A Probability Jump

There are only four more days, give or take a few, before we're parents. Let's not talk about how that's really weird and I don't get it and life is still normal, exactly like the world isn't about to be turned upside down.

First thing every Sunday morning since we found out about the baby, I've checked for my two weekly emails detailing what part of development he was on, what he's doing in there. I loved finding out when he was able to hear, when he could dream, smile, or suck his thumb. And I'd get out the tape measure and show Joe about how many inches long the baby had grown. Now that there aren't really weeks left (probably,) what I'm really interested in is when I'm going to go into labor. I found this super cool chart that tells you, based on a survey of like 6,000 people, the probability that you'll spontaneously (not induced) go into labor on any given day. The probability jumped a whole percentage point today! (Source: http://spacefem.com/pregnant/charts/duedate1.php?minweek=38 )

The site also tells you the most popular days to give birth. Joe's and my guessed dates are both on the list. I'm going with 40+2 (August 5.) Joe's guess is 39+5 (August 1 - the day after tomorrow :O !) Both dates have a 4% chance of labor.

Now, in case numbers bore you, have a picture of the baby smushing out from my abdomen.

And this one, the cool thing I can do where my stomach gets pointy when I flex a certain way.

In Between

So...hi. This is awkward. It's been nine months since I've been here.

I never had much interesting to say - this blog is domestic, self-indulgent - but I still feel it's important for me to write our story. To keep it. Especially now.

Snapshot: I'm 27, Joe's 28. August 17th will be our 7th anniversary. Our marriage has been 92% fantastic. Our life is fun, secure, tranquil, comfy, routine. Like living in one of the squares of a waffle. I love it.

Last year, as my first real academic accomplishment, I was so proud to have earned a real estate sales certification. By now, I've realized that real estate is a pretty bad fit for me. Joe's on his 4th year in the Army. Seems that's another bad fit. With 22 months left on his contract, we've started to work on an exit plan.

We bought a home last year. We have a dog and a cat and two birds, some grape bushes!, two living rooms, two spare bedrooms. One of those bedrooms is full of boxes. The other bedroom was painted and curtained and made into my office. I couldn't find the perfect "resale beige" paint, so I went with what I really wanted - a perfect delicate blue-green. It turned out that the blue really was perfect...turned out that I was painting a nursery for the baby I'd given up on.

There are 55 days until his due date, August 3rd.

Now, we're in between. In between "us two" and "we three." Between home office and nursery. Everything we've known, and the rest of our lives.

It's summer. Outside the back windows, our yard is overgrown and green and hazy with humidity. The sun sets slowly. We play video games side-by-side like always, watch movies on the couch, cook and clean together. Everything is still so normal. But ten times a day we walk past the calendar months I printed out - April to September all taped together on the fridge - and every night I cross off another day. So many have been crossed off already.

It's been seven years of just us, of adventure and figuring stuff out. Strange to think how soon that will change. We're ready (as anyone can ever be,) but I'll always remember, always keep these last days of ours, these perfect summer in-between days.

Locked Out FOREVER

Y. E. S. !!!!! JOE INSTALLED A KEYLESS ON OUR ENTRY FRONT DOOR! WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!!!!! It's like being in Korea again (cause that's how you get into all the apartments)! Guys, this is seriously SO luxurious.

Funny story: There is a set of keys which open the locks of the doors of foreclosure houses in our area. Someone at our local Century 21 had the key to our front door when they sold the house to us, because that's how they sell houses, by getting inside to show people, you know. When we bought our house, we didn't receive a copy of our key, because then we'd be able to get into a lot of other for sale homes in the area. So we haven't been able to unlock our front door the entire time we've lived here.

We never got around to replacing the front doorknob; we ordered an expensive keyless entry system and door handle thing that we liked, but they were both broken, and time just flew by, and the back door had a new knob that we used, so it was okay. Climbing over the fence to get into the back door a few times never hurt anybody.

Well, the other day, when I got my real estate license, I gained access to a set of keys that would open the doors of a lot of houses in the area - including my own.

I got a key to my front door because I became a real estate agent.

LOL.

Six

On August 17th, I didn't write to tell you I love you. I was washing the car. I should have been in here, typing, waiting for you to get home from work on our anniversary, but instead I was out there in the rain scrubbing something that never stays clean. But that's how it goes, isn't it? Paychecks need to be earned, things need to be fixed, I get tired of thinking "I should wash the car this weekend." Before you know it, it's been a week since we've really had time for each other.

This year, our anniversary was just a whisper and the familiar date on the calendar.* And cake, chocolate cake chocolate frosting chocolate chips brownie chunks and chocolate syrup, that good old standby from our olden days (like 4 years ago).

From the olden days.

We didn't really do anything (except cake,) but it was comfy just holding your hand and saying "happy anniversary" and not making too much of a thing of it because there was last year and there will be next year. To get to the point where anniversaries aren't as momentous, because we've already had a few. 

So if last year was complicated, this year is comfy. We're back from our Great Asia Adventure. We have our household goods and the Passat and the couch. We're buckling down and settling in for a long stretch of very normal life - two jobs, a cat and a dog, retirement plan, mortgage. I can't say I'm exactly excited about it; there's nothing exciting about working to pay off a bunch of surprise debt, and about not knowing if things are going to go the way we've planned. But whatever happens, at least I'll be with you...and really, our life always has just kept getting better. 

Here's to another year of shared memories, even if these will be more mundane than seeing the Great Wall of China or visiting volcanic islands or seeing people poop behind bushes in public parks.

I love you.

* There was also a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with my family at Golden Corral, where I got four cotton candies and we laughed together like we haven't laughed together in years, and then me and Joe got a beautiful new toilet, but as awesome as those things were and as much as I wish we could do them all the time, they were not romantic.

Back When I Made Spiderweb Cotton Candy

I had forgotten that I used to have a spiderweb harvesting stick.

The trailer we rented when we first got married was full of spiders. We'd have to walk from our bedroom across the living room to get to the bathroom that worked, and the webs would spring up across the living room overnight, and I'd walk into them.

I found the stick picture while searching my Pictures folder to find out what me and Joe were doing on this day in history six years ago. On July 14th, 2007, we were fixing the place up; Joe was working on the floor, and I was raking leaves. We'd be married and moving in a month later.

The cast-iron woodburning stove against the front door added extra security.

Raking in progress! How exciting!

And below is a nice picture of the moldy-carpeted rotting-wooded broken hot tub I later pulled the carpet off of with the back of a hammer. The tub was never used for anything but garbage and storage, especially after the water pipe under it burst and had to be sealed off.

It wasn't the type of place we ever imagined ourselves living, but it was ours. (Kind of.) And despite the mice and the spiders, and the mystery of HOW ARE THESE WASPS GETTING IN (they had a nest in that yellow rectangular stove vent next to the little window,) I haven't been more attached to any of our other homes.