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.

You say it's your birthday

And so it was, on Sunday. Thirty six. Yow. Leaning more towards a decade that I'm not even going to say out loud or type because if I don't acknowledge it, it won't exist. Let's just remain firmly in the present.

There were a lot of bigbigbig changes in the Thirty-Fifth Year Of My Life. You know, baby, major house renovation, BABY. I'm hoping that the Thirty-Sixth Year will be more of an even keel. We certainly aren't moving. Ever. With the money we spent on this renovation, we are staying here until they peel our cold, dead bodies off of the very expensive granite. Or until the real estate market recovers sufficiently for us to recoup the funds and do something insane like move into another house and start all over again.

It's amazing to be home, but I'm still feeling sort of scattered. I'm thinking that one day soon I will feel like I have my shit totally together again, but then I talk to a more experienced, wiser parent than I, and I realize that no, this is probably not going to happen. Showers will continue to be optional on any given day. I will continue to be grateful for good hair products that make those long minutes I used to spend on my hair unnecessary. I will pay for things at a store and forget them on the counter, and have people run after me to give them to me, because I was so caught up in making sure that I had the baby, the diaper bag, the stroller, my wallet, my credit card, my keys, that I completely forgot that I actually bought something and that I should now take it with me, per the usual custom in our society. The line between the clean and dirty baskets of laundry will continue to be blurry and shifting as I continue to forget which is which.

And I will continue to worry. Worry, with a capital W. I was unprepared for the volume and intensity and constancy of the worry. Is my baby too small? Is she eating enough? Is she hungry? Why is she hiccuping? What is that little red spot on her cheek? Is she cold? Why is she crying? What does she want? Am I doing this right? How much therapy is she going to need? She spat up - does she have a stomach disorder? SHE'S BREATHING, RIGHT? RIGHT?? And then this spawns other worry. How much overage did we pay for the renovation? Was it worth it? What's wrong with our roof now? What can we afford? Am I really going to be able to stand to go back to work in three more months?

I try not to get mired in the worry, and to just chill and enjoy. Which is hard when your time is divided between keeping the little larva entertained and alive, and frantically flying around by the seat of your pants while she's asleep to try to get things done that need to be done, and to try to do something for myself. Like drink some water or go to the bathroom or read the New York Times headlines. I used to get shit done, y'all, and it's hard to let go.

So. Once again. Let's try to stay in the present, be in the moment, and enjoy what's here now. Like the fancy new kitchen. Which really is well worth enjoying. Here's the "before" and "during" for comparison. Enjoy the pretty kitchen photos, cuz that's all I got, unless you want to sing the songs from "Philadelphia Chickens" with me and Helene.

Looking towards the front of the house.

Looking towards the back of the house.

Brave new world

I've been all over the place about what to write. Probably because all of my stuff is all over the place, and I have clothes and hygiene products on three floors due to the re-moving into our house a week and half ago. I do not deal with clutter well. In college and law school I would clean my entire dorm room or apartment and do all of the laundry and grocery shopping (Ramen? Check. Diet Coke? Check. Takeout menus? Check. Chocolate covered espresso beans? Check.) before final exams because otherwise I could not study because the mess would stress me out and I would have to clean it, thereby not studying, thereby stressing even more. Controlling? Type A? Me? Hence, because my stuff is scattered, I am scattered. I'm also only half-assed or maybe even quarter-assed effective at doing anything about it because most of my day is spent tending to this precious little monkey.
But we're getting there. Everything almost has a place in the kitchen. Except the damn can opener, because we can't find any of them. We are sure we had at least two when we left the house, and now we have none. Every other kitchen gadget known to man, yes, but a can opener? No. U cannot has can opener. I refuse to buy a new one because THEY HAVE TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE. Somewhere.

We're learning to live in our house all over again, because it's kind of the same, but also really different. We have more space in some places; less space in others; and a new little resident and all of her belongings to find room for. Since our basement is now actually nice and not creepy, we can't just chuck everything down there haphazardly anymore. This means Organizing. Lots. Necessitating a trip to the Container Store and two (2) shopping carts(!) full of boxes, bins, and baskets. We're getting there. Rather than complain about less space in certain places -- like in our accidental new bathroom vanity, because the old vanity which had all kinds of nifty storage space was mistakenly thrown out -- I am trying to be Zen and use it as a reason to have less stuff. We are mercilessly sorting, tossing and donating. We're like our own "Clean House" show, except that we actually want to get rid of the stuff and aren't deranged clingy pack rats like the people on those shows. We have a few weak spots: me = model and toy horse collection from childhood; Seth = allll the history books from allll his history classes in college. But Progress is being made.

I oversaw the removal of the beige rental furniture from the rental apartment last week, and it was a surprisingly emotional couple of hours. We brought Helene "home" to that apartment, we did so many of her first things there - baths, smiles - and we spent many hours playing, cuddling, napping and nursing in that apartment on that rented furniture. I got weepy at saying goodbye to the place where Helene spent her first sleepy newborn days with us, where we graduated from being a couple and really became a family.

It was a simpler life there, a bubble of babyness, in that small apartment. Very few of our clothes and personal items were there (well, with the exception of the piles of baby things)- just what we really needed every day - and the few rooms of the place revolved around Helene at their center. It got more complicated when we moved home to our creaky, drafty, beloved old house, packed squirrel-like with our hoards of boxes and books and cherished tchochkes, all the accumulated furniture and belongings of our lives until now.

Though it feels undeniably good to be home, worlds are colliding a la George Costanza as I work to mingle my pre-baby life with my post-baby life. Some observations: (1) "Lady Chatterly's Lover" now shares my bedside bookshelf next to Dr. Sears' "The Baby Book." (2) I had to resist the urge to use the baby bottle brush to wash a residue of cognac out from our brandy snifters (but it would have been just the right size to fit through the narrow mouth of the glasses!). (3) I now lay on the living room rug for Tummy Time with Helene with a Reidel glass of vidal blanc in my hand.

So we're still working on finding new places for everything, and our place in the new everything, figuring out how to live with Helene in our half-new house, fitting all the puzzle pieces together again in a new picture. The weather has been warm, so Helene and I strolled to the dry cleaners, where they'd missed us and they oohed and aahed and tickled the baby so much I was kind of afraid they would steal her. Then we walked to one of our neighborhood coffeehouses for an absurdly caloric milkshake because, hey, I'm nursing and I need calcium. Helene snoozed in the Ergo on the way home as I walked slowly to watch the afternoon light on the detailed woodwork on the rowhouses in the blocks near our house. I turned the last corner, and brought Helene in the door of our old-new home, our own new world.

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.

Oh right, our HOUSE

Huh. Yeah. We did have this other Really Big Thing going on in our lives. It was eclipsed by the lovely daze of New Babyness which comes with Massive Sleep Deprivation Haze mixed with Total Emotional Overload and Inability to Get Dressed (Even In Yoga Pants) By Noon or to Get Anything Else Done.

So, we have remembered that we haven't always been cocooned in this modern beige high-rise apartment, and that we do in fact own a quite nice 1895 Capitol Hill rowhouse that is being renovated within an inch of its life. After calling Seth about shower heads and paint colors on the day Helene was born, our contractors considerately left us alone for about a week when Seth tersely explained, "Can't talk now. Had BABY." But now they actually want decisions on stuff so they can, you know, FINISH OUR DAMN HOUSE.

We went by the house today with some paint chips so we could choose paint colors for the powder room and sun room. (We actually spontaneously LEFT THE APARTMENT today for AN ENTIRE HOUR. BY OURSELVES. While Grandma Fran watched the baby sleep. We are living on the edge here, let me tell you.) If I weren't still in a slight stupor from days of not-quite-enough-sleep, and didn't have a still slightly sore C-section incision, I would have been goddamn jumping up and down and howling with sheer ECSTASY over the fact that OUR KITCHEN CABINETS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED. I did what I could with excitement, and tried to stay well out of the workers' way so they could WORK (faster, please??). We were told by our contractor that once the cabinets were delivered, it would be three weeks to completion. It had better fucking be, or I am no longer responsible for what cranky postpartum hormonal female velociraptor-esque rage that could be unleashed.

But Progress. There is Progress. Light at the end of the tunnel. Hope, and all that crap.

Kitchen - all drywalled and just waiting for our pretty, pretty kitchen cabinets.
Random sort of angle showing the basement bathroom. Still needs a sink. I hope I actually like the paint color. I almost don't care anymore.

OMFG, the basement looks almost DONE. Like an actual, like, room, in an actual, like house, that people, like live in and stuff. Except for the albatross, I mean gas meter in the left hand corner. This thing is supposed to be moved to the exterior of the house. This little project was started in, oh, June. Somehow, our contractor's people broke the old, crusty shutoff valve which is a little bit of a problem when you're working with flammable noxious fumes. Our contractor was not amused when I suggested painting it shiny fire-engine red and keeping it as a decorative element. At least I know he wants to get rid of it about as much as I do.
And the back of our house has returned, all new and improved. With a nice deck and non-deathtrap stairs too.
We are soooo, close people. We keep telling Helene what a great house we're working on for her. Just think of all the new and improved rooms she'll be sleepily oblivious to.

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.

We kind of wish we hadn't seen this

There's just something about being eight months pregnant, displaced from your house, unsure when your house will be livable again, unopened baby accessories piling up in the temporary apartment because there is no place to put it away, you know....that makes it not exactly comforting to go visit your beloved under-renovation house and see that THE ENTIRE BACK WALL IS GONE.

We assume this situation will be remedied soon.

On the bright side, the new front window for our basement has finally been installed.

I think we'll just tally it all as "progress is being made." It makes us feel better than "holymotherfuckingshitwhatthehellhappenedtoourhouse???!!!"

Three Years/33 Weeks

This past Wednesday was our third wedding anniversary. We did a low-key, nice-but-not-extravagant dinner out at a restaurant we've never been to before. I put on a maternity sweater that somehow makes me feel trim and chic; big, bright jewelry that distracts from my puffy ankles, and heels, because I will always be too vain to wear ugly/flat/comfortable shoes all the time. I looked longingly at the cozy, golden-lit bar in the front of the restaurant, and at the glittering flute of champagne that the bartender was pouring. I definitely feel at least 50% less fun these days, since I don't drink, my stomach is the size of a (flattened) walnut, and at least half of what I put into my stomach gives me heartburn, no matter what it is. Nonetheless, I managed to put away an appetizer of the lightest little puffs of delectable fried oysters, a rich Chesapeake seafood stew, and most of a piece of key lime cheesecake. When the waitress asked if she could take my dessert plate away, I leaned back in my seat, moaning, and replied, "Yes, please, before I hurt myself." Since I'm not drinking (more a factor of heartburn than paranoia), I make sure to order fancy bottled water, and harass Seth about what beverage he should order so I can taste it.

I spent some time thinking about the past three years, but perhaps more thinking about how different the next year is going to be. Three years seems like both a long time and a short time - I remember vividly our wedding, our honeymoon, and all the adventures - good and bad (mostly good, I have to say) - that have happened in between. What I think makes it seem long is the fact that I am PREGNANT, which means there will be a BABY in seven-ish weeks, which is still such a far-out concept for me to wrap my head around.

I look kind of mmm, puffy. And so thrilled to be here. I blame the photographer.
The whole experience is just so far from everywhere I have been and everything I have done until now. Last year at this time, I was deep into training for the New York City Marathon. On this day last year, I ran the Army 10-Miler, and then ran home to get in an extra 4 miles to hit my necessary weekly training mileage. Today, I tried to find a t-shirt that still covered my belly, went to the market with Seth, researched diaper bags, and got a pedicure because painting my own toenails is most definitely out of the question at this point. It's been an ambitious day - I feel pretty energetic. Unlike yesterday, when I just felt sapped of energy most of the day. It's not the total, soul-sucking fatigue of the first trimester, but I'm definitely draggy on some days. Sleep cannot be depended on. Last week, I felt like I was in a tussle of wills (already???!!!!) with the baby, who likes to curl herself along the right side of my uterus. I normally fall asleep on my left side, and will wake up a couple of hours later to flip over to my right because something has probably cramped or gone numb. Then I move whatever pillow is working for me that night, and do the cumbersome, slow-mo roll over to my right side, rearrange my limbs and belly on the pillows, and go back to sleep. Except that the baby was having NONE OF IT. Every time I would roll over to my right side, no matter how I propped my belly, the baby would kick and punch and wiggle until I just gave up and rolled back over to my left. I tried to sleep through it, but this would seriously go on for like ten minutes, and I just couldn't take it any more. Fine, fine! I'm rolling over! Are you happy? OK? And seemingly, she would be. This week, I'm allowed to sleep on my right side most nights, which has made for better sleep.

I also have some competition for my body pillow:


There is progress on our house. Of course, we wish it were faster. I really try not to think about it too much, because it would make me insane, and be a waste of energy, and I need all the energy I can get. I went over to the house yesterday for the first time in a few days to view the taking down of the back kitchen wall. This wall was originally an exterior wall, and our three-season porch was originally an open back porch. The porch will be our new kitchen eating area and mud room. I have to say, I love it. So much light comes in, and the sight line from the front to the rear of the house is great. It's going to be fantastic. (Here's the old kitchen, for comparison.)

We talk about all the photos we've taken of the house, to show the before and after. Seth has pointed out that the "new" Version 2.0 house will be the only one the baby ever knows. He can't wait to show her all the photos of the "old" house, to show her how we lived before she came along. I am sure that once the house is finished, and once she is here, it will feel like it has always been that way, and the photos may seem almost as distant to us as they will to her.

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.

30-week plus update

The 17-year old Honda Civic didn't make it. Repairs over the next several months would have cost more than the Bluebook value, so the car is being donated. You can read the full obit/eulogy for this fine automobile here. I even got emotional when we left the car, and I have professed not to be attached to it or even like it all that much.

Seth's parents are kindly loaning us their Toyota station wagon for a few months (they're headed back to London for a bit, so they won't need it) until we have the time, money and wherewithal to buy another car. We wish we could get by with just one vehicle, but what with me planning to stay home for six months, and with anticipated daycare dropoff/pickup schedules, I just don't think we can do it. Despite the wonderful walkability of our neighborhood, it will be winter when the baby's born and I might stab someone in the eye with the nearest pacifier if I can't get in the car and get the heck out of the house with the baby some days. If we got into our dream daycare location at the Library of Congress, the pickup/dropoff thing would be MUCH easier, since it's walking distance from our house, and on the way to work. Don't even get me started on the lack of daycare facilities in the federal building that we work in, and the total disservice that is to the employees. Or the sparse options for daycare in our immediate neighborhood, despite the evident baby boom. Forget the chicken in every pot - there's a kid (or two) in every Bugaboo around Capitol Hill these days. But our car issues are immediately mostly solved. If I can get the A/C fixed in mine soon, that will also be helpful, since September in DC has decided to be muggy thus far, and I swear that my internal body temperature has risen five degrees today just to spite me and my lack of vehicle A/C. I'm just feeling distinctly.....swampy today. We are waaaay past "glowing" here, let me tell you, and into the "hot mess" category.

In other 30+ week news, after much (probably unnecessary) freaking out, I DO NOT have gestational diabetes. I did the initial glucose screening test a day after getting back from vacation, and an hour after wiping out on the sidewalk on my way to the doctor's office and scraping up knees and palms. Seth and I were walking to his car (R.I.P.) so that he could drive me to the appointment, and I stumbled slightly on some uneven sidewalk, and just....couldn't....quite...recover. Total wipeout. Cell phone and bottle of glucose solution that I was supposed to drink in two minutes went flying. Seth couldn't catch me, so he ran after the bottle of glucose solution as it rolled down the sidewalk, and retrieved my cell phone. He then heaved me to my feet, and tried to ascertain whether I was injured. I whimpered that I had to be OK, because I had to drink the stupid glucose solution right now and had to get in the car to get to my goddamn doctor's appointment. I got in the car, knee and palms bleeding, chugged the glucose, noted the time so I could tell the nurses when to draw my blood (precisely one hour after finishing the drink), and away we went to the doctor's office. Once at the office, I scrubbed up my wounds in the bathroom, noted the total lack of large band-aids to be had in an OB-GYN office, and got my blood drawn. My doctor was quite alarmed at my scrapes, and made sure I didn't fall on my belly, have broken wrists, or anything else. I couldn't explain to her that I just do this kind of thing on an annual-ish basis, and that being pregnant had little to do with it, except that my usual recovery reflexes were inhibited. We then went to get Two Amys pizza to nurse my wounds and my poor sugar-overloaded system.

Fast-forward a couple of days. The doctor's office calls to tell me I've failed the one-hour screening test, and have to come back in for the three-hour glucose tolerance test. What I didn't know then was that SO MANY things can make you "fail" the initial screening test - stress, having eaten something a couple of hours before, the time of day you take the test, etc., and that a very high percentage of women who "fail" the first test are totally fine on the second. So, I was completely hysterical for about three days, since they called me about this on a Friday, and I couldn't take the next test until Tuesday. I Googled everything in the universe, slept badly, cried, and waited for Tuesday. I also weighed myself about 20 times, because I'd felt sort of chastised at my doctor's office for my weight gain. Their scale showed that I had gained 27 pounds since becoming pregnant. The nurse mentioned that the scale was "off" and subtracted a couple of pounds. My OB raised her eyebrows, and I was told to watch my weight gain for the remaining weeks, because it would just be harder on the baby and harder on me if I gained too much weight. But when I weighed myself at home, I was 5-ish pounds less than what the doctor's scale had said. Rapid weight gain can also be a signal for gestational diabetes, so pile on some more hysteria about giant babies born with low blood sugar. Of course, the 3-hour test last Tuesday showed that all my blood sugar numbers were totally normal from all four fricking times they draw your blood during those tests. Vampires. And every time I've weighed myself in the last two weeks, I have still weighed less than I (allegedly) did at the OB's office that day.

But all of that is over. And I have finally done what I should have done (and wanted to do) months ago: I switched from my OB practice to a midwife practice. I have also therefore switched from planning to give birth in a hospital with a 40% c-section rate to now planning to give birth in a birth center with a 7% c-section rate. Those numbers sound quite a lot better to me on the slice me-dice me scale. All along, I really knew I wanted to be in a midwife practice, and that I wanted a non-medicalized birth, and every opportunity for a natural birth, if at all possible. The more I read, the more I confirmed this for myself. I'm not afraid of the pain or effort of labor. I am, on the other hand, very afraid of hospitals and unnecessary medical procedures. I have many, many reasons for this decision, and lots of stats, facts and stories to back it all up. If you're interested in this highly politicized and emotional hotbed of discussion about birth options, you can start here, here, and here for some source material.

Moving on to another birth story - our house! Our basement is really close to being finished. Our contractor thinks it will be done by October 1! Mmmm, waaaasher and dryyyyer. Laaaauuundry. Saaatellite TV......He's also aiming for a November 10 completion date for the kitchen, but we're not holding our breath on that one. If it's not completely done, we will survive. Hopefully without too many total hysterical breakdowns as it gets down to the wire on my due date. (Note to baby - this will be the one time in your life where I really insist that it will be just fine for you to show up late. Say a week? That would be greeeaaat.)

Seriously, can you believe this is the same room as this? In the photo above, there will again be a window in the bay - they just drywalled over the opening, and will put in the new window when it's ready.
This is looking towards the back of the house - the door to the back yard is on the left. The hallway on the right leads to our massive new closets, laundry area and full bathroom.
Do you like any of these paint colors? Me neither. Too light, too light, and too....peachy. But those were the only colors in the Benjamin Moore sample sizes that I thought might work. I sprung for a quart in another, darker shade today. Let's hope that's it.

However will we give this glamorous life up once our fancy kitchen is done? Yes, those are our dishes being done in the bathtub. It's so thrilling every night that we could just pass out from the excitement.

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.

Holy kitchen renovation, Batman

So, this is what our dining room and kitchen looked like before we left for vacation:


And this is what we came home to:

Complete, total and utter destruction. Isn't it beautiful? I love seeing all the bones of the house, and layered remnants of 100+ years - old plaster, old windows, scars on the floor where the original walls were.

We also found a sort of time capsule behind the drywall - a 1975 calendar from a now-defunct seafood market. The 1975 date definitely explains the cheap vinyl flooring, mustard-yellow Formica countertops and the fireplace in the basement.


We're contemplating what we could leave in the house as our own time capsule. A letter? Photos of the house? A list of average gas prices?

Since a lot of people have been asking about the baby's room, I thought I'd share a photo of it:

What? You don't think she'll like it? What? Too yellow? You don't think the Igloo cooler will work as a bassinet? We thought it was handy, what with the wheels and pull-handle.