37 weeks

I'll spare you weekly pictures and post one next week instead.

But I did have a doctor's appointment today:

Weight Gain: 19 lbs
Belly Measurement: 39"
Baby's Heartrate: 138 (she must have been sleeping because she didn't respond to the doppler at all and her heart rate was lower than it's been in a while... cutie)

I actually lost half a pound this week, but I've been rounding my weight gain, so it still rounds to 19 lbs. But my belly grew about 1/2" in a week, so the baby must be doing fine. I'll chalk it up to all the moving and stress of the past week.

Changes Changes

We had the official closing on the house yesterday. It went well. I cried a lot during the final cleaning out of the house. I got lots of pictures of the measurement wall (we also transfered the measurements over to a nice piece of wood). I think I decided that some of my tears were from missing the four little boys who once occupied our home. Such sweetness (and chaos, I know). Looking at Cole's first measurement on that door jam and thinking of him at that age was just overwhelming.

Then I went to the house at 4pm to pick up Jacob and Cole off the bus (I warned the new owners that I wasn't going to be stalking them, but that I'd be there every school day) and while I was waiting, Dennis, our tile facilitating neighbor, came over to talk to me. I started crying right when I saw him (hormonal?). He hugged me and had lots of nice and wise things to say. Still, it's hard to leave a good neighborhood and such wonderful neighbors.

But I will honestly chalk up a lot of the emotion to hormones. When I think about getting out to Texas, I get excited about being in Austin, being near my dad, and starting a new adventure.

You also probably know that Mike got a new job. He starts on October 13th. One week before the baby is due. They want him up in Boston (the headquarters, but it's a telecommuting position) during that week. So he'll be gone from the 13th to the 17th. A little unnerving for me. I don't want him to miss the birth of his little one. But I've never had labor that lasted less than 7 hours, so hopefully he could make it back in time. But I've still got some arrangements to get together for that time so that the kids and I are taken care of while Mike is gone (in case I do go into labor during that time).

But the really good news is that we'll be double covered with insurance, so I should get all of my $600 back that I've paid to the doctor and instead of owing around $1500 for the hospital portion, we'll only owe $250. That will help offset the moving costs, so that's a good thing.

And now I'll get back to my slow attempt at getting this apartment feeling like a home instead of a war zone.

Pictures

Here I am today... 36 weeks, 2 days. I am facing the wrong way... I guess I'll know that the other pictures were in the house and this one and the rest are in the apartment... 3 and a half weeks to go. I should get the pack n play put up and start washing the baby clothes. Ack! I'm having a baby!

And then there's the not so baby aspect of our lives... this is Reid this morning on his way to school. Looking quite dashing in his fancy football jersey. He was quite proud to be wearing this.

Sadly, they lost their game tonight. But they played a team that is typically quite good. Last year they lost to them 30 - 6. Today they went to overtime at 8 - 8. The opposing team scored on their four plays, but we didn't. Sad to lose, but nice that we did so well compared to last year. Reid played about the same amount as he did last game, but I think he did a bit better. Hopefully he'll start seeing more and more playing time.

36 weeks plus a few days

Well... I'm officially down to less than a month to go (hopefully, anyway). I had my doctor's appointment on Monday:

Weight gain: 19 lbs
Belly Measurement: 38.5"
Baby's Heartrate: 156

The baby almost jumped out of my stomach when the doctor put the gel on my stomach. She's getting smarter and knew that the doppler machine was coming and expressed her continued displeasure at that, I suppose. :)

And aside from swelling feet and a stinging pubic bone, I'm doing alright. Although, the pubic bone thing is keeping me from walking much today. I know it's been made much worse with all of this moving and cleaning and packing and lifting. I'm hoping a little rest today will help it calm down a bit.

Housing Update:

The closing is still on schedule for Friday. We have almost all of our stuff out of the house, so we're pretty much on track that way. Mike's been making evening runs over there to load up stuff and bring it either to the house or to the storage unit. But there's only one load plus the kid's bike left. Well... and a bedroom set that I'm going to be donating to the local thrift shop.

Several women from church came over yesterday and cleaned, so that was really nice. I don't have any more cleaning to do except to vacuum the living room once more after everything is out. One of the ladies from church even accepted the assignment of going around the house picking up trash that was around the sides of the house. Amazing how much junk ends up between the bushes and the foundation. Especially when your kids and the neighbor's kids all play around your house. So anyway. Things are moving along. The apartment is slowly coming together, but will have to wait until after the closing on Friday to get much more attention.

And Reid has his second game today. I'll post about that tonight (now that we have internet at the apartment!).

Reid's First Game and Our Last Dinner

Reid's first football game was today. Obviously, he's number 88. :) They won 12 - 6. Reid is on the starting defensive special team. And he got to play about 5 or 6 plays at defensive end. I think he is a little disappointed in his performance, but I thought he did pretty good for his first game.

And tonight is the last night we're having a good cooked dinner in this house. Tomorrow is frozen pizzas and Friday is probably an eat out night. I made lasagna, french bread, salad, and blueberry coffee cake. The only problem is that it's Wednesday, so by the time Reid and I got home from his football game, Mike was heading out the door with Zach and Jacob for scouts and they had lasagna in plastic ware to eat on the way. (I cooked the dinner early this morning.) So no family time with this dinner, but that's okay. It's nice to have a good meal when you know you won't for several days.

Here are some pictures from the football game.


This is Reid on the first play of the game. He's standing right to the left of the referee's arm in the picture.
And if you look carefully, you'll see a white helmet in the middle of the red team's main blob. That's Reid playing as defensive end. :)

Apartment and Packing

The really, really good news is that our two month apartment here is going to be on the first floor! We are soooo happy about that. We will move into the apartment on Saturday. That will give us almost a week to do what we need to with the house to get it ready for the new owners.

Mike spent the day yesterday moving boxes into the storage unit. And with near record highs of 91 degrees and unusually high humidity for September, I was very impressed. I supervised the kids taking boxes outside for easier loading, but didn't actually lift a box all day. Given that I kind of threw my back out last weekend doing lifting and such, I think it was wise... but it's hard to not be in the thick of everything. I am still the primary packer, so that's making me feel quite useful.

The attic is almost completely empty thanks to Mike, Reid, and Zach. And I think we're close to having all of our miscellaneous junk in piles in the dining room. I can start packing those up this week.

So the plan for now is for me to get everything packed up that's going to the storage unit by Wednesday. Then on Thursday and Friday, I'll pack up the things that we'll be taking to the apartment. And I need to call the utility companies to get things worked out for the apartment and house.

One of the big problems with this plan is that life is going to be busy this week. I have to go to Shodor for most of the day on Monday (I know... WHY?). Turns out their bookkeeper quit and so the new bookkeeper needs a little bit of direction. I agreed to one day. It's bad timing, but it's also the last time... for real. :) Then Tuesday, Jacob and Cole have a dental appointment. Wednesday is Reid's first football game, Zach has an appointment on Thursday, and I have to pick one day during the week to call our pediatrician's office and try to get Zach in for a nurses appointment to get a vaccine that he needs in order to stay in 6th grade. Friday is clear. That's something at least.

Picture and Update

So I just now got around to taking a 34 week picture. So now it's a 34weeks 5days picture. I don't think I've grown that much in the past two weeks. The baby seems to be finding lots of nooks and crannies to fill into. That's been really fun for me. Yesterday I had the first little twinge of "I might just be ready to have this baby" feeling.

We're leaving in a few minutes to go look at the first floor apartment. Then we'll spend the day moving boxes into the storage unit. The kids are really looking forward to that! Life is such a blast sometimes! :)

Housing Update

Mike and I signed a 2 month lease at the regular apartment complex. They may have a first floor apartment. If not, it will be second floor. So the third floor thing is no longer an issue. That's really nice for me. I sure hope the first floor works out. We'll find out this Saturday if it will.

The complex is called Bexley at Preston. It is a nice floor plan, so we should be fairly comfortable there for the two months.

We'll move into the apartment on the 20th (not this Saturday, but the next) and then closing is supposed to happen on the 26th. Things seem to be moving along with that as well. The buyers have final approval for their loan, the appraiser came yesterday, and the attorney's office has been in contact with me about getting some information for the closing. All good things. The buyers called us a few days ago asking for a measurement on one of the walls in the living room because they were going to go buy a couch. Pretty cute. I hope they enjoy the house as much as we have.

And as much as I like the house, I have to admit to being happy about not having to worry about paint, kitchen floors, rotten trim, etc for a while. I'll be a happy renter for the next 8 months. Then we can buy another house and I'll start worrying about those things again. But a little break will be nice. Especially when it corresponds with having a newborn. :)

HE MADE IT!!!

Reid made the football team! He is beside himself and I had a teary moment. :)

Their games are on Wednesdays and the first one is September 17th. How a coach gets a bunch of kids ready to play a real game in 5 practices is beyond me. But, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Reid made the team and is just so excited. The season ends on October 29th.

I'm going to pretend for now that his games don't start at 3:30... the littler kids get home at 4:00. And when we move into the apartment, they have to be picked up at 4:00... we won't have the option of letting them come home to a parentless house. So... I'm going to ignore that for now and just focus on how awesome it is that Reid made the team.

And keep your eyes out for lots of upcoming blog entries and pictures of Reid playing in the games. And hope that none of the blog entries contain details of serious injuries. :)

Gift Pictures

These are the gifts (still in their fancy bags) that I got from the shower at my Mom's house.

This is a beautiful little dress I got from a lady at church. It's actually way more blue than it looks in the picture. Isn't it just so perfectly sweet?

I love this little jean jumper. How precious! I like that it will work in summer or winter... whenever she decides to grow into it will be completely fine!

And this little outfit is just beyond adorable. So elegant. Hopefully it will fit right around Easter. I just love the little sweater. And, of course, there are matching bloomers. :)

34 Weeks

Well. Today is 34 weeks. Only 6 more weeks to go.

I'll put the belly shot up later. I haven't gotten around to taking it yet, but wanted to put in the statistics before I forgot.

Weight Gain: 17 lbs
Belly Measurement: 37.25" (It grew a whole 1/4 of an inch!)
Baby's Heartrate: Around 155... I say that because she wouldn't stay still long enough for the doppler machine to get an accurate reading.

So, I saw Dr. Seidel today. He is one of the two doctor's in the practice. It's only the third time this pregnancy that I've seen him. That hasn't bothered me primarily because I knew he was well liked and he was the one that Dr. Sheshadri (the one I see the most) went to to get me a prescription last year during my miscarriage time that Sheshadri wasn't familiar or very comfortable with. Seidel had no problem with it and so I knew he was probably more relaxed about things in general.

Anyway. I wanted to talk about the possibility of breech presentation today because I'd been wondering if this little wee one was head up. Turns out she's not (whew), but we talked a good bit about breech deliveries and how he's totally comfortable with them when they're not the first babies. But he said that her head was actually quite low and that he would be shocked if she could manage to pull herself out of my pelvis and turn around. So that's really good news.

He also complimented me on my weight gain and blood pressure (always low... today 98/56) and asked me if I was Super Woman. Now... I know that he was being overly complimentary, but it felt good nonetheless. A woman who is 34 weeks pregnant, packing up her house, finding temporary housing, dealing with the emotions of leaving long time friends, and trying to keep up with daily housework can really use blatant flattery from time to time. :)

Busy Saturday

Today I had the shower from the ladies at church. It was really wonderful. It made me realize just what we'll be leaving when we move. The people from church truly care about us and it's hard to leave that. I guess, though, that when you know that something is right, you just do it and figure the people from church understand that more than anyone else.

And I got really, really sweet little outfits today. My goodness. People know where the good stuff is. :) I also got a couple of big items on my list. A portable crib, which will be priceless during the apartment time and moving out to Texas. And a little bouncy seat that hopefully will help a fussy baby when needed. I will post some pictures soon of some of the beautiful outfits. I can't find the camera cord (again!), so it may take me a little while.

On my way home from the shower, I picked Reid up from a sleepover so that he could get home to help Mike load the rented U-Haul truck with the things we're taking to the storage unit. He got home and helped Mike for a while and then fell asleep on the floor (I don't think he got much sleep last night). Our neighbor, Derrick, helped with the couch and then a guy from church, Brandon, came over and helped with the last little bit of loading the first U-Haul load and we headed over to the storage unit to unload. We came back, talked for a bit, then loaded up most of the second load. We sent Brandon home and around 8:30pm, headed over to the storage unit with the second load. We brought all of the kids plus a neighborhood friend. :) We did a bit of a box brigade for the food storage boxes and Mike and Reid got all of the big stuff off. We were done and driving home by 9:15. Mike dropped off the U-Haul and when he got home, was very thankful that our church time will, for the first time this year, be at 2pm instead of 9am. I feel the same way. We'll be happy to sleep as long as possible tomorrow.

So... busy day, but very productive. We have little piles of junk everywhere, but it sort of lets you see what you have left to pack, so that's a good thing. At this point, we're going to take a few boxes a day over to the storage unit and that should be enough to get us ready by the time we need to move into the apartment. There's still a good bit of junk to deal with, but we'll do it in 5 box increments or something. :)

So... when we move into the apartment, we're only taking: the futon, the TV + stand, the recliner, the computer table + kid computer, the kid mattresses, the king mattress (big item!, but Mike decided we shouldn't mess with my sleep at such a crucial time...I decided not to argue since I'm not going to be carrying the mattress up two flights of stairs), and the kitchen table. Not too bad. And we'll get a couple of people to come help us with that. But we're trying to reserve all of the serious loading help for when we load up the apartment and big U-Haul to go out to Texas. That will be when we will need the most help.

Okay. I think I've rambled on enough about the move. I hope you all had a good Saturday.

Football Tryouts - Part 2

Reid made the first cut. He made the first cut last year, too. 15 more kids will get cut next week in the final cut. Last year I was watching a little bit of each practice and had a good idea that Reid wouldn't make the team. This year I haven't seen anything that's been going on, so I have no idea how it's going for him. I know he's a heck of a lot bigger than he was last year. And we had a talk about what it means to "hussle". I don't think he could grasp that concept last year. It's amazing how much kids develop over the course of a year.

Like with homework. Reid comes home from practice, pulls out his homework and gets to work. No prodding, no fussing, he just does it. I saw him doing that yesterday while I was finishing up dinner and cleaning in the kitchen and just about wanted to cry. It is such a beautiful thing. And then he packs it all up, hangs up his backpack and goes out to talk to his friend who did get cut yesterday.

I told Mike that when I see Reid all growing up and getting more and more mature, I almost explode with love. :) I dropped by his school the other day to give him some extra water for his practice that afternoon. And seeing him walk down the hall and then having him thank me so sincerely, I wondered why I ever thought I wanted to have a girl. I'd just take another Reid if I could. :) Okay... I wouldn't trade my girl now that I have her (almost), but that's the thought that went through my head at the time.

So has this been "my kid's so great" enough for you. :)

Football Tryouts

Today is the first round cuts. Reid will either show up at 2:40 from the bus having been cut, or he will not show up which means he's made the first cut. Final cuts will be next week sometime.

On Tuesday I went to pick Reid up and I saw him walking over to some other kids who were giving him the old high five handshake. (Don't really know how to describe it other than that.) He looked pretty proud of himself and when he got in the car, he told me he caught a football one handed. :) He said he tried for two hands because it's always better to catch it two handed, but he couldn't reach it, so he ended up catching it one handed. Pretty fancy. Then at the end, the coach said they couldn't go home until both receivers (they had two players running down each sideline) caught the ball. And Reid was on the duo that stopped practice. Apparently several pairs missed one or both before Reid's pair. So he was really proud.

Then yesterday he said that he was making really good tackles when the coach put him in at tight end. I think he liked the position.

So, so far, things seem to be going well. I sure hope he makes the team. I think tomorrow they will get their hitting rules and mouth guards and will begin practicing with pads next week.

And I was shocked to find out that Reid weighs 122 lbs. They did weigh-ins last week. He is solid muscle. He's about 5'7" right now. Crazy!

SO MUCH GOING ON!!!!!

I think I would just crawl under my couch and hide, but sadly, I don't think I'd fit anymore.

I would like to point out something I said back in July when we finished the kitchen:

"Now I'm going to sit back and enjoy my new kitchen and watch my tummy grow. :)"

Well, I'm watching my tummy grow alright, but I'm certainly not "sitting back" while it's happening. The best laid plans...

So what's going on? Oh, well... you'd think packing would be enough to deal with, but the apartment finding isn't going so hot. I found two options:

• A regular three bedroom apartment with a two month lease... sounds great, right? Nope. Third floor! Not sure if I'm up for that.
• A furnished corporate apartment with a month to month lease options... the problem? You can probably guess that it's the cost. It would be second floor, but it's furnished... you don't have to carry your stuff up.

We're only planning on taking the very basics with us to the regular apartment if we choose that route, but it's still a lot of work. And then the daily grind of going up and down the steps over and over again... So my plan is to try to talk the corporate apartment people down in price (I like negotiating) and if they won't budge, it will be off to the third floor for us!

And what else is going on? Well... life. Dinner still needs to be cooked, laundry still needs to be done. Homework still needs to be helped with, Reid still needs to be picked up from football tryouts (they haven't made cuts yet), and I have this ever expanding growth in my midsection that is trying to make all of that normal stuff really hard. Let alone packing and planning for major changes.

So once again I find myself in need of deep breathing and refocusing efforts. I'm trying to stay calm and trying to take it one step at a time, but it's hard to keep that attitude for long when there's so much going on.

However, it's nice to think of this house and how well it has served us over the years and how obvious it is that selling it was the right thing to do. Just think how simple life will feel when I'm not dealing with all of this packing and unpacking anymore.

Oh wait... there will be a baby getting ready to start crawling and walking by that point... I guess I'll have to take that statement back. :)