we're in . . .

We made it safely to our new home in Waltham. As many of you know, we were given very short notice by our landlord in Norwood that we had to move because he sold our condo (huh? in this market?), so we basically had two weeks to find a place and move. On our first day looking, we found a lovely apartment in Waltham, about four miles from my work. Jay's commute, while farther than ever, has him traveling against traffic in both directions, so he was a real sweetheart and agreed to take on the drive. Our thought is that it will be easier when the baby comes, since we hope to be able to have Jay stay home with the baby during the day and work part-time in the evenings while I continue to work full-time. I'll be sad to leave the bean at home, but it helps to know I'm only four miles down the road.

Of course on the day we move, March 1, there needs to be a snowstorm. When we moved to Norwood there was the worst rain storm I'd ever seen, and now we got snow. Lucky fellas who helped us move. They were troopers. Bud Light and pizza cure many a woe.

I, of course, was no help, since I couldn't really lift anything. So I went early to wait for the cable guy with Miss Etta, who was very confused.

Of course the cable guy didn't come until the END of his window, I didn't know I needed to turn the furnace on to get the heat going so the house stayed at 49 degrees until the guys got there, they didn't have the right size U-Haul for us, we had to make three trips back and forth to Norwood in our cars, I forgot to get the cable installed in the bedroom (whoops!), and I got my first taste of swollen pregnancy ankles from standing for too long, but all in all, it went as good and as bad as I expected, and we're in and getting used to the place.

Since many of you may never see it firsthand (although you are always welcome!), I thought I'd include pictures of the place. We're not exactly set up yet, but you get the idea:

This last room will be the nursery. It's about the same size as our bedroom, with a nice big closet and two windows. We'll be able to paint it.

On the baby front, we get to find out on April 1 whether the bean is a boy or a girl! We're very excited. I know there are a lot of opinions on whether or not to find out the gender, but we just really want to know. There will be enough surprises come labor and delivery day that we don't think this is spoiling anything for us.

My belly is growing by the minute, so I finally had to break down and tell work I was pregnant. It went OK. I'll be missing the biggest event of the year (that I plan), so I knew going in that I would be putting everyone in a tough spot. While I get 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave through FMLA, if I want to get paid for any of it I need to use up all of my vacation and sick time to do so. By the time the baby comes, I'll only have accrued about 6 weeks combined, so that's probably all the maternity leave I'll get to take, unless we win the lottery between now and then. I don't know how we would even manage to go two weeks without my paycheck. It's just impossible. So that soothed the blow to my office a bit more, reassuring them that I'll be coming back full-time as soon as I can. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the baby and I stay healthy and that I won't need to go on bed rest or take off any extended period of time before the baby comes. I plan on working up until the head crowns (just kidding, but barely).