1.  It’s here!  Italy day is here!  Now if I can only finish packing, I’ll be ready to go in approximately, um, 5 hours.

Yikes!

2.  Yesterday, on the 12th floor of an apartment building in Manhattan, an egret flew by at eye level.  An egret.   Heading where?  The lake in Central Park?  What the hell?

3.  The mylar balloons from my shower are still aloft.  Balloons just make me happy.

4.  I’ve worked down to Santa’s face on the xmas stocking that is my current handwork of choice.  Unlike some previous gigantic, computer-generated patterns, the face turned out rather nice and I have high hopes for the rest of the pattern.  Which will, no doubt, get worked on quite a bit during my time in Italy.

5.  Today marks the beginning of my 34th week, and Thor woke me up by kicking the shit out of my ribs.  I’ve been dreaming about him, and about the three of us living in our new Perfect house almost exclusively this week.  Boring dreams, about him asking to paint his room yellow.  About baking bread for dinner. Lovely dreams.  Wonderful dreams about everyday family stuff that is the stuff of fantasies and rainbows to me.

Of course, last night I also dreamed that while in Italy I sampled a local delicacy – Kidney Gelato.  Yes, it was just as disgusting as it sounds.  No rainbows there.  Blech.

Well, because the unmitigated happy couldn’t possibly last, there’s now drama with the Boy’s daughters.  Specifically his middle daughter, who’s gone on the attack about our plans to move north in a year or so.

She is practically hysterical.

The Boy is upset.  And feeling guilty.

I am frustrated.

Mostly because the Boy has nothing to feel guilty about.  This is a 25-year-old young woman we’re talking about.  One who’s been living in the city with her boyfriend all summer and who has come over for dinner exactly once, despite numerous invitations.  This is the young woman whose new, non-housetrained puppy the Boy cared for for over 2 weeks without much acknowledgment from her of the enormous favor he was doing her.  This is the young woman who rants that her father is ‘shutting her out of his life”?

I am trying to be fair about this – lots of changes, pregnant stepmother, new house in a city she has no intention of ever living, and apparently her mother is also talking seriously about leaving the city (honestly, it’s too damned expensive to live here if you’re not working in Manhattan and making a fortune) so I GET that she’s feeling insecure and like everything familiar is shifting.

But she’s taking it out on someone who shouldn’t get attacked like this, and I find it irritating to be in the position of wanting to jump in to his defense, but knowing that would make things SO much worse.  Not something he wants, and certainly not what I want to do to him.

So I have to sit back and watch this rather nasty attack have its way with him, watch all his giddy happiness over the house turn to worry and possibly regret.

And I hate that.

1.  Dinner with Mo last night was wonderful.  And losing easy access to her wonderfulness is one of the few things I’ll regret about leaving this city.  Fortunately, we’re planning on being down here all the time so the Boy can stay connected with his kids, so while he’s hanging out with them, I’ll go bother her.  Lucky Mo.

2.  Rain.  Rain that’s upped the humidity, but dropped the temperature significantly.  I’ll take it.

3.  Today is the day for packing errands that did not get run yesterday.  Feeling better for a lot of sleep, though feeling sadder since today is the “drop Nellie off in Manhattan, after which she’ll be carted off to the place of theoretical doggie joy upstate.”  I hate thinking that she’s going to think that we’re abandoning her to the care of these new people, but I’m really glad we decided to splurge on the nice doggie spa.  Alleviates my guilt a little bit, knowing she’ll have grass & trees to play amidst.

4.  We signed the contract & put down a deposit on the house yesterday.  Dang, this is moving fast!

5.  Made a big batch of “nature candy” (1 part peanut butter, 1 part honey, 2 parts dry milk, all mixed together, rolled up in tubes of waxed paper, and meant to be sliced & eaten cold.  Deliciousness from my childhood, and despite the heartburn that I think the peanut buttery goodness provoked, totally wonderful and I’m having more today.

So the doctor appointment went fine, though Thor was hiding from the doppler.  Since he’d been kicking the shit out of my ribs on the subway ride over, I wasn’t really concerned.  Still didn’t like it not being loud & clear, though, so I suppose I’m scarred forever by bad doppler scans in previous pregnancies.

The rest of the day is for resting, eating gazpacho, and dealing with a few pre-Italy errands.

Mostly resting.

I haven’t been sleeping well – probably due to excitement, but since I’m off work, it’s not quite so critical.  The Boy’s currently engaged in moving his office up two flights of stairs so we can move our bedroom into his office, and set up a baby bedroom in our bedroom.

Which means we’re getting a crib soon.  And I’ll be able to un-pile the mass of baby-stuff that’s currently threatening to eat our room. Maybe today should also be a ‘write thank you notes’ day, since I’d like to do that before Italy, and it would make the un-piling easier if I don’t have to keep things in gift-bags with cards attached…

All in all?  A relaxing day.  A glorious not-at-work day.  A day I might just spend napping and eating and napping some more.  Because I can.

Wow.

1.  Freedom from work!  Wooohoooo!  Everyone at the temp branch was really nice – one of the ladies brought in a gift for Thor! – saying nice things about me, and promising to say them to the Princess, as well.  My meeting with HR went well, and it’s going to be easier for me to stay on as a “child care furloughed” employee for 48 months than just to quit.  Which is fine by me.  My union is going to put me on short-term disability, so there’s an extra few hundred dollars coming in for the first few months.  All good things, and best of all?  When I go to the doctor today, I don’t need to ask for a doctor’s note.  (Well, actually, I DO need to ask for notes with which to fly.  ie: my due date, an explanation of the needles in my carry-on, etc.)

2.  The dog came up on the bed for a 10-minute snuggle this morning.  I tell you I MISS this dog when she sleeps on the floor at the foot of our bed.  Nice that she came up for some ‘pack time’.

3.  Doc appointment today is the last one til mid-August (at which point my various appointments take over my life.  Another reason I decided to begin my maternity leave in mid-August.)  OB appointments are boring these days, since I’m getting sonograms so often.  He listens to Thor’s heartbeat, weighs me, says, “Here’s what to look for if you think you’re in pre-term labor,”  and  “I want you to call me if anything feels wrong.”  Not that I mind that my doc appointments are boring.  Boring is good.  Boring is really good.

4.  Dinner with Mo tonight!  Woohooo!

5.  Today is errands-day.  Pick up thank-you cards for everyone, pick up a few travel items, look for another sun dress or two.  Begin the epic packing.  Buy an electricity converter or two.  Eat toast.  Download Italian language apps to my iPod.  Make sure I have all the contact info for Italian doctors that I’ve amassed.  Look up Italian words for pregnancy-related words.  You know – fun stuff!

So yeah, it looks like we’ve got a verbal agreement on The Perfect House.  The Boy will call up this morning to go over details, but it seems like a done deal.

Wow.

Talk about moving fast.

I love it.

After several years of feeling like my life had completely stagnated, working a job I hated in a city I disliked, trying for a baby that wouldn’t stay, here I am, getting everything I want within a month or so.  (Ok, granted, I’ve known the baby and the no-more-hateful-job things were coming for a while now, but it’s REAL now!)

I hardly know what to blog about.

My husband is getting excited about Permaculture chicken-coops.

I’m getting excited about painting rooms, selling books on eBay (house furnishing fund!) and joining a New Moms group in the little town.  I’m getting excited about the prospect of being a house-mom for a while, getting back into baking & cooking and (to a lesser extent!) cleaning routines.  Looking forward to scouring the area’s antique markets for cool furniture.  Looking forward to building Thor a playhouse out back.  And a swingset.  And teaching him to ride a bike.  And taking him hiking.

And meanwhile, I’m off to my last day of work, looking forward to setting aside this part of my life, hoping it doesn‘t make sense for me to have to come back for a week or so in late fall to secure maternity leave benefits or anything.

It’ll likely be 6 months or more before we’d really move in – we won’t be closing ’til late September-mid October – and who moves to NH in the middle of winter?  Which is good – give me time to adjust to baby-schedule here where things are familiar and easy, (and I can use the fancy stroller I still have my heart set on!)

More pictures to come, once we’ve got some stuff on paper, but I will leave you with this one, of the second floor of the library – with the reminder that this is a LOUSY picture compared to how cool the library actually is…

1.  Um, where to begin?  Well, I’m the luckiest woman in the world and I am so well-aware of that fact.

2.  The Perfect House looks like it will, in fact, be our Perfect House.  We put in a low bid, they countered within a few hours, and we’re going to be discussing details today.  Details like getting to cherry pick through their 10,000 book library. Their counter-offer came in right where we hoped it might + the added book bonus?  I think we just bought a house, folks.

3.  Last.  Day.  Of work.  And not even a full day at that, because my day begins with an 11am meeting with HR to discuss my imminent departure.  Three cheers for getting to go in late to work on one’s last day!  Woohoo!

4.  Flying to Italy on Friday.  Holy crap!  That’s in, like, three days!  Wow!

5.  My husband is the coolest, most wonderful man in the world.  I know, most women say that about their husbands.  But mine?  He really is.  Plus he has great taste in houses.  And books. And I get to live with him in our house with our kid and dog and gazillion books and a flock o’ chickens.  He’s the most wonderful and I’m the happiest.  And the luckiest.  And days like today, keeping a gratitude journal like this seems sort of pointless because, really?  Every breath is breathing in gratitude and trying not to hyperventilate.

Yeah, so the New Hampshire trip went well – so well, in fact, that we might very well be putting in a bid today on the Perfect House.

Wowza!

We looked at 5 or 6 properties, and found one that I loved, but the ceilings felt low to my tall Boy, and which was located in the worst school district in NH.  He loved another one in the same school district that I didn’t care for.  But the school district thing was killing us.  We’re pretty education oriented here, but I didn’t want Thor’s only option to be a private boarding school.  Which it would have been, for high school at least, if we were to buy a house in this district.  Which, therefore, we obviously wouldn’t.

But then on Sunday, we went to see a house “in town” that we both were going in to view out of a sense of duty, more or less.  I thought he loved it, he thought I loved it.  We were, though, apparently neither of us that excited at the prospect.  The online photos looked little and dark and cramped.  So we went in with no expectations, whatsoever.

We fell in love.

It’s on an acre and a half, which means fruit trees and big gardens & chickens, but no goats or cows.  This is ok.  The fruit trees & garden were non-negotiable, the chickens were “I’d REALLY like to have chickies again” and the goats/cows were, “If we’re on some land I’ll want them, otherwise, not so much.”

It’s a good 2 hours closer to NYC (and the Boy’s daughters) than the other properties we looked at.  It’s in a border community that feeds the faculty at MIT & BU & Harvard.  Seriously, if you spit from the front porch, it’ll land in Massachusetts.  Nice school district, nice library, nice community.  LOTS of kids.

And the house.  Oh my, the house.

The house is actually in two parts.  There’s the original 1800s farm house, which has bigger-than-average rooms, but is your basic living space below/sleeping rooms above floor plan.  But then there’s the barn.  The barn which has been converted into an enormous 2-story 10,000-book library.  And office space.  With a reading room circled around a woodstove.  And absolutely gorgeous wood detailing everywhere.  And windows and light.  And, OMG it’s wonderful.  Our combined insane book collections aren’t going to come close to filling this place up.

And there’s room for the piano again.

And a Christmas tree.

It has a formal dining room big enough for the Boy’s ancient French farm table.

And a garage with enough room that our assorted hammers and electric drills will not have to live in a linen closet anymore.

And there will be guest rooms for anyone who wants to visit – with lots of floor space in the library for air mattresses if we run out of rooms with doors.

And there’s a pantry.  Two pantries, actually.

And a flowery back yard.

And a ‘wild’ back lot.  With apple trees.  And blueberries.  And pears.  And a big garden already fenced.

And a sun room.

And I’ll get to buy furniture with the boy.  And paint the whole house (because there ARE some truly weird paint jobs going on in some of the rooms).

And it’s only 30 miles from the NH coast.

And only 4 hours from NYC.

And only 1/2 hour to our friends’ in Manchester.

And I really really hope this works out, because I can SEE living in this house for the rest of my life.  I can see this being where my son puts down his roots.  I want this place to be OURS.  I want to move in there, like, tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, folks.  I haven’t been this excited about a place to live – well, since forever.

**

In other exciting news, Baby Thor has been aptly nicknamed.  The kid is huge.  They’re estimating 5.5# already (32w, 4d) and his head & abdomen are in the 95th to 97th percentile range.  His arms & legs are around 50-60th percentile, so at least they’re catching up a bit.

Big baby, though.  Damned big head.

All is well, though, he’s still measuring in the range of normal, and one of my unspoken fears – autism – has been mostly laid to rest.  I was under the impression that autistic kids had big heads – and they do, but not at birth.  At birth they tend to be in the < 25th percentile range, but they catch up at 2-3 years, til they’re in the 70-80 range.  So a big-headed baby at birth is at lower statistical risk than average.

So that’s good.

And I’ll keep telling myself that all during active labor when I’m cursing the fact that I fell in love with a man whose father has to have his hats custom-made because his brain’s so big.

**

In other, other news, my last day of work is tomorrow.  I decided last week that I am done – no going back for an extra week or two after we return from the trip.  It’s too hot, I’m too uncomfortable, and frankly, my body’s working too hard to support this ginormous child.  I need to rest so I’m not exhausted when he shows up – Superstar OB still thinks he might be a couple of weeks early – and because I’m lucky enough to be in the position of not going back to work when my maternity leave is over, it’s not like I’m ‘using it up’ now.  So that’s a good thing, all around.  It will – unless Thor decides to be an Enrico instead of a Henry – give me a chance to work on his nursery, and buy things like diaper pails and strollers before he arrives.  It’ll also give me a chance to get calm & stay calm.

Which leads me to…

**

Italy!  We’re leaving on Friday.   Nellie is going to the Doggie-Spa on Thursday, at which point my feelings of overwhelming guilt will begin.  We’re going to spend Saturday/Sunday in Rome, seeking out cool things to see (anyone have any favorite spots they’d like to share?  I’m leaning toward the catacombs – nifty, underground {read: cool} – but am up for almost any suggestions.  Then we’ll drive to Tuscany where we’ll be staying in an old abbey for the next 2 weeks.  I intend to eat a lot of really good food, drink some excellent wine as per my OB’s instructions, and NOT give birth while there.  I might also go to see Florence & Siena, and a few other places, or I may just loll by the pool and coddle my largeness with much gelato and many iced drinks.

I’m beyond excited.  And delighted that my hips have recovered enough that I’m not going to be necessarily couch-ridden.  And happy too because the time will go by fast for having something fun going on every day, so maybe I won’t get too impatient for the really exciting thing.

Which is that….my kid could very well be born fullterm – anywhere from a month from now, to a month and a half from now.

My baby.  My enormous, gigantic, destined to be a brainy football player just like one of his Grandpas, doomed to grow up in a house full of books due to the extreme geekiness of the parents he’s stuck with, baby boy.

Wow.

So much is happening, and it’s all good.

The Boy just submitted a bid for The House.

Wow.

Wow.

1.  Chickens are ok at the New Perfect House.  It’s, well, perfect.  As perfect as the previous-Perfect-House with the added bonus of being located in a good school district.  The boy got tears in his eyes when he told me how much he liked it.  I certainly liked it – (what’s not to like about a barn that’s been converted to a 2 story library/office.  For two writers, this house is as close to perfect as I can imagine.)  And the Boy is moving on this – he’s moving fast.

I think we’re moving to NH, folks.  And within the year. Goodbye NYC (at least full-time)  Woohooo!!!

2.  Heartburn has eased so much.  It still occasionally plagues me, but it’s much more rare, and it’s obvious at the beginning of the night if I’m going to have to sleep sitting up or not.  This has made it easier for my poor stressed SI joints to recover, and for me to get a modicum more sleep.  It’s all very good.

3.  Tomorrow is my last day of work.  Do I need to detail how happy this makes me?

4.  Thor’s 32+ week anatomy scan went well – though he is a big boy.  They’re estimating 5.5# already, and his head and abdomen are in the 95 – 97% range.  His arms & legs seem to be catching up a bit, which is good.

Giganto head, though – glad for the brain-capacity, sad for my tender lady-bits.

5.  Chips and salsa and yogurt for lunch.  Yum.

2.

1.  While last night’s sleep wasn’t as refreshing as I’d hoped (much hotter last night than the night before) it still felt good and I feel ok this morning, though I think my hips would prefer I never ever lie prone again.  I seriously begin to understand the appeal of the Barcalounger…

2.  I still heart this amazing house.  I’m tempted to post pictures of it, but am hesitant because then one of you who has a teaching degree will realize how amazing it is and buy it, planning to homeschool your kids.  Seriously, it’s sort of fun to be hoping that we’ll figure a way to make this work.  (Private school?  Move to Manchester in 10 years or so for the school terms, keeping ‘home’ as a summer home?  Homeschool?)  And fortunately, we have a long drive this morning/afternoon in which to discuss all the possibilities.  Since we’ve never done this before it’s really quite fun to be making plans – long-term plans – with the Boy. Just like a married couple.  Just like a new family.

3.  Coffee in the morning, made right in the kitchen of the house where you’re staying.  Coffee.  First thing in the morning.  Wow.  (Now where is my coffeemaker, anyway?  I know I used to have one.  Must.  Find.  Soon.

4.  Saw the most beautiful yellow finch at The Perfect House yesterday.  It was practically oriole-orange/gold, but definitely finchier.  Did I mention there’s a bog/wetland on the Perfect House’s property?  Did I mention how much I love bogs & boggy-birds?

5.  I am feeling so fortunate, so blessed these days, by everything going on that reminds me of where I was one year ago, five years ago.  I adore my husband and he loves me.  I am having a baby who is already the delight of my days.  I am in a position of financial security that lets me plan to do things based on what I WANT rather than on what I MUST do to survive.  I am blessed, and I am reminded of that, and I am so grateful.