Updating (for two)

Well, we've been incident-free since the notorious "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day." Additionally, VNB's been able to work almost "normal" hours the past two weeks, _AND_ we finally got old appliances out and all of our stuff has a home again (except for one very small box of odds and ends that I've already gone through), so life is returning to a semblance of "normal." The nursery is basically done. We've gotta put the knobs back on the dresser, but otherwise, all painting, bordering, and re-organizing is done! I've even managed to start the last of our registries. The bulk of the baby stuff is registered for at Target. If the link doesn't work, you can just search for me in MD and the event in January and you should find us pretty easily. As I said, it's only a start (the store I went to didn't have a very good selection), but it'll do for now. I'll add more in the days to come.

VNB is catching up on his childbirth class reading...and man is he dangerous when he knows things. He's starting to actually make sure that I've been doing my exercises! I've been skating by up till now because he was too stressed to pay attention to things like that. Now I'll actually have to work! :) And, God bless him, he did the dishes last night. I didn't ask him to, and they hadn't even been there that long...he just got up and did them when we got home. We'd even had company on Saturday and used the nice china (we finally have enough for four people!) which had to be done by hand. Have I mentioned how nice he is? ;p

But it's amazing how much the stress is reduced when the house is in some semblance of order. No more piles of things on tables. We can come home and relax because we're basically caught up. There's just not much else to do that doesn't require multiple free hours on a Saturday (like laundry). I'm sure this is just the calm before the storm of holidays followed closely by new baby, but it sure is nice! Of course, we don't have a completely free Saturday until possibly the week before the baby comes, if you count major holiday weekends as "not free" (i.e., we don't have specific plans for the Saturdays before Christmas or New Year's, but we'll probably have family in town, so there will likely be things to do)...but the rest of life is no longer pressing in all around us.

I guess that's good since we have our official "kick-off" meeting tomorrow for the big contract I'm gonna be working on (FINALLY! Something to do at work!!!). That'll be really cool work, but might require some extra hours over the next couple of months. That's good though. Every hour I work extra is either one less hour of sick leave I have to take for baby appointments (which happen every other week now!), or it's one hour sooner that I qualify for FMLA (the Family Medical Leave Act - I'll be 10 hours short of the required minimum at the start of the day on the baby's due date). :) Plus, while I won't get "overtime" (i.e., time and a half pay), they _will_ actually pay us for our extra hours, as opposed to normal when they claim that we're salaried, so shouldn't get paid more if we happen to need to work extra (but try and turn that logic backwards to explain why we shouldn't have to take vacation/sick time to account for less than our normal hours and see how quickly that changes!)!

Anyway...life is good and restful right now. Which is nice because every time I move, something hurts. :) The joys of being almost 30 lbs heavier than normal! I tell you what though, for all they say that being pregnant makes it difficult to breathe (which should make it hard to sing, theoretically), I've had no such problems (so far). Instead, I feel like I can sing better! I've always had such a wimpy, little ("sweet") voice - primarily because I've got such a wimpy little frame (aka "resonant cavity"). I mean, it was like when we were playing catch outside the dorms in college. My guy friends would tell me to "put my weight behind it" when I couldn't throw very far. I'd remind them that I was - I just didn't weigh as much as they did. Same with singing - the bigger your rib cage, and the more "heft" you have behind it, generally, the "bigger" your voice (which is why opera singers tend to be big boned). Well with a painfully expanding rib cage and 30+ more pounds on me, my resonant cavity and extra heft are doing wonders! I'm rockin' out in choir right now! It's awesome! :)

That's not to say that I intend to _keep_ the extra pounds once Baby escapes...but it's been a nice little added bonus. :)