Over the last month, Alex and I have been working hard getting our family and our home ready for the new baby.
Bahahahahahahahahaha!
No we haven’t.
We have been working hard, but mostly at work. Alex has had a lot of concerts, and since this has been basically my first bit making my own schedule, I’ve been working AROUND his schedule, so we haven’t been home at the same time much. And when we have been, it’s been because I was sick. Too sick to do anything basically. Seriously, I have no idea what mysterious illness my mom and I had starting Thanksgiving, but it was unlike anything either of us has had before. ALL of my muscles were completely messed up to the point where I couldn’t expand my lungs fully, I couldn’t move without help, and I was actually having contractions for a while. Not anything that I was concerned about, but it was really weird since I’ve never actually had contractions on my own before. It was like a week before I was back to “normal,” which really just meant the same cold I’d had before I got super sick. I’m only now getting over that.
Between schedules, illness, and lots of internet orders (baby-related and Christmas shopping), we’ve really fallen behind. For a while, we had very little food made, which is the truest test of how much of a mess we are. Then, when we get ready to recover from that, there’s always the kitchen mess to tame first. And that’s kinda where we are now. The kitchen is moderately clean, and we have meals in the fridge. The entire non-kitchen downstairs is still a mess, as is the basement and parts of the upstairs, but it feels like a big accomplishment to have caught up this much.
Just today, Alex was able to take a day off and we finally made time to do some actually useful baby prep. Prior to today, all we’d managed was pulling down some clothes from the attic and sorting two boxes. Luckily for Lydia, the next steps involved moving furniture–and getting her some new things. Some of the clutter we had downstairs was two absurdly large boxes–one of which contained a new bed for her, and the other a new chair for her room. Her Elmo bed had served us well for a little over a year, but we decided to move her up to a twin now both so we wouldn’t have to deal with it post-baby and because the one we chose would make a nice space for L and mini to share. And we needed to steal the glider for baby feeding in our bedroom but have a replacement chair for family reading time.
L’s room before we said goodbye to the Elmo bed and glider
So we dropped L off at preschool this morning and got to work. It took allllll day. So much assembly and so much sitting on the floor. I even had to put together the rocker alone, because even Alex’s days off always mean random work calls or errands and today was no exception. We were both pooped when it was all done. And it was not super fun while pregnant, but at least I’m not more pregnant. And we’re really happy with the results!
Lyd’s new low loft bed and chair-and-a-half rocker with fabulous NUMB pillow from Aunt Brittany!!
Assuming Lydia doesn’t roll out of her new bed (we’re cautiously optimistic), it should last her quite a while. And the space under the bed, after some furniture is moved and a Christmas gift or two is added, will make a fun little reading and play area for L and sibling to share. The rocker, which is extra wide, should fit an adult and two kids for bedtime stories! We aren’t going to have them share a room (at least for a while, we really haven’t decided), but we’re excited that these changes will allow us to have a cozy kid and family space for quieter times than the living room.
We told L what was going to happen, but because we did it all today, we just showed her the changes tonight right before bed. She noticed I was trying to take pictures of her, so she basically demanded a photo shoot and posed a million different ways. Please enjoy the results. None of those photos were candids or action shots–she posed in all of those ways of her own free will/invention.
After this, she lined up a bunch of stuffed animals under the bed and pretended they were in school and she was the teacher, and one by one, when they behaved, she shoved them in a drawer as some kind of reward. It was adorable. Would’ve been even more adorable if it hadn’t already been an hour after bedtime because we’d had a fun and tasty dinner at Jess’s. Such is kid life.
In other exciting news, as of my last appointment a few days ago, baby has decided to cooperate and flip to head down! REALLY hoping it’s a permanent move. A repeat section for any non-essential reason, but especially for a breech baby, would make me an extremely unhappy momma. Everything else seems just fine, so hopefully in just under 2 months, I’ll be done being pregnant forever! Also completely overwhelmed trying to figure out how to handle 2 kids, but here’s hoping it’ll be fun and worth it, and we’ll all learn quickly.
Alex has some days off this week because he’s been working so much recently, and I’m off most of the week too because I’m on this coming weekend. We will accept any positive thoughts you’re willing to offer that we can capitalize on that, plus the fact no one’s deathly ill, to get our lives and home cleaned up.
Sheepishly,
Liz
TeamSheepOhio 