Our Lives in Chaos

Lately, our lives have been consumed by three things and three things only:  house project, baby growing, and work.  It honestly seems like work is the only thing we have any control over right now, which is ironic, since Jason's late nights lately have resulted from a coup in Mali, and even though it's recess I was still at work last night until almost 7.

It's just that we are sort of at the mercy of when our contractors show up each morning and what they accomplish each day.  Don't get me wrong--it's going as well as can be expected--but in the meantime we have been living in slightly controlled chaos for the past two and a half months. Jason has done a good job posting pictures of the progress (drywall pics to come soon), but here's what it's been like to LIVE in our construction zone.

* For about a week when things really got going, we came home to a new hole in a different room each day.  And not a hole in the rooms under construction, but in our first-floor living room, where they had to create a huge column of two-by-fours to hold up the roof...and in the kitchen, where they had to get at a leak from upstairs...and in the first floor bathroom, where they were putting in a fan but cut it in the wrong spot...and in the dining room...and in the basement...

*  Thanks to these holes, now that we are at the drywall/painting stage of the process, each morning before work we move everything out of the bathroom--just in case they decide to sand the dry wall or paint that day--and each night we move it back.  Also, our living room furniture is stacked and totally inaccessible, waiting for them to finish fixing that area.

*  (Oh, and it turns out it's really awkward to sit on the bed and read (given the lack of couch) when your belly is this big.  Especially when it turns out the bed is on wheels.)

*  There is a limit to how much you can organize and clean out, and we are still carefully maneuvering our daily lives around multiple racks of clothes and growing stacks of baby gear.  What a blessing to have a big utility room--where, as you can see from the picture, we are currently storing a bathroom vanity, light fixtures, a changing table, medicine cabinets, a jogging stroller, a crib and mattress, a car seat box (since the car seat is randomly on the coffee table right now) and the usual bag of hockey gear.

*  Jason finally lost his patience this week when one of our three clothing racks (I've mentioned that this project started as a desperate cry for a closet, right?) broke and the clothes tumbled to the ground.  (I was glad he finally joined me--I'd already burst into prenatal tears that week after dreaming that I lost the baby in a pile of boxes in the family room.)

*  There are, of course, silver linings, and one is that we have learned a lot of things about our house while we've been living on the first floor.  Like, our main floor bathroom is a nice and usable space.  Sure, we can't both brush our teeth in there at the same time (or stand in there at the same time), but that is why we have a double sink vanity in our basement right now.  We've discovered that there is a street lamp right outside the spare bedroom window (new blinds coming!).  We've learned to use the basement for more than watching TV (it turns out you can read a book on those couches--who would have thought?!?).  We agree that our bar stools are ridiculously uncomfortable for eating more than cereal.  These are all good things to know.

*  And, most importantly, we've learned a lot about offering each other extra grace in the face of chaos--a good thing to know before our lives turn upside down forever.  Being kind to each other makes all of this so much easier, and we've been able to spur each other on toward imagining how worthwhile this will all be two months from now, when the dust is clear and the baby has a closet and we can get ready for bed without spitting toothpaste on each other (and have I mentioned the amazing soaking tub?!?).

This isn't how I really wanted to spend the last few months of pregnancy (oh, to have a nursery actually coming together and not just floating around my imagination!), but for years Jason and I will laugh at the memories of him trying to help me get my big belly out of the spare-room bed each morning while it rolls away.  I will remember the best parts of the day as getting settled into that bed and feeling the baby practice karate, knowing we will meet him in just a few weeks.

It's just that  I'd prefer that when we do meet him, he has a room of his own...