A long overdue update

I really have something of a reason for putting this update off for so long. I recently spent about 3 weeks with problems with my left arm making extensive typing kind of painful. I am still having issues, but I wanted to make sure I got this update out.


Erin and I have almost got the nursery finished. All we need are the curtains and we will be putting the baby’s name on the wall over her changing table (that way we won’t forget the name to put on her thank you card after she has left us a rather large “present”). The nursery thing is something that we were absolutely not going to get caught off guard on no matter how early the baby decided to arrive. We have also learned that there is a rather steep learning curve when it comes to figuring out the kind of items that need to be purchased up front before the baby arrives. There is serious research required with some of these decisions! Some days I feel like I am back in college only the stakes are much higher. For example, the idea of feeding a baby seems simple enough at first but then you find yourself in Wal-Mart with this glassy-eyed stare wondering if any of the bottles on this shelf will make your baby explode.

At least we got the name picked out. Erin and I both had names that we liked, but eventually I gave in and we went with her name. It isn’t that I don’t like the name that we picked out, I just liked mine a little better. ;) And, no, I will not divulge the name right now. Nobody gets to know that until after it has been written on the birth certificate. Believe me, people have been trying to get the name out of me for months now as if I held the answer to the meaning of life. Don’t worry, we will let you know.

We are into the final weeks now and things still seem to be going smoothly for mother and child. We have discussed with our O.B. our intended birth plan for our daughter. There are plenty of other things to keep in mind, but I’m sure we will get it all figured out.

At this point I am still a little worried about becoming a dad, but I also know that pretty much everyone who is having their first child has the same thoughts and their kids grow up just fine. I don’t have any reason to believe that our daughter will be any worse off. We are in the final stretch and I have begun to refer to Erin’s pregnancy as the shortest eternity ever. In other words, while the time does seem to have flown by, every day seems to last forever when you are waiting for the arrival of the little one.

That’s all for now. I imagine the next post will be when the baby is born. Until then, wish us luck!

The challenge of naming a child

This one is going to be short and I apologize, but I've had this one bit on my mind for a while now.  Erin and I have been going back and forth on names for our daughter.  We suggest different things, but we have mostly been debating between two names.  And, for those of you who are wondering, I won't be revealing the names here.  We have decided that we won't tell anyone the name we picked out until it is already on the birth certificate.

So, we have these name ideas that we have come to after lots of discussion, but how do you tell which one is the right one?  Does anyone out there have a good way of determining what to name a child?  Maybe there is something out there that we haven't considered.

Still chugging along

It has been 21 days since my last post, so I figure I had better get on it before my cousin in China yells at me. By the way, Emily, congrats on your own new daughter. You have been a warm and compassionate person your entire life and I am certain that you are an amazing mother!

Now on to our own update. We have been in our house for a little over a month now. We got everything moved out of our old apartment and into the house by December 20th. In the midst of our moving, we managed to get the bathroom redone, most of the walls in the first floor painted, and new carpet installed. We are currently restoring the wood floors in two of our rooms (one will be the nursery), and we will be getting some electrical work done as well. In the midst of making cosmetic improvements we have stumbled across some things that needed to be fixed, but on the whole we have been fortunate to have a house that has been relatively easy to convert into something that feels a little more like our own every day.

Erin is doing well. With 10 weeks to go in her pregnancy we feel like the time will both fly by quickly and drag on slowly simultaneously. She is very healthy and everything continues to go smoothly with the pregnancy. We still haven't completely settled on a name for the child yet and we still have various nursery things to collect, but I think we will manage to pull it together by the time the small person gets here.

What more can I say? Everything is well and with a little luck we can have most of our house updates/repairs done by the end of the year. Sorry this isn't a long update, but life has been moving along far too fast to think about much else.

Playing catch-up

Well, I see that it has been a few weeks since my last post.  Allow me to give you a brief update. 

We finally closed on our house the day before Thanksgiving.  More surprising than that was that the woman who had owned it had managed to get everything completely out of the house and had cleaned it for us before she left.  We were very pleased to be able to step into our new house later that evening.  My mother and step-father were there to see the house in all of it's extremely dated beauty and we immediately started calling contractors and painters and such to make changes to the place before we moved in.  We have our contractor hired but we are still looking for someone to paint and lay carpet.  I am going to personally handle pulling up carpet and restoring the hardwood floors underneath in two of our rooms.  We have begun moving our stuff to locations in the house that are not going to be affected by anything else.  We intend to be moved by the 20th so our current landlord will be able to get his crew into our old apartment to clean and paint before the next person moves in.

Moving in December is about as fun as you might expect.  Not too much snow to speak of (thank goodness) but wearing a bulky coat can make lifting some things kind of interesting.  Plus, Erin is not able to help with any of the heavy lifting so I am getting a bit of a workout these days.  I will need to find help moving the big items (furniture, washer/dryer, etc.).  Frankly, we may end up hiring someone to do that as every strong person I know either lives far away or they are injured and shouldn't be lifting things like that.

As far as Erin is concerned, she is doing ok.  The pregnancy is progressing just fine and mother and baby are both as healthy as can be.  We have officially entered the third trimester and the baby is still breach.  There is still time for her to turn, but if she does not then Erin might have to have a C-section, which she is really not keen on.

Erin and I love the idea of having a baby.  We can't wait to be parents and we are looking forward to all of the changes it will bring.  However, as much as Erin is looking forwards to being a mother, she absolutely HATES being pregnant.  Some women don't have any problems through their pregnancy and everything is absolutely smooth sailing.  Erin has a lot of pain and, as with most every pregnant women, she hates always having to buy new clothes because she doesn't fit into her old ones -- even though she will most likely outgrow the new ones within a month or two.  Fortunately none of her problems have anything to do with the fact that she is diabetic.  She is just miserable all the time.  I wish I could help her more with that.  I guess that lifting heavy boxes is my load to carry.  The only difference is that I can set my load down and rest and she has hers all day, every day.

More updates when I can.  Life is, to say the least, very busy these days.

Why does nothing ever go smoothly?

Let me start by saying that everything is fine with Erin and the baby.  It seems as if I felt it kick once, but every time Erin announces that the baby is kicking and I should feel her tummy the baby stops moving at once.  Hopefully my amazing powers to calm the child with a touch will continue after she is born. 

No, our problems are regarding the house we have been trying to buy.  I'll shorten part of the drama for you.  We saw this house several months ago and it was pretty over-priced.  We made a bit of a low-ball bid and after some going back and forth we walked away after our final offer we not accepted.  Then, a month or so after that, our final bid was accepted.  We were still interested in the house and the fun dance of house buying began.

Skip ahead to about a month and a half ago.  Our seller had signed papers accepting our offer and we set a date for November 16th to close.  In the mean time we had the place inspected and noticed that they still hadn't packed one box.  But, we still had three weeks before closing and this was an estate sale so nobody was still living in the house.  While we were concerned, we were still optimistic.

Well, the 16th was upon us and we had not really heard from the seller despite the efforts of lots of people.  Finally we found out that the sellers still had not moved anything out of the house.  Now we have some livid people who had expected this to be a done deal -- not only us but our realtor, our lawyer, and her realtor.  Everyone starts getting very serious about contacting the seller on our behalf to get this thing in gear.  We start to panic because the approval of our mortage runs out at the end of the month and nobody will be working on this over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Then word comes from our realtor that the sellers have started to move stuff out of the house and it looks like we might be able to end this drama in the three days prior to Thanksgiving.  It isn't ideal, but we'll take it.

Then yesterday we are contacted by the receptionist of our lawyer who says that the buyer will not be able to close on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (as had been scheduled) because they still have some things to move.  This leaves us one whole day in which to have this thing signed for (the Monday after Thanksgiving) or we have to re-apply for a mortage, which could land us with a higher interest rate amongst other things.

So, the Wilburn's aren't happy right now but there isn't anything we can really do about it.  The thing is, it really isn't about the house.  This is about the fresh start that we want to coincide with the birth of our child.  Many people will get a nursery ready when their baby is coming, but we have set some higher goals.  Maybe we have taken on too much, but it is what we want to do and it really sucks when your plans get smacked around by circumstances beyond your control.  In the mean time we will continue to pack up our apartment and get ready for the big move -- when and if that happens.

Swelling

By now you may have guessed that my entry titles have more than one meaning.

Yes, swelling refers to body parts.  Poor Erin.  I know that body changes are an expected part of pregnancy, but it is just one more thing I would save her from if I could.  She hates her clothes and she feels unattractive.  Nothing I say will help her feel attractive, but I continue to tell her anyway -- even if she doesn't believe me.  Some people never quite get the idea that it is possible to find someone attractive no matter what they look like.  In fact, were that not the case, I probably wouldn't have ever gone on a date in my life, much less gotten married.  People have so much more to offer than the way they look.  You can put a piece of gold in a cardboard box and you still have a treasure.  And no, I'm not calling my wife a cardboard box.

Swelling also refers to how life seems to be growing so rapidly these days that it is hard to keep up with it.  Gotta pack.  Gotta fix some stuff with the new house.  Gotta move into the new house.  Gotta prepare for the baby.  Gotta find day care.  Gotta have the baby.  Gotta take care of the baby.  In other words -- gotta lot to do.

And, I find that when I don't think I can do much more that I find new energy to get things done that need to be done.  There is so much important stuff to do that resting doesn't seem like an option -- but for once I don't mind.  This isn't stess born of frustration.  This is a stress that comes with the anticipation of new and exciting changes.  It isn't always fun but the light at the end of this tunnel seems so bright that I am a lot happier about working to get there.

Every time I see my wife these days, I smile in anticipation of what is to come.  That makes her even more beautiful in my eyes and I could absolutely care less about the way she looks on the outside because all I see when I look at her is our future together.  I have a good feeling that our future will be wonderful.

The first _______

Yesterday was the first snowfall for this portion of New York.  That tends to tick off most people.  I hear questions like "why is this so early" and "what happened to fall".  True, fall and spring have become almost non-existent seasons, but you would think that people would be used to stuff like that by now.  And snow in mid-October certainly isn't unheard of.  I remember as a child that trick-or-treating was flat out canceled in my area one Halloween due to a winter storm that left nearly everything in sight covered in roughly half an inch of solid ice.  It was amazing to see even though it was very dangerous.  I don't think I even minded missing out on trick-or-treating that year because I could walk down the street and feel like I was living on Krypton.

Yesterday I took the dog out for her morning potty break before heading to work.  There was maybe an inch of snow stuck to the ground outside and it was still coming down in large, slowly drifting clumps.  It was really beautiful and I took a few minutes to watch, which is certainly preferable to watching the dog do her business.  I wish I could have stayed out longer, but I had places to be.  I started thinking then, and continued to think through the rest of the day, about the firsts in my daughter's life.  There will be the very first snowfall for her, when I imagine she will be staring up at the sky and crinkling up her nose when she gets hit by a particularly large snowflake.  I want to be there for all of those firsts -- first steps, first words, first day of school.  Those are the things I'm looking forward to.  I want to be there to help a new human experience the world for the first time.  I want to watch her go through the process of learning how things work, like the day she figures out that just because the toy went behind daddy's back doesn't mean that it doesn't exist anymore.

I'm looking forward to looking at the world through a fresh pair of eyes.  I'm sure it will help me learn almost as much as she will, and I look forward to having those experiences together.