in which we are awesome. not.

so we thought we had this whole travelling with small child thing down and perhaps we got a mite cocky. 

Perhaps it’s the fact that the baby hasn’t let me have a break in over a week – vastly preferring me over her papa. 

Perhaps it’s that we took her off her reflux meds on Monday (on the advice of the doctor last week) and she was ok at first but now we aren’t so sure.

Perhaps she has an ear infection that we aren’t aware of.  But more likely not.

Perhaps I’ve been doing too much around the house this week trying to get things done – the front room ceiling is totally smooth and ready for primer and paint when Will gets home.

Perhaps we didn’t really need to load the whole fam up on a plane again to head east for the 3rd time in 4 weeks.  But this is a happy occasion so we were happy to do it.

Perhaps we simply need sleep.

But why are we not awesome?

Here is a small sampling of things we’ve done or not done today… that we are aware of:

- we forgot the big, fat, scary check for closing on the condo.

- we left the car seat base in the car in the DEN economy parking lot.  Don’t worry the car seat can be safely, but not easily, used without it.

- I left my keys at home.  Why would I need them? Oh, only to give them over at closing.  And no, they can’t just make more copies of the ones they have.  The front door keys are $75/key and I am required to provide 4 of them.

- the carefully packed milk so Paige can eat well while we attend the wedding managed to leak through their ziploc bags and the zippered cooler onto about half my wardrobe which I really tried to not overpack this time so there’s not much left that’s clean.

- AND my shampoo leaked in my toiletry case too.

BUT she was an angel on the plane as usual. 

And with a little kindness from strangers, we navigated familiar territory of Metrobus (B30 from BWI to Greenbelt Metro station), Metro (Green Line from Greenbelt to Mount Vernon Square where we transferred to Yellow to King Street) and the Old Town trolley to get to our hotel, not with ease but we did it.

It’s funny to be a tourist in a place where we so recently lived.  Though it took coming back here specifically to finally start calling Colorado “home.”

the davenport trail – day 1 or maybe 0…

I can’t decide if we should really count yesterday as the first day of our road trip since we didn’t actually leave town until nearly 5 o’clock. We had a few last ends that needed tying up around town plus a few things that we wanted to do before we left town.

We got an early start to the day due to Sweet P’s habit lately of wanting to eat between 5:30 and 6:30.  So after she fell asleep again, we spent a good half hour repacking both cars to get everything to fit so that everything in the 6 was in the trunk and everything in the 9 fit in the way back (I was making sure that there would be room if one of us needed to sit in the back with the baby).  It took a bit of shuffling and we did jettison a few things at Kate’s but in the end it all worked.  Ok, except for the random few things that I now realize are in the car that we are not driving.  der.

After, Will dropped P and me off at Nail Sculpture so that I could get my nails done.  Sounds dumb, I know, but it was nice to relax a bit and start to feel like a normal human being instead of a crazy person with crappy chipped nail polish.  It was also nice to see the lady who has been doing my nails for 8 years again before we left town – she even came in early to see me.  The ladies in the shop really enjoyed seeing Miss P.  While we were doing that, Will took our bits and pieces back to the cable company and got the cashier’s check we need for closing from the bank.

Next up, we ran into Kate who had to run into work to get something so we killed the time before meeting up with her again for brunch by going to Sears to buy a fridge.  Oh yes, buying a fridge in about 20 min is awesome.  I might have liked to have more time to look around and get the best deal but really, we need a fridge right when we get there and trying to buy one on the internet while we were on the road didn’t seem like a good idea.  We may have stopped at District Taco for a bit of a snack before going to Sears…

Then we were finally able to get to brunch.  Le Pain Quotiediene… yum!

All the while we were figuring out how to have our other car shipped to Colorado.  That was a process!  Very much aided by Kate.  So another chore down.  Even if it did involve a stop at Office Depot to print and fax a form.

waiting for Daddy to come back from Office Depot.

And then…

And then… I sound like a broken record…  we went to National Harbor to pick up some cupcakes from Cake Love to contribute to the cookout in Ohio.  And may have gotten 2 for the road for us to eat.

Then it was off to our final stop – Tyson’s Corner.  Yet another silly sounding stop just for me.  I desperately needed to get my eyebrows done.  But we were also able to get a last good late lunch/early dinner at Coastal Flats, one of our favorite Northern Virginia restaurants.

Finally around 4:45, we finally got on the road officially.  We made it all the way to Morgantown, WV without stopping which was amazing.  Of course, the minute we got off the highway Miss P woke up and realized that she was a mighty hungry little girl.  We quickly found our Hampton Inn for the night and got checked in so she could eat. 

All in all it was a slightly stressful yet wildly productive Day 1 or maybe Day 0.  We’ll call it Day 1.

so… almost 11 weeks, huh?

I’ve been silent here since the day we headed off to the hospital almost 11 weeks ago.  Oops.

We’ve been a little busy… but as it’s been pointed out to me, all of what has been keeping us busy is blog-worthy so here’s a bit of recap.

I had the baby:

 
which is a story I’ll tell you sometime since things got a wee bit dramatic.  Miss P arrived 18 April at 7:04pm, weighing in at a teeny 6lb 10oz (not teeny for some but teeny for us), and measuring 19.5 in long.

Grandparents came to visit:

Aunties, both literal and honorary, came to visit:

(I really don’t know why I keep sharing this picture – I look like hell.  It must be that happy goofy grin on Auntie Lizzie’s face.)

Will went back to work while my mom came down and shuttled me around to various doctor’s appointments.

Friends visited:

We went to our first backyard bbq with the babe:

She rode the metro for the first time:

(though full disclosure, this picture is from her second metro trip.  There have been 3.)

I would say that she went to DC for the first time but she was born there so…. Her first trip to the Mall.

 

The babe got baptized and meet more of the family, went on a plane trip to Denver, helped us look for a new home, visited more family in Hampton, went to her cousins’ high school graduation, and is now hanging out while the packers pack all the stuff.  I’ll have to post pictures of these events later as I don’t have all the pictures yet because my computer ran out of memory space to hold all the cuteness!

We leave for Denver on Saturday.  We bought an inverter for the car so I can charge my laptop while we drive so I’m going to attempt daily road trip posts and maybe a few more to fill in the gaps.

But for now… the babe is calling me…

ready for baby?

well, truthfully I don’t think we could ever really be ready for Baby to come but I guess we’re about as ready as we’re ever going to be.

A couple of weeks ago, a fire got lit under us after going to our Baby Care Skills class that perhaps we should start getting things ready.  So we each cleared out a drawer in the dresser to be refilled again with baby things.

We had gotten these bins from IKEA and they worked out fantastic! 

I don’t actually have any pictures of the initial round of organizing.  First there were clothes everywhere as we packed up heavy wintery clothes to be packed away in the basement.  Then there were baby things everywhere as we sorted through baby shower presents, took tags off things, and decided what needed to be washed.  Also, we finally got around to packing our suitcase for the hospital – I mean, things were scheduled but Baby could have it’s own plan.

 
Here’s the suitcase and the car seat all set in the car.

But at this point, the condo was still very much on the market so we didn’t actually commit anything other than the 2 drawers for baby things.  As of Friday, our condo is no longer on the market – at least for a few weeks, so we finished things up.

We knew that we were going to need a laundry basket for the baby and some overflow space so a chair got relegated to the basement and we bought a cute table in HomeGoods (it was mismarked so we got a $130 table for $50!  Score!).  The bags hanging on the wall are for our future adventure with cloth diapering.

Here are the insides of the drawers that we sacrificed for Baby.  On the left, we have receiving blankets, sleep sacks, burp cloths, hats, socks, the Ergo infant insert and a few other random bits.  On the right, we have all the baby clothes and diapers.

After having to rescue the cradle from the clutches of an ill-timed basement clearout by maintenance, we put the cradle beside our bed.  Well, we quickly learned that between our laundry hamper, the bed, the closet door and the rockers on the cradle, it was going to be an ankle biter.

Next solution, move the laundry basket.
  
Perhaps not the most elegant solution but it works.  We’ve since tucked the door back behind the nightstand where it used to reside before the realtor suggested that we keep the door closed.

So that’s that.  All ready for Baby!

necessary “evils”

There have been a few additions to our home lately that I can’t say that I’ve been terribly thrilled with but seeing as they are a required part of the process, I have to deal.

Oh, you think I’m talking about baby stuff…. not so!

I’m talking about these:

a for sale sign in our living room window, 

a lock box on the front door,

  
and fliers on our dining room table.

The condo has been on the market for about a month and so far we’ve gotten no response.  We’ve gotten a fair amount of positive feedback but it’s only been open once and only 3 other people have come by to see it.  It’s kind of nice that the place is basically clean all the time but it’s a pain to keep it that way.

We’re going to take it off the market for a couple of weeks after the baby is born and then hopefully we’ll have better luck in May.

Fingers crossed!

where will baby sleep?

There’s not much space in our little condo and we’re not moving until the baby is about 3 months old so you may be wondering where is the baby going to sleep until we move?

In the cradle, of course.

My dad handmade it out of cherry back over 24 years ago when my sister was pregnant with my niece.  It was intended for all of the family’s grandkids but it’s BIG and too heavy to ship so after if got to New Jersey for my sister’s kids (through the kindness of friends of friends who were moving to NJ), it sadly never managed to make it back to Texas for my brothers’ kids.  We are fortunate to live close enough that we can pick it up from them (and then move it to Colorado with us).

It’s gorgeous and will be parked next to our bed once the baby is born until we pack up to move.

well darn…

We officially have our first…

you got it…. monkey wrench in our Denver plans.

We’re moving forward with our plans to move to Denver and Will turned in his PCS worksheet which will determine everything that we will be entitled to in our move.

Well, it turns out that even though it’s included on the form, we found out that one of the things that we’d been really been counting on getting – having one of our cars shipped – isn’t even going to be considered.

With 2 cars, the 2 of us and a 3 month old, we were expecting to just be able to ship Will’s Mazda 6 and drive out in whatever SUV-type vehicle we buy between now and then (we’ve decided what we want but haven’t actually made it official).

Not so much.

It’s not going to be an insurmountable problem – we’ve actually come up with a myriad of solutions – we just have to figure out all the specifics to our various solutions in order to decide what the best course of action is.

anyone want to buy a condo?

We’re moving

therefore….

we have to sell the condo.

We’ve talked to a few realtors and we have one that we like because she knows the area really well and has contacts that could prove very helpful to us.  Unfortunately, we’re starting to feel a little taken advantage of since she’s well aware of our particularly time sensitive situation.  So right now, we’re employing a few stall tactics and we’re going to see if anyone that works at NGA might be interested in buying our place because it will be closer to their new campus.  We’re only going to stall until the end of the month but who knows, we might get lucky.

Given this plan of ours, I needed to make up a flier for Will to post around which, of course, requires pictures.

So… on Sunday, we did a combination of “real” cleaning and “pretend” cleaning aka moving things out of the room that was being photographed.

Here’s what we got:
Bedroom:

 
Bathroom:

Kitchen:


Dining Room:

Living Room:
 

And…. reality….

It’s specific to Will’s office but here’s the flier I made up:

Our House Flier

apt…

I’ve decided to take up swimming again in my 3rd trimester in hopes of alleviating some back pain and that whole “even pregnant women should get some exercise” thing.  I’ve been twice and it’s pretty nice.  My belly feels a bit like a pendulum swaying through the water as I do my freestyle but it’s nice to be weightless.

One of the little things they do at the pool is put up a funny on the whiteboard that tells you what the water temp and ph levels are for the pool.  It’s usually a quotation or short joke.

I thought today’s was rather apt for the coming future:

Parents spend the first part of their children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives telling them to sit down and shut up.

a few more things on our plate…

Well, a few weeks ago Will was officially informed that he was selected for the position in Denver.

Yep. We’re moving to Denver.

 

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, right?

Of course, Will had been telling them that we’d like to go in February so that was what they were expecting to hear after giving him the selection notice.

Weeelllll…. See…We’d been holding back the information that we wouldn’t be able to leave the DC area until after the baby is born (the doctors want me to deliver a little early so our window of time got narrowed as much as I would have liked to be out there settling in without a newborn) because we were afraid that it would delay the decision even more than it already had been. So now we’re looking at a start date for Will of mid-July.

We’re excited – I mean, it is almost exactly what we were hoping for.

But, holy crap, we have so many more things to worry about now!

I made a list last week – it’s 4 pages long. It was nice to get all the questions and thoughts that were buzzing around my head, out of my head. I finally felt like I could breathe again. But I’ll spare everyone, except Will of course, my list. Suffice to say there are a lot of details to be worked out in life right now.

I keep laying out tentative plans on the calendar so that we can make mental deadlines and prioritize the topics that need to be addressed.

But then I think of that Woody Allen quote –

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Or another favorite of mine –

The best laid plans of mice and men…

I can’t help but wonder what is going to happen that is going to throw a wrench in even the barest of plans that we have made. 

Yes, I’m bordering on fatalistic on the topic of whether this will all go smoothly and according to any sort of plan.  It’s how I roll.

Photo credits from around the web.  Thanks to Google image search.  They are linked to their original websites.

6 months down

It’s kind of hard to believe that I’ve already been pregnant for SIX months.

There have been a couple of requests for pictures of the bump.  It really only got obvious in the week before Christmas so there aren’t many and they aren’t very good but here you go….

from Christmas day.

from New Year’s Eve.

baby pictures

ok… so ultrasounds are amazing but also a little on the creepy side.  We don’t have a scanner so even though the babe will be undergoing monthly and then eventually weekly ultrasounds, I can only post pictures occasionally.

Here’s a few that we have so far…

Seven weeks… they don’t look like much but that’s a baby… 

That white blob in the second one – not the head.  That’s the yolk sac.  Gross, huh?

Twenty weeks… a bit more baby like…

the traditional ultrasound view but the baby wouldn’t turn profile (hence the slightly alien-y look).

So the tech turned to what we like to refer to as “the creepy baby pictures” – yes, we think it’s creepy even when it’s our own kid – the 3D ultrasound.

Don’t look at me.

 
Who turned on the lights?  We know that it’s just an illusion but it does look like there’s a light shining in there.

   
now those are better…

Oh and after all the debate, we decided to not find out what we’re having.