no. We're using that damn mobile, even if it means it stays up there until the baby can stand, pull it down upon her small head, and yell "I hate you! I have a dent in my head now and I will never have a prom date! You have ruined my life!" at her stupid mother who put the thing up in the first place. So yeah, the baby has a real room now that actually looks like a baby lives in it. I think she's taken a total of three naps in there now, looking all stranded and small in the giant island of her lovely dark wood crib. She hasn't slept at night in there yet. Because I can't let her yet. I am still too attached to placing a hand on her little body in the co-sleeper next to me to quiet her when she cries out in her sleep, or to just feel the soft, solid rise and fall of her breath in the velvet dark, or to slide her into bed next to me for a precious hour or two of snoozing in the early morning, so I can watch her stir and stretch, and see her big grey-blue eyes open wide to the morning, wide smile to follow.

And then there's this. The Precious Planet Jumperoo.

Because Helene loooves standing, loves being bounced up and down, cannot get enough, and Mama's arms are tired from being a human jumperoo every day (though it is helping my triceps). So I decided we needed to buy this most elaborate and complicated plastic piece of baby paraphernalia (definitely the biggest, gaudiest, plastickiest baby thing we've bought to date) so the baby could jump! And bounce! And spin! And entertain herself for maybe dozens of minutes at a time. The Jumperoo was dutifully purchased at a big suburban baby store, wedged in the trunk, hauled home, and assembled (despite the usual horrifyingly bad instructions). The baby was placed in the seat that looks like a giant monkey is eating her, and voila! Let the fun begin. Just one problem with this whole plan. Our darling, precious petite flower of a baby? Her feet? Do not touch the floor. So she just kind of....dangles there....in the monkey head. Sigh.

I should stop getting so attached to plans.

Updatery

(1) Feeling MUCH better since the day of this post. Immediately after that, I signed up for a baby yoga class, made plans with some other moms to take our babies out to a movie, bought a jogging stroller, and vowed to go to my neighborhood "Eaters and Sleepers" playgroup/coffee klatsch every week. Yes, I realize this is a long list of things. Overcompensate? Me?

(2) And since this post, the baby and I quite successfully flew cross-country to visit Grandma. Helene was quite fabulous. She fell asleep about 30 minutes before we boarded our first flight, from Newark to Salt Lake City, slept for a couple of hours, was awake for maybe an hour, and slept for the rest of that flight. She also slept for most of the second flight from Salt Lake to Boise. We had kind fellow travelers, who got bins for us at security, held things for us, and generally admired the baby (it does help when your baby gives a wide, gummy smile to pretty much anyone who makes eye contact). We had a kind flight attendant on our first flight who was happy to hold Helene, and who knew which airplane bathroom had a changing table in it. The pressure changes on takeoff and landing didn't faze the baby at all. I plopped her in our sling to carry her through the airports and to sleep. I tried to travel light, taking only a (crammed full) diaper bag on the plane. But I still had a change of clothes for both me and the baby in case of Diaper Blowout Emergencies. Which didn't happen, thankfully.

Now we just have to get back home today. I'm trying not to be superstitious about ye olde Friday the 13th and all, and am keeping crossed fingers that our previous good travel karma holds out. Because, wow, is four and a half hours a looooong time when you are on a full plane holding a completely cooperative/happy/sleeping baby. I don't even want to let thought enter my head about what it would be like if the baby was NOT cooperative/sleeping/happy. It's hard for you to sleep, hard for you to read. I tried to doze and watched the in-flight movie with no sound because I was too cheap to buy the $2 headphones on the plane. I might buy them this time. One of my friends won't travel with her young daughters because she had such a horrific experience with her oldest at five months (screaming baby, complete diaper explosion all over baby, stripping down, cleaning & changing baby in aisle of plane)- she says the memories still make her twitch. Yikes. So, fingers crossed, folks! Keep watching CNN to make sure you don't see us.

Flying the fearful skies

Some god of some kind help me, but I'm getting on two planes tomorrow with a 3-month old to go visit Grandma Wanda in Idaho. Alone. With the infant. And the fucking airlines. And fucking TSA. And all the other fucking people. Who all might be mean to us. I am utterly terrified. I've been having anxiety dreams and even anxiety daydreams about this for a week. So, should you be flying from Newark to Salt Lake City tomorrow, you might want to (a) reconsider your plans; or (b) just be sure you really do like babies before you get on that plane. I am simply hoping for dry pants and no newsworthy incidents. So keep scanning CNN. You'll know if something happened.

Dude, where's my village?

Those last few nagging pregnancy pounds? Want to lose them? Simple. Just contract yourself a case of the Horrible Stomach Flu of Death, and voila! Pounds=gone. Holy crap, I never want to have an illness like that and take care of a 3-month old nursing infant again.

I woke up Wednesday feeling kind of hungover - headache, dry mouth, mild queasiness - which was odd, since I sip about one and a half drinks over an evening on a really wild night these days. This morphed into something horrific from the end of the digestive tract that afternoon, and gave way to full-on college-style lying on the tile floor moaning over the toilet by late afternoon. I gamely laid on the floor of the baby's room with her as long as I could, shaking toys, and playing silly songs on iTunes. Then I gave up, cried uncle, updated my Facebook status to "mostly dead", and called Seth and begged him to come home while I lay in bed shivering with fever and making sure Helene was in a safe place when I had to bolt to the bathroom.

Did I mention I NEVER want to do that again? Seth took the baby at all times except when she was sleeping or nursing. He'd lay her beside me to nurse - I couldn't really even pick her up. Seth did this Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday night, and all day Thursday. I almost sobbed because I wished my baby would drink from a bottle (she did for awhile, and now refuses), tried to keep down water, hoped this wouldn't make my milk dry up, and scrubbed my hands raw trying to keep the plague away from Seth and Helene and our poor houseguest Seamus who last saw a glimpse of me sometime Tuesday night and could only hear the running down the hall and the hurling (so sorry - will try to be better, biohazard free hostess next time).

I was so glad Seth was there and so afraid he would get sick too, or that I would get sicker. I was really afraid of passing out or needing IV fluids for a little while because I was so dehydrated. Then what would we do? We have no babysitters yet. Our friends all work. Closest family is in New Jersey. I guess we would have called Seth's aunt and uncle to come down here, or trolled the Capitol Hill moms listserve in desperation for any available babysitter. And if a three-month old gets a virus like this, it's hospital time. Nature, though, she knows what she's doing. As Seth pointed out, even before I knew I was sick, Helene was getting the antibodies my body was producing through my milk. Nature is smart, and shit, you know?

On Friday, Seth had to go back to work, so I had to deal. The fever had broken, the various projectile bodily fluids had ceased, liquids were staying down, but I was still the consistency of a limp, wet rag. I can't say that Helene got optimal stimulation on Friday. I'm afraid I plopped her on her play mat, collapsed on the sofa in front of a Style TV "Clean House" marathon, and made sure she was alive once in awhile. In my exhaustion, I daydreamed about the days when I lived in an English basement apartment just a few blocks from here, single, independent. No plants, no pets, no significant others. If I got sick, I just had to call into work and go to bed and sleep as long as necessary. To just be able to lie in bed sick and have no other obligations seems like pure luxury now. Then I daydreamed feverishly about daycare, about nannies, about babysitters, about my mom helping me, about Seth's mom helping me, about anyone's mom helping me. I wondered why we didn't live closer to family. Oh yeah, because we don't want to live in Idaho or New Jersey. I know I was very tired, and maybe it was the illness talking, but I suddenly felt very alone and like I didn't want to be a full-time stay at home mom anymore. I wanted to just sleep. Read an entire book. Wear heels and dressy clothes without having to consider the logistics of nursing. Shop for frivolous things. Go out for long dinners with bottomless glasses of wine which I could drink with abandon because I wasn't nursing.

Then Seth got some e-mails on Friday about our status on the many Federal daycare wait lists. Some are pipe dreams, some look promising for the fall, none look good for May, which is when I had planned to return to work. Seth mentioned that he'd run the numbers, and we probably could afford for me to not work until September. I don't know how I feel about that. Or how my office would feel. I know I can't do it that long without some help. Maybe a sitter or nanny a couple of times a week. Something. Anything. The idea of being home with Helene more is a gift, a burden, wonderful, fearful.

I told Seth that staying home with Helene on Friday while I was still sick was about the hardest thing I've done. Maybe it wasn't, but it was pretty hard. Part of it is caring so much about her, and knowing I have implicitly promised to tend to her every need, especially when she is still so tiny. It was extra-hard knowing that there wasn't really anyone to help me, other than Seth. I guess I could find someone, if I called enough and begged enough. We need a network. We need to find babysitters, because we don't have family close by. I need to get out, have Helene be a little less dependent on just me for me to survive. I know this is old refrain on the mommyblog circuit, but it doesn't feel old when it happens to you, and you are the one torn between wanting to lovingly do everything on earth for your child, and needing to hand her over to someone else to do it too.

Come Saturday, I was feeling quite a bit better, if still Bambi-wobbly on my weakened legs. I could not wait to get out of the house. I hadn't left since last Tuesday night. We went out to breakfast, to our favorite neighborhood greasy spoon, and the outside air and the sight of other people were just as tasty as my biscuits and gravy. Though I watched the twenty-something Hill staffers stumble in, bleary-eyed from their night-before, and I let myself envy their freedom for a few moments.

I've got to get out more. I've got to find that network. I've got to use my gym's babysitters, now that Helene is old enough. I've definitely hit it, that point where the shiny new baby novelty is a little bit dulled, and I just need to see some other humans and fill some hours, because as amazing and wonderful and lovely and happy as Helene is, I just can't sit around the house with her all day or I am going to chew my own foot off. I know it gets easier, right? Everyone says the baby stages go so fast, so enjoy them, and I am trying, and I do, but there has to be some better balance. Just tell me it gets easier, and that this too shall pass, and all those other cliches. Please.

No place like home

And we didn't even need ruby slippers to get back here. Though they might have helped with all the moving of boxes. Oh my god, the boxes. Somehow, we always pick the worst weather days to move. We moved into this house 4.5 years ago during the tail end of a hurricane in a torrential downpour. This time it was freezing rain and ice. Seth did 98% of the moving himself, with a U-Haul van, sloshing shin-deep in freezing water and sliding on the ice in the alley behind our house. I'm just not much help, since as the milk cow, I have to attend to the baby. (We tipped our movers really well for the hurricane rain four years ago; Seth is still thinking up his sufficient compensation for this move. I'm afraid to ask, because I fear costume rental could be involved.) By the time all the stuff was in the house, Seth was just done. D.U.N. Stick a fork in him. Or at least a couple of draft beers.

And I know I have said it before, but my god, tiny little babies come with a lot of stuff. I think 75% of what we moved from the apartment back to the house belonged to Helene. Look, here it is. And that's not even all of it. There were a few more boxes downstairs.
Halp! Drowning in boxes of baby accessories! Seriously, THIS ALL BELONGS TO THE BABY.


Tucked in to our very own bed on our first night back with our very own wireless internet. Yeah, we might not know where our dishes or clothes are but we have the Interwebs (and apparently seven chins), thanks very much.

The long renovation goodbye

It's really, truly, for real almost done. After so many conversations with our contractor that were the renovation equivalent of "are we there yet??" we seem to almost be there. A few strong words and almost-temper tantrums were required. We appeared at the house on Saturday with a cadre of (amazing, wonderful!) friends who'd volunteered to help us move the mountains of boxes back to their assigned places in basement and kitchen and to move some furniture around. We kicked the guy out who was working on the backsplash in the kitchen, dusted out cabinets, and started putting things away. I think our contractor knew we were serious then. Our friends schlepped boxes down the stairs and teetered on stepladders to wipe construction dust from shelves while Seth and I discussed punch list items with the contractor, and I intermittently nursed the baby, who supervised the whole production. But this is it. We are moving in this week, come shelf readjustments and leaky faucets. (We have some of both - the mudroom hooks and shelves were made for someone who is 6'6", not 5'3", and our kitchen faucet was somehow leaking quite copiously all over our very goddamn expensive kitchen cabinets yesterday. Great. Just great. Seth did some freaking out and ranting. I just smiled. Teflon. I am Teflon. Nonstick, but toxic when pushed to my limits.)

Upstairs bathroom. A serious improvement over the previous version.

Mmm, shiny!

Mmm, granite!

Holy crap, look at all that garbage. Our yard used to look, uh, kind of different.

Change the location of that toilet paper holder or I'm setting the baby loose.

The albatross has flown

That, my friends, is the infamous albatross gas meter, now located as planned on the OUTSIDE of our house. I have no idea what it took to wrestle this thing out here, and I don't care. I just know it's done. Victory. It gives me faint, renewed hope about this house project being completed in 2008.


And there are actual cabinets in our kitchen. It is starting to look like an actual kitchen again instead of a gutted wreck.

I am also currently obsessing about the location of the hand towel rack in the basement bathroom. As if I didn't have enough things to lose sleep over (newborn, hello?) I can't stop thinking about this damn hand towel rack. It's currently located between the sink and the shower. I think it's too low, and I think it's sort of in the way of the shower, and I think I need to have it moved, and I think that will confirm yet again to the contractor that I am indeed completely obsessive compulsive. I also e-mailed him earlier in this process about other things that were keeping me awake at night, such as an 18-inch wine refrigerator shown on a diagram when we had ordered a 15-inch one; such as scanned photos and several links to specific tiles for kitchen backsplashes; such as oh my god I can't sleep because someone inadvertently said we had "mocha" cabinets when the damn color had better actually be "cappucino" because I based everything in my life on the "cappucino" color and I am hormonal and pregnant and if there are any changes I'm going to throw a fit like you have never seen before.
Yeah. I've noticed that the contractor doesn't e-mail me like he used to anymore.

Ur chaos - let us show u it

I had a conversation the other day with one of my bosses in which he asked about how the baby's room was coming along. I said that we could not do much because our house was "under construction." With a skeptical look on his face he asked me what I meant by "under construction." His eyebrows went up further with every minute that I talked, describing the various phases/stages/incarnations of construction all going on simultaneously in our house. I think he got it after that. So, for your viewing pleasure - the total house chaos.

Dining room.

Living room, looking towards the front door.
Living room, looking towards the dining room/kitchen.
Kitchen, looking towards the back yard.
Second floor bathroom.
Guest room/baby's room. Note superabundance of pink baby clothing and baby accessories in foreground.
Master bedroom. We thought they were going to have to knock a hole in the wall, but they think they aren't, so that's a plus.
Hallway and study.
On the brighter side, the back of our house is no longer gone. We love it. It looks great. Really, at this point, anything that is done and looks like a house is great. Our standards are very, very low. I didn't even have the energy to cover the basement. It looks much the same as last time, and is full of drywall and carpentry equipment for the upstairs. One of our contractor's employees does keep asking about my due date, which is nice, but then he asked whether the baby could hold off for a couple of months. I'm taking that as a joke.

Fleeing the scene

We have temporarily fled our under-construction house.

It all came about kind of quickly. Seth's parents were here about two weeks ago, to deliver the dog back to us for safekeeping while they are in England and Australia. They were also here to look at apartments. A second grandchild on a third continent has made for some geographic challenges for my in-laws. Their primary residence is currently in London, where they've lived for the last eight or so years. For awhile, Seth's brother, his wife, and Grandchild #1 also lived in London. Which was great for everyone - loads of free babysitting for my brother-in-law, and my parents-in-law could get their baby fix. A little over a year ago, my brother-in-law got a great job offer in Melbourne, Australia. Which he took. So, Grandchild #1 (and his parents) moved to Australia. My in-laws have been on several month-long visits in the last year, and there has been some lobbying from some members of the family to get us to move to Australia so that everyone could conveniently be on the same continent. We aren't going anywhere, especially not after the Great Renovation is done, so that part of my mother-in-law's fondest dream won't be fulfilled. Unless of course we win the lottery or someone offers us very lucrative sinecures in Melbourne.

So, now we've gone and made everything more complicated by having Grandchild #2 on a continent that is neither Europe nor Australia. Now, my in-laws are wondering if they want to move back to the U.S. permanently (they spend summers here), and if so, where? They're considering DC, in order to be as close to the shiny new grandchild as possible. They definitely want to be here for awhile when the baby is born (which we think is fantastic - these people definitely know a lot more about babies than we do and we know they'll make sure we can keep her alive), and kind of try out the area, so they've rented an apartment. Due to the ridiculous glut of high-rise condo and apartment buildings constructed in the blind optimism of the real estate boom, they were able to find a place that would give them a short-term lease. While they were here looking, they asked if we might want to stay in the place while our house was being worked on, and if so, they'd rent it right away. We deferred and said, no, we're fine. Really! We don't mind living in one room, eating dinner sitting on our bedroom rug (it's like a picnic!), having to turn off all the lights to run the microwave because otherwise it will overload the pathetic upstairs circuit, washing dishes in the tub, weaving around the boxes stacked to the ceiling....and what's a little construction dust on everything? It's an adventure! I think they were rightfully probably completely horrified at the way we were subsisting.

The tipping point was the dog. The sad, pathetic dog who just had cruciate ligament surgery, requires a whole regimen of pills and supplements to treat his Cushing's disease, stiff aging joints, and allergies, and has to be carried up and down all stairs for the next six weeks while his ligaments heal. Plus he comes with a lot of stuff. And it turned out there was just no more room for one more living creature and his stuff in our one-room living space.
After one day of my popping pregnant self lugging Rufus (who the groomer has described as a "portly little guy") up and down our narrow rowhouse stairs and cast-iron stoop three times a day, barricading him in our bedroom to keep him out of the way the construction workers, and tripping over his pointy little Nylabones on the floor of our bedroom because there is no other room to be in, I agreed with Seth that we should just accept the generous, wonderful offer and move out of our damn house. (Seth does suspect he was at the end of the list of parties his parents could not go on allowing to live in the construction zone. We think the list of concern went in this priority order: (1) unborn grandchild; (2) gestating mother; (3) pathetic dog; and (4) oh yeah. Seth.)

So we did. Now we're living in what I think of as the Alternate Seth & Roberta Universe. In this alternate plane, we're a fresh-faced young (looking) couple, new to the neighborhood, with a baby obviously on the way, and a cute little dog, and we're moving into this spiffy new ultra-modern high-rise apartment building in an up-and-coming neighborhood, because we got a good deal on it, and it's near our offices, and we love new, modern buildings with game rooms and roof decks and free WiFi, and chatting up all the front desk folks, and we're saving up for a house.....It's so weird. This place is so not us. But who cares, because we have a KITCHEN and LAUNDRY. ALL IN ONE PLACE. And CABLE. Did I mention CABLE? WITH HBO AND A DVR. Even if the common areas do have furniture that looks like this:


These chairs? So not comfortable, in case you were wondering. Do not recommend flopping down in one, especially with the loosening joints and extra 25 lbs. of 7+ months of pregnancy.

(Interestingly, one of the building managers and his young wife actually ARE the alternate universe us - they have a little dog, and her due date is a couple of weeks after mine. So far, they are the only other people we have seen who also actually live in this building. Something like 20 of 200 available units are rented. Our whole floor is vacant, except for us.)

Seth's parents also rented furniture and dishes and things for the apartment, so that they will be comfortable whenever we vacate it. I had no idea you could do such a thing, but I guess these things are needed for corporate apartments all the time. The furniture is comfortable, if awfully....beige.

And in the category of Just Because We Needed More Shit Going On, we discovered earlier this week that our external hard drive had been erased. You know, the hard drive that we bought to be the super-safe backup of all our laptop data? After a whole lot of visits to the Mac Genius Bar to get our laptop issues fixed, we discovered that our laptop would no longer recognize our external hard drive. We'd plug it in, and the Mac acted like it didn't even exist. Which, well, it didn't, since it was BLANK. We think it got fried in the same thunderstorm that killed our modem. Despite the fact that the hard drive was plugged into a very expensive surge protector. Apparently, just the surrounding electrical surging energy and whatnot can be enough to wipe the data. Fortunately, the worst thing we lost was all of our music, most of which we still have on CDs, and the rest of which is still on the Mac. It just means many hours of downloading CDs again. (Breastfeeding project, perhaps? Put baby on boob. Insert CD. Click. Wait for both downloads to finish. Repeat.) So, we bought the SUV-version of a hard drive and backed up what we still have on our Mac. And we will never be keeping this hard drive plugged in or near a lot of other electronic stuff. Ever. And making more DVD data backups, so we can be sure to save priceless, high-quality, flattering photos like these forever:
Some fat guy we saw at a Red Sox- Orioles game once.

And it's not even 10:00 am on Monday

Let me update you on the status of our household:

-We have no kitchen.
-We have no washer & dryer (well, we do, but they are disconnected and stored under our porch).
-Two rooms of our house are habitable- three if you count the bathroom.
-We have to turn off all lights and other electric devices upstairs when we run the microwave because otherwise it will trip the circuit breaker because the electrical circuits for the upstairs are stupid, old and wimpy.
-The air conditioning in my Jeep suddenly stopped working on a 96-degree day.
-Seth's 17-year old Honda Civic started this morning, moved 2 feet, and then died, not to be revived.
-The Honda is now parked/stuck on the side of the street slated for cleaning this morning, is a foot or two outside the white parking lines, is slightly blocking our neighbor's driveway, and despite the note on the windshield stating that the car won't start, will probably get approximately $2,347 in parking tickets from the incredibly efficient DC parking enforcement.
-The Honda's problem is not the battery, indicating a possible exorbitant repair expense.
-We have already decided that if further repairs to the Honda are over a certain dollar amount, we're not going to repair it again.
-My car is a stick, and Seth can't/won't drive it.
-I'm almost 30 weeks pregnant.
-Someone will have to drive my laboring ass to the birth center/hospital, preferably without jackrabbiting the clutch, stalling out the car, or getting into an accident.
-OMFG 30 WEEKS PREGNANT; HOUSE MOSTLY DESTRUCTED; UP TO EYEBALLS IN EXPENSES AND DRYWALL DUST FOR HOUSE RENOVATION; PLEASE SEND NEW/GENTLY USED AUTO TRANSMISSION SUBARU STATION WAGON TO WASHINGTON DC. AND VAT OF MACARONI AND CHEESE. THX.