Just in time!

With the sign-off of the Arlington County Inspector on Friday, our second floor renovation is complete. We moved out of the second floor on February 4, and moved back today (April 28), exactly 12 weeks later, with SUVs and helping hands provided by a few church friends (we are especially grateful!). And just in time for our new arrival on Monday. I guessed it can be summed up as a closet expansion project with a new bathroom thrown in.  Here are some before and after photos:

Nursery Bedroom Closet (before)

Nursery Bedroom Closet (after)

Master Bedroom "Crawl Space" (before)

Walk-in Closet with Elfa Shelves (after)

Tiny Tub (before)

Giant Tub (after)

Bath Vanity and Toilet (before)

Double Bath Vanity (after)

A Last Perfect Weekend

Last week was stressful, starting with a Sunday morning episode that had us frantically packing the hospital bag and installing the car seat, just in case.  Among the panicked thoughts running through my head at the idea of our little guy coming two weeks earlier than expected was the fact that I had not moved all my files over to our office shared drive, I did not want to bring a baby home to a construction zone (should have thought about THAT in, oh, January), and I was so glad Jason and I had gone out for a fun dinner and movie the night before.

That last thought in particular stuck with me, so I decreed that the next Saturday would be the perfect pre-baby day.  No trips to buy diaper pails/diaper cream/diaper caddies, no sewing projects or shopping for faucets or running errands.  Instead, we did the following:

*  Slept in until either nature or hunger (both, in my case) forced us to get up.  It was absolutely marvelous.

*  Sat in our robes in the living room and ate breakfast (novelty because we didn't have construction workers in our house).

*  Did normal spring projects, like getting the hoses out and weeding the flower beds (quite a trick at nine months pregnant, but wonderful to be outside!).

*  Watched hockey AND two episodes of Downton Abbey.  Seriously, how have we only just started watching this show (and by started, I also mean finished, since we have allowed ourselves to obsessively watch until we've finished both season one and season two)?

*  Took naps.

*  Cooked dinner together at home--a special treat for Jason, I'm sure, who has been doing much more than his fair share of the cooking and dishes these days.

Such a fantastic day together.  I know this next weekend will be full of moving back into our upstairs (!), getting the baby's room put together (or at least the crib put together), and the like, so it was fantastic to have one last perfect day before everything changes forever!

Flyover

Today's cool moment was when we all stepped outside to watch the Space Shuttle Discovery take its last lap, flying low aboard a 747 along the National Mall.  I never got to see a space shuttle launch (totally on my bucket list), but at least I got to see the last one come down.  It will soon find a home at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.  As the Congressman watching with us said, "There goes America's space program into a museum.

MJ in our office took these pretty awesome pictures.  V. cool.

Two Weeks from Today

There is something about Capitol Hill that apparently compels people to comment on the fact that I am pregnant (insert awkward, eternal elevator ride with congresswoman telling me my face wasn't fat at all, not at all (she did not know me at all, not at all)).  I realize that when Kaylyn and I walk down the hall with our huge bellies, we are a bit of a freak show, but even when I'm alone people just can't help themselves.  Best comment so far:  "Well, looks like you're working on a fun summer project."  Worst comment?  "Wow, you've been busy."

Anyway, the most frequent elevator comments from random strangers are usually a bit tamer, things like, "Do you know what you're having?" and "Have you picked out a name?" (inevitably followed by the suggestion that I pick their name--because, by the way, these are mostly men commenting) and "When are you due?" 

To the final question I have usually, for some reason, chosen to say "early May" instead of actually giving my due date.  The approximation always just felt more comfortable that an actual date.  But now we have an actual birth date for our boy--April 30, two weeks from today (barring, of course, an early arrival!).  A case of placenta previa--marginal but stubborn--means that he will be a wee bit early and we will need a c-section,something I have been glad to have a few weeks to get used to.

There are a few strange sensations here--having a real "last day" at work, marking the calendar with the day we meet the newest member of our family, realizing our house should be done about three days before he's born, etc.  But it is exciting, too.  My aunt took this ultrasound picture when I was in Idaho (see his two eyes, his nose, and his ear at the bottom of his head there?), and I already think he's pretty adorable.

Finally.

Jenny called me back in January with a warning:  she needed the maternity clothes she'd loaned me back--maybe not immediately, but within a couple of months (I've mentioned, right, how many people around me are also pregnant?).  So fun!  And, of course, the whole family's hopes for someday having a little girl to dress up began to rise again...

And this week it is official--we are having a NIECE!  FINALLY!  Someone to keep this crowd of six boys in line!  I was at Carter's buying boring white onesies when Jenny texted--needless to say, it was an easy hop, skip, and jump over to the girls section to get this darling little number.  Jenny was telling me today that she, Shaanti, and Mom found a number of cute outfits that were "must haves" while they were shopping today--but aren't they all "must haves" at this point?  It's been a week, and I'm pretty sure this little girl already has a full wardrobe.

While I'm (not really) on the subject, Jen turns 30 today--happy birthday!  It should be weird for my little sister to be 30, but we seem to be settling into this next decade pretty easily.  Now to get Casey and Kim over the hump...

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...

Une fête pour bébé Small

We had another wonderful time celebrating this little guy's pending arrival last weekend.  My friends magically created a French boulangerie, and we spent the afternoon eating absolutely delicious food and laughing together.  I'm posting a million pictures because it was so délicieux.  It was a fun mix of people, what with my good friends from church, the girls from work, grad school pal Becky, and Dawn, of course.  To make it extra special, George and Lynda came for the weekend so that she could come to the shower, and Steven, Amy, and Hudson drove up from NC (um, I think we owe them three trips to NC now).  It meant the world to me to have them all there--what a treat!

A French welcome

The set up

Dawn's awesome shower game.

Take-home madelines

Need I say more?

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Words cannot express how good Dawn's fruit tarts were.

The girls could not have thrown a more perfect shower--one of my coworkers turned to me about halfway through the shower and said, "This is so you--it's like exactly what you would have picked!"  Absolutely--from the yellow to the French theme to the chocolate croissants and Dawn's unbelievable fruit tart.  (Can I just reiterate how good the food was?  I'm looking at the above picture right now and seriously regretting that I was too full for a chocolate covered strawberry.)  And to celebrate with such dear friends!  I loved every minute of it!

Missy, Kaytie, Kathryn, and me

The fantastic hosts--Missy, Deanna, Tilly, Maria, and Dawn

With classic model lips

Amy, Kathryn, Megan, Missy and Kaytie (there are a LOT of pregnant ladies in my life right now...)

Kaylyn, Jeni, and Solara--I think here we are laughing at how Solara wants one of those activity mats at work.

Amy and me.

Jason and I also loved having a little bit of time with his parents, who took of Sunday to visit a friend in Pennsylvania.  George built us a beautiful changing table, which he and Jason painted while Lynda and I partied (pictures coming, once it is not stacked with hockey gear, light fixtures, etc.).  It was really good to see them!

Lynda and I, with our matching haircuts!