Our New Home

We did finally make it to Chicago and our new place. After spending Friday at my parents' house, Elijah and I went to my sister's house while Micah and Nate went to meet the movers to unload the truck.  It was hot and sticky and the three flights of stairs was apparently made worse by the fact that our air conditioning was not working properly.  Everything made it upstairs to the sea of boxes that now covers the floors.  Because it was Sunday when we called our landloard about the air conditioner, it was Monday before it could be fixed. And then on Tuesday it cooled down so much that we turned it off, figures.  But it is supposed to be toasty this weekend.

Best parts of new place:
1. An office/guest room! Which right now is covered in boxes, but soon enough it will be functional.
2. A great park that's only a 10 minute walk with a little kid playground and a huge sandbox.
3. A restuarant called the Rajun Cajun, which despite its name does not serve cajun food but Indian food and soul food. It makes me laugh

Least favorite part:
Third floor walk up, again. If I could take the apartment and move it down a floor or two, I would live here forever.

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with the unpacking since Micah started work. The bedrooms are done and the kitchen and slowly I think the rest will come together. But it is hard with the little one "helping". Then there's that whole job thing. I need to get on that.

Day 1

Lost cat. Found cat. Leaving by 4pm is almost noon. Kid puked chicken and apples in the car. Waking sleeping kid for Border patrol car search (in which kid was only interested in the "woof woof", no we can't pet those dogs) . Finally made it to Phoenix at midnight. Everyone so tired, except for the kid. Get all the crap out of the way in the first day right?

More details to come.

Journey Starts Tomorrow

Well, we have almost everything packed up.  I'm picking up the massive truck today. Last day of daycare for the little one. Have to clean up the messy apartment before the inspection. Oh, and I have a phone interview today. I'm already tired, not a good sign.

T minus 10 days

Most of you know we are heading back to the Midwest! In 10 days, we are pulling the U-Haul out of San Diego and driving 2,000 miles to Chicago and I've got to be honest with you, I'm already exhausted just thinking about it. We've got a decent amount of packing done, but plenty more to do. We have one confused little toddler and two nervous cats. Add one brother to help drive and you have the makings of a 1. potential blockbuster road trip movie 2. disaster 3. coming of age novel with highs and lows, lessons learned and everyone is a better person in the end (no comment on who is "coming of age"). I will be happy with #1 or #3 but only time will tell. This is only the teaser trailer, so come back for more. My goal is to actually document this experience, but we'll see if that actually happens.

He's a Maniac!

Everyday we get a "daily sheet" from Elijah's daycare. It's got the important info like if he ate his snacks and lunch and his diaper log. It also has a slew of activities and they check off the things he played with that day. They also write a little note about how his day was. Usually about once a week they write something like "Elijah had fun dancing with his friends" or "Elijah loves music". They have told me on multiple occasions that sometimes he just stands in front of the CD player and points to it, sometimes signing "please".

Because of that, we have crossed over to the dark side. I never understood why people play their children horrible music. Why would you have a CD of kids singing (badly)? Or ridiculous characters singing annoying songs? Micah was home by himself one night trying to make dinner and Elijah kept trying to "help". He discovered that Netflix has "The Wiggles" and he had fun dancing to the most ridiculous show I have seen in quite some time. So now we use that as a distraction pretty often, even though it is so bad.

Last night we went out for Mexican food with some friends. It had been a long day for Elijah so he was getting kind of restless. Luckily there was a mariachi band at the restaurant and that kept him totally entertained and dancing in his seat. I wish I had my camera! I've been trying to catch him dancing, but he is very selective about when he will dance and we haven't figured out which music makes him dance the most. Here is one of his moves:

6 weeks and counting down

We got moved into our new place last weekend. We are now working on getting everything unpacked and the boxes are madness. Now that we are in our new place we can try to set up baby B's room/the office. It's a lot harder than I thought to make an office slash nursery. Maybe that's because our desk weighs 5 tons. Hmm...maybe we should have thought of that before the movers carried it up 3 flights of stairs because that thing is not moving now. If anyone wants to contribute to the nursery, a link to Elijah's baby registry is on the right.

Little boy is nearly 5 pounds now (the heft of a cantelop-yuck) and about 17 inches long. He's not doing much length-growing right now because he's running out of room, but he is concentrating on putting on weight for the next 6 weeks. We went to the doctor's office last week and he is moving along on schedule and his head is down (so hopefully it stays there). Mama has been a little uncomfortable lately with some back pain. But I went in last week for a prenatal massage, which was awesome. I wish I could afford to do them every week, but I'm going to try to get in a couple more times before he comes.

I have pictures from a baby shower with some friends, but have not yet found the cord that connects the digital camera to the computer so I can download the pictures. They will be coming when that box is unpacked. You will be amazed by my gigantic-ness. But be forewarned, if I hear one more person say they don't think I'll make it another 6 weeks, I might punch them in the face. Don't be that guy. I can make a punch through the computer, don't think I won't!

Moving Day!

Tomorrow is moving day and we are oh so excited (sarcasm is hard to portray in type). For those of you who have not heard the drama, it goes a little like this. Around the time we told our landlord that we were pregnant, she informed us that they were planning to sell the condo we are living in. We decided we didn't want to wait until we had the baby, because then they would probably sell the place the day the baby was born and want us out two weeks later. So we started looking. And looked and looked and looked. Everyone keeps saying this is a renter's market, but I think everyone is trying to rent so it is impossible to find a place in our neighborhood in our price range.

So 2 weeks ago, we finally found a place (not in our current neighborhood) that we liked enough to go ahead and rent. Three days later, we get a note on our door that the property we are living in has been forclosed on and the bank wants us to call them so they can get us out the door ASAP. The next day, our neighbors downstairs call us because their bathroom ceiling is leaking and the water seems to be coming from our apartment. Our shower has been a little drippy recently, but nothing to get alarmed about. And, seriously, it's dripping into the bathtub, doesn't seem like that should be a problem. Micah tightens some screws and it seems to stop. In the mean time, the plumber has somehow gotten a hold of the bank that now owns our condo and tells them there is a problem in our unit and they should have someone come over and look at it. They can't fix it the first time, they have to turn off the water to the entire building, so we have to give our neighbors 24 hours notice, they come back two days later and fix it...we think. If this isn't the part that needs replaced, they will have to cut a hole in our neighbor's ceiling to tell where the water is coming from. But, we are out of there on Saturday, so we tell our neighbors to call the bank if they have any more problems (which, let's face it, with no one living there taking showers, it's probably not going to be a problem until someone else moves in).

So people came today to pack up our belongings and people will come tomorrow to move our belongings (apparently the same people cannot do both or on the same day?). And I will be there tomorrow to point at where people should put boxes. Can't wait. Then there is the unpacking! The fun never stops. All in all, I think it will be a good move, I just can't see it right now because it is looming over my head.

I feel my last couple posts have been a little dreary, so I will add something a little more upbeat. Baby B is 32 weeks this week and is 3 and 3/4 pounds, the size of a jicama (which I didn't know what that was until I moved here. They are quite a tasty vegetable, I think, that is kind of watery and refreshing). He has been getting the hiccups a lot lately, which means his little diaphram is getting a workout. It's a very odd feeling when he is stretching out and I can feel movement by my right hip and my left ribcage at the same time. This also instantly causes me to have to pee. Don't quite know how the physics of that works... We also are very excited to welcome one of Baby B's future friends, Little Girl O'Neill (first name pending), who was born yesterday!

3/4 of the Way Baked

Baby B is now 3/4 of the way done. We are officially 30 weeks today. He weighs approximately 3 pounds (the size of cabbage) and is about 16 inches long. I was planning to include a picture so you can see how giant Mama is getting but I can't figure out why the timer for the self photo is only like 2 seconds long. And my hubby is gone this weekend, so I'll have to add it later. We saw the doctor last week and she said everything looks good. We now have to do some kick counts every night from now until birth. I just have to time how long it takes him to make 10 movements and he is very good at it, usually completing the task in about 12 minutes. He's a very active little guy.

I also had to get a shot last week so that my blood doesn't attack Baby B's blood since I'm Rh neg and his dad is Rh pos. But seriously, they gave me the shot in my butt. What's that all about? My nurse is like, "Don't look at the needle, it's big. That's why we do it in your behind so you can't see it." I saw it, it wasn't that big. Seriously. Micah said they don't even do that for kids. I guess you probably don't want a pregnant lady passing out though.

So, I'm pretty stressed right now because we have to be out of our apartment by February 1 and we don't have a place to live yet. So send good apartment vibes our way. And also if you could pack up all our stuff and move it that would be awesome.