Company's coming tomorrow night: Jean's sister Carol, Carol's husband Terry and their four (count 'em four) children are stopping by on their way to Virginia Beach. It's been at least five years since I've seen Carol, and more like ten since I've seen any of the others (for the youngest, that means never). It's going to be great seeing them, but tonight is a busy night of cleaning.
Actually, the house cleaning isn't due to Carol & Company's arrival so much as to the impending arrival of the Bump. Tomorrow afternoon I'm coming home at 2 PM for the delivery and assembly of the crib and two bureaus. Tonight we needed to move everything out of the guest room so it can become the baby room tomorrow. Carol's visit just compresses things, since we have to have all the furniture from the guest room set up in the new guest room (which was formerly the Yoga room).
At thirty-three weeks, Jean isn't quite in prime shape for moving stuff. She's been picking around in the two rooms all weekend, but tonight was my night to help. It was fun being the gorilla. It was also fun because I was cutting corners to get things done, and as long as nothing broke, she couldn't stop me. There were a couple of close calls (moving the bookcase with all of the decorations still on the shelves, or moving the metal bed frame still in one piece through a narrow hallway), but everything came out fine.
Despite my efforts, Jean still managed to overexert herself these past few days, and now she's got a backache. And just like I wouldn't listen to her when it came to moving furniture carefully, she's not listening to me when I tell her she needs to get into bed now and not get back up until tomorrow morning. Jean's got a bad back, especially her lower back. We're going to talk about her back with her OB tomorrow. I'm hoping the doctor will tell her plain and simple to cut out all this housekeeping.
The trouble is that we haven't hit the nesting stage yet. I know because I've seen Jean when she's possessed, and we're not there yet. I'm concerned that she'll start nesting at a time like tonight when she's already pushed too hard. Then she'll end up in bed until the baby arrives, if not longer.
Still, with all of this moving around, the baby room is now ready for the furniture. We spent a few minutes reviewing where each of the three pieces were going to go. The shorter bureau is going to double as a changing table, and we're going to mount a shelf on the wall above the bureau so we can have all the essential baby changing implements of destruction easily accessible. The room needs a scrubbing before Bumpy moves in, but by this time tomorrow night, it's going to be the baby's room.
I'm still amazed at the pace of pregnancy. Only 46 days to go before there will be someone else who calls this house home.
It's starting to get too warm again. It was warm enough that I opened the windows and the kitchen door all day while I was cleaning the house. While I never watch sports of any kind, I must admit that I left the television on a football game today. Green Bay was playing somebody (who cares?) and it was snowing. Big fluffy white flakes. I sat and watched the snow fall. I need to go look at a map to see if there's a snowball's chance of that cold front making it to Richmond this week.
reading: 1 Maccabees; The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien - Bumpy's bedtime book)
listening: New Moon Shine (James Taylor); This Fire (Paula Cole); Living Under June (Jann Arden); Come On Come On (Mary Chapin Carpenter); Famous Blue Raincoat (Jennifer Warnes)
© 1998 Kevin J.T. Creamer