The Joys of Homeownership

It rained quite a bit today. As I was making dinner I suddenly turned to find a giant puddle in the middle of the kitchen. At first, I was sure Sammy peed. Then I realized there was a lot more to it than the puddle I had noticed. We grabbed towels to contain all the water and looked through the bathroom and laundry closet- not the source. Micah moved the fridge and we discovered the water was coming in through the base of the wall. When our neighbor on the other side of the wall got home, Micah checked with her and she had a lot of water coming through the bottom of our shared wall as well, but in more places. When Micah returned, he checked other places and also found water had soaked the area at the bottom of the stairs adjascent to the wall. So, we have been changing out the towels in the kitchen to contain the moisture and have a fan on the carpet by the stairs. Now the fun part of having the source of the problem identified and solved!

The positive side is that it will probably be taken care of by the HOA- they insure everything but the space inside the unit I believe. We may have a deductable or some other payment, but we can manage that.

The most stressful aspect: If it is something that will require them to rip open the wall or the foundation. Not what we need with a newborn that should be here in 9 days. So, I am crossing my fingers that the problem is in the roof! This is also not the ideal time to have an issue, with Christmas on Sunday. It may be more difficult to get ahold of our HOA people and have them look into the problem to fix it. At least the forcast doesn't show rain for tomorrow!

It has rained before and we haven't had this problem and it seemed like the water seeped in all of the sudden. Weird!

What a Man

Micah is pretty much awesome. Yesterday, I called to reschedule my OB appointment because I was scheduled or my last shift at Party City that day. The lady on the phone told me that there were no other appointments available this week. Or next week. In fact, the soonest they could fit me in would be the 5th- by which time they would be inducing me anyway b/c its a week past my due date. She insisted that the appointment I was calling to reschedule would be the only possible time to come in, and so since I had to just cancel the appointment without scheduling any others.
So, Micah called them today and somehow he got them to schedule me for 3 appointments, one for this week, next week and early the following week. When they supposedly had no openings until Jan 5th. Wow. How does he do it?!

ALSO, Micah has got a guy at MIT Lincoln Labs who is in the process of requesting approval to hire him as a summer intern next summer. He didn't hear back from another group there for a while after he had a phone interview, but was persistant and instead went through some contcts to hook up with a different research group. So, looks like we'll be in Boston next May!

Are we there yet?!?!

Less than 2 weeks til my due date and I am going a little crazy.

Micah set up a tree this afternoon and it turned out very pretty. He finished the semester on Friday and got all A's. Woo hoo! And though the next semester begins Jan 9, Dr. Gaylord emailed him this morning with his next project. For those of you who have forgotten what he looks like:

Here we have our nursery furniture; the bassinet, the glider and the dresser which we will use as a changing table as well. Below, I practice using the stroller after Micah put it together.

One of the few ways that I can stay busy this week is cooking and baking. I've been trying some new things- like this flatbread which we ate with curry that I am quite proud of.

This week's creations will include sugar cookies with homemade fondant sculptures, fudge, lemon bars and pumpkin roll. I made macaroons today and feel pretty mad that it has taken me this long to find out how easy they are to make. They have like 5 ingredients and are amazing. Micah and I ate the whole batch before they had even cooled.

It´s Like Christmas!

Yesterday and today we got 3 UPS visits- a few items we got with a giftcard from Micah´s Dad and a lovely piece of nursery furniture from my Dad. It´s pretty cool to actually have stuff in the baby´s room! Sammy loves all of the baby stuff. Even the clothes and diapers he wants to sniff all over and lay on. Micah worries that he might think it´s all for him and he´ll get mad when the baby starts using her stuff.
In other news, I got examined this morning at the Dr.´s and to my dismay, nothing is going on to suggest that I am on the cusp of labor. Sure, sure, I´m still a couple of weeks from my due date. But I want our baby here NOW! Hahaha. I guess I´ll just have to keep walking, eating spicy food and taking evening primrose oil.

Micah's Deep Thoughts

The other night, Micah asked if I had ever considered that Sammy might actually be an alien pretending to be a dog. He went on, "Sometimes he looks at me like I'm such a simple creature..."

Nope. I'm pretty sure he's just a dog.

This picture is from last week sometime:

The Home Stretch

3 weeks and 3 days until my due date! Not that anyone's counting...
I have finally reached the stage where I can go into labor and it would be just fine, they wouldn't try to stop anything. Bring on the spicy food.

This week I have started to experience noticeable Braxton Hicks contractions, also known as haha-just-kidding-nothings-really-happening-and-you're-not-going-into-labor-anytime-soon contractions. At least my body knows it's preparing for something to happen shortly.

I will update a nice fatty picture as soon as I can get the camera back from Micah, who was using it for school. Everyone tells me I'm small for being 8 months. I asked my doctor today if that matters and he said all my abdominal measurements are right where they should be but because my torso is longer my pooch doesn't stick out as far as it does for many others. Lucky me.

I've Got the Black Lung, Pa

This week has been relatively uneventful to me mainly because I returned from Wilmington with a bad cold and have spent most days laying in bed miserably.

Micah has been super busy- he has two more weeks left until the end of the semester and a number of projects to tie up before then. Yesterday he got up at 2 a.m. to start doing work and didn't come back from school until after 7 p.m. I tried to assure him that this is not healthy. This morning I sucessfully convinced him not to get up when his alarm went off. Good influence? Bad influence? Maybe I'm a bit of both to him.

I have now graduated to weekly OB/GYN appointments. Yesterday, my blood pressure was quite a bit higher than it has been, but still in the healthy range. They claimed my weight was 7 lbs more than my previous appointment before Thanksgiving. I have convinced myself that their scale was somehow broken and this can not possibly be true.

Lastly and most importantly:
Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I came across Micah sitting on the floor scratching the bottom of his foot...with my haircomb. I was appalled. He expressed remorse and shame and then promptly moved on and began using my comb on his other foot. I made him rinse it in hot water, but if I develop a fungal scalp infection in the coming weeks, we all know why.