hard core packing has begun

really the packing began back in march when we rented the first POD and filled that sucker up, but until today the house was still lived in and it didn't really appear that we had starting packing. with less than two weeks to go, i have kicked into high gear and begun the REAL packing. jeremy's mom came up from williamsburg today to help me pack. we done good :) we attacked the office since the tall bookshelves housed a lot of stuff needing of packing. i am happy to report that we packed 27 small sized boxes of books, photo albums, and miscellaneous office stuff and decor. the office is essentially packed - just have to take the stuff off the walls and load up the computers. one room essentially down, a whole bunch more to go! this was the worst one though. the kitchen will be a little time consuming, but all the other rooms are already down to bare bones. i am terrified that 2 additional PODS is not going to be enough. we have a lot of stuff. a lot. i know we don't need it all but i don't have the time to sort through it right now. we'll have a big tag sale up in massachusetts as soon as we get settled! for now, fingers crossed that 2 more is enough. if it doesn't all fit into 2 PODS we can leave some stuff here and come back for it later, i suppose. the house that's been for sale next door is also having an open house tomorrow. i'm going to check that one out as well. maybe peeps will come to the two open houses on our street and then see that our house is for sale too and call our realtor for a showing!

Long Over Due and Long Hours!

Hello all! Suffice, I may not win father of the year this year! I have not had much time to post but will do my best to try to post more. Anywho, I am in my first week of residency. I am on the Pedi Surgery team for the first 17 days, not that i am counting. it's very overwhelming. the responsibility level is truly amazing, but its fun b/c i get to write orders and they get done. better yet, i can prescriptions even for narcotics :) anywho, the hours are long. i am on call every third night, that means a >24 hour shift. this week i will have logged about 100 hours. you might be saying, isn't there an 80 hour limit, to which i say yes but it is an average over 4 weeks :( a sad fact i just found out. i miss keira, the baby belly, and puppies more and more everyday. to say things aren't going to plan is the understatement of the year. it's hard and i am very down, but someday this will all be a story. i really can't wait until we are sitting around with the kids and our dogs and i say, "Roo, i remember the summer you were born. Boy was that fun...." i'm sure the kid won't care, but hopefullly it will understand how much mommy and daddy love him/her and how much they love each other. last thoughts for now. commuting into boston is no fun. when i am not on call, i get up at 420 so i can drive to braintree for the 515 train that gets me to mgh at 545 for rounds at six. when i'm on-call i drive in b/c i have to stay the night. i got these tickets for parking near the boston garden. i used them for the first time on tuesday morning after quite an ordeal. i was running a little late and the gps confused me and i could not find the lot so i had to park in a different lot to get to rounds on time. after rounds, another intern covered for so i could move the car to the right lot. i was running the whole time and it was a very humid day in boston. i was covered in sweat when i got back the hospital and had spent 17 dollars on parking for 2 hours! the good news was, i only had 24 hours left before i got to leave! ttfn!

32 weeks

oh baby. we're getting big. and i can feel it. there's always a head or a butt protruding from my belly. i think roo is starting to get uncomfortable in there as the wiggles have picked up. poor thing just can't get cozy anymore. from babycenter.com: By now, your baby probably weighs almost 4 pounds and is almost 17 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. She has tiny toenails now, and her fingernails have grown in, too. Some babies have a head of hair already; others have only peach fuzz. roo and i have an appointment on monday and unfortunately will have to give blood again. i've been really good about taking my iron horse vitamins so hopefully my hemoglobin levels will be back in the good range. this will be our final appointment in richmond :( but we've already got our next-next appointment scheduled in boston 2 weeks later. we've got an ob/gyn at mass general so roo will likely be born at the hospital where its daddy works :)

more info on new house for sale

ok, so the house that when on the market yesterday is roughly the same size as ours square footage wise, but has one additional bedroom. recently remodeled but nothing fancy. they're asking $329,950. good luck peeps. of course, they'll sell this weekend.

another joins the fray

there's yet ANOTHER house for sale on our street, about 3 doors down from the one for sale right next to us. sign went up today. don't know what they're asking or anything about it - not showing up on yahoo real estate yet. it's open on sunday so i'll probably go check it out to see what they're offering. like we need more inventory on the market in this neighborhood! i think we are seriously going to own this house forever.

normal? or not normal?

i know it's normal for my feet and ankles to swell. and believe me, they are. but is it normal for one to be substantially more swollen than the other??? i think the gargantuan size of my left foot may have been the cause of the busted sandal referenced in the post below. my left foot is noticeably larger than the right. weird.

and so it goes

i got up early this morning to head downtown to the permits office, armed with my photos of the roads from every angle. i hate driving downtown and really hate trying to park downtown. somehow i got there and found a free street spot. i paralleled parked on the first try - not bad since i haven't needed to do it since we moved out of our last house. i was parked about 5 blocks away and as i was walking my sandal broke. i had to limp and waddle at the same time to try to keep my shoe on. must have looked funny to all the passing rush hour traffic. found the permits office easily and went right to the street permit counter. i explained my situation to the little old man working there (i swear he's probably worked at that same exact counter for at least 40 years.) he handed me the permit application and then requested 3 copies of a measured drawing of the streets in question. WHAT???? the lady on the phone yesterday said photographs. the little man was not impressed with my multitude of photos. i burst into tears again. where the heck do you get a measured drawing of your property??? i certainly have no clue. the little old man and the other lady behind the counter felt bad for me so they said they could look up the streets in their little computer program and make print outs in lieu of measured drawings. then the little man asks me how long they will be on the street. i told him no more than 5 days, but probably more like 2-3 days. at that point, he said that i didn't even need a permit. even for 2 PODS. seriously. i went all the way down there for nothing because the PODS people and the permit office lady from yesterday didn't know what they are talking about. love it. anyone need any detailed photos of westbrook avenue and stratford avenue?!?!?! as soon as i got to work i called PODS back to book my 2 new PODS and schedule the move of all 3 PODS from richmond to the driveway of my uncle's house in massachusetts, since we don't know where in boston we'll be. seems pretty simple to me, but apparently not. after spending one hour and 34 minutes on the phone with two different service representatives i have all my PODS needs met (i think.) because the last lady i was working with seemed somewhat incompetent i will probably call back later tonight to verify that everything is set up correctly. but assuming it is set up the way we discussed, 2 new PODS will be delivered to our house here on 7/9 and picked up on 7/12. on 7/13, all three PODS will start a long journey to the PODS warehouse in ludlow, ma to arrive there no later than 7/20. emotional roller coaster (temporarily) good. in other news, got a message from the realtor. the lawyer dude is apparently out of the picture now. he loved the house. his parents loved the house. it is exactly what he and his fiancee are looking for. but his fiancee won't even come look at it because it's not in the west end of richmond. i can seriously throw a softball into the west end from our front yard. sigh. realtor called her a princess. i laughed. but the realtor has left a message with the other interested dude from the open house, so maybe we'll hear from them soon. or maybe the west end princess will change her mind. at least i have PODS. and PODS packing people to pack my PODS. that's something.

emotional rollercoaster crash

so yesterday i was doing good. had a great weekend in annapolis for chris and katie's gorgeous wedding. the open house sunday had a record turn out (5!), including 2 different interested parties that are scheduling follow-up showings, one for this wednesday most likely. i created the best damn moving to-do list ever and was rocking and rolling on it. i got quotes for 2 more PODS as well as PODS packing people (PPPs). then i hired the PPPs first since i figured they'd be the hardest to schedule as they only need to be here for one day. all it seemed i had to do was actually book the PODS themselves but that would be easy - as long as they are here when the movers come it doesn't matter when they are delivered or picked up. so i actually have a leaving richmond date. finally. (PODS are being packed on 7/10 so i'm outta here on 7/11.) stuff was getting accomplished. life was good. life was happy. but... apparently that's not allowed. in a my name is earl moment, karma decided i had more than enough good yesterday so i needed some serious crap to deal with. i called PODS back today to book the 2 PODS i need to store the rest of the contents of the house. easy, right? wrong. the lady reminds me that PODS can only be on the city street for 5 days without a permit. fine. no biggie. i already knew that. i really only need them there for 1-2 days to be packed by the PPPs. then she throws me a curve ball. apparently you can only have one PODS at a time without a permit from the city of richmond. not even allowed to place the order for 2 to be delivered without the permit already in hand. of course i learn this at 4:45 p.m. which means i won't be able get anything done today due to the glory that is city government. plus if i don't order the PODS soon i may not be able to get them here for when the PPPs will be here. and the PPPs are already paid for. crap. if i can't get this permit asap we are out a crapload of $$$ and i still have no way of getting all this stuff to massachusetts. i quickly called some random city phone number and told my sob story to 2 people before i ended up in the right department to obtain a PODS permit. the lady tells me that i'll need to come down to their office and fill out a permit application that may or may not cost me up to $100. i also need to bring with me photos of the street where i'd like to place the PODS. oh yeah. and the normal turnaround time for a permit is 5-10 business days, or more. i feel bad for the lady because at that point i lost it and just starting sobbing uncontrollably about how i don't have that kind of time, and i'm 7 months pregnant, doing this all alone, and everything's gone to hell. she must have felt bad for me because she gave me the supervisor dude's name and said that if i asked for him when i came in and told him my story he'd help expedite it as much as he could. but still no guarantee that i can get it in enough time to order the PODS and get the PODS delivered in time for the PPPs to pack them so that i am not out a boatload of money. other really fun tidbit of info - the permit office, of course is only open from 8-5 M-F, all days and times that i need to be at my full time job over 45 minutes away. as soon as i got home i took a bunch of photos of the streets and sent them off the walgreens.com to process. i'll have to pick them up at the scary ghetto walgreens in a couple of hours when they are ready so that i can have them with me tomorrow when i am waiting at the permit office at 7:45 a.m. for them to open so as not to miss too much work. can't miss too much work because i need to get paid so that i can afford all these movers that might not even have to move anything for me. love it. oh and i haven't heard anything from the damn realtor if the people are coming to see the house tomorrow or not. don't know if i need to be cleaning tonight so it's nice when they come. don't know if i need to leave work at any point to come take the dogs out of the house when they come. chances are in typical our-stupid-realtor fashion he'll call me at work tomorrow at like 4 and say that the people are coming at 4:30. he's really good with the advance notice. i work 30 minutes away. not possible buddy. but it's not like we can afford to turn interested people away. we need to sell this house like 2 months ago. i have officially had a nervous breakdown. there's just no way this is going to work out.

baby wildlife flocking to our house

so as i was getting dressed this morning i heard some really loud cooing, like a bird was right outside the window. i looked but didn't see anything. i went downstairs and peeked out the front door. sitting on our porch was a mama mourning dove and her so-ugly-it's-unbelievably-cute baby. (i did not take the pic - just found one on the net to illustrate how cute/ugly a baby mourning dove is. the person who took it takes a lot of good bird pics if you want to check it out!) then tonight, after i got home from baby school (more on that later) i looked out on the front porch again and this time there was a baby possum (aka marmot in our house) which was incredibly cute. i've never seen a baby possum up close and personal before - so cute. other than roadkill, the possum i've ever really seen up close was the beagle-sized one (i'm serious!) that would eat the cat food we left out on the porch for the feral cats at our old house. i have pics of that hideous beast on the computer upstairs but not on my laptop so i can't post them right now.

again - not my pic of a possum but very cute :)

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are baby animals stalking me?

31 weeks

9 weeks to go, 5 weeks until we're "full term" - damn that's scary. from babycenter.com: This week, your baby measures about 16 inches long. He weighs a little over 3 pounds and is headed for a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and he's beginning to accumulate a layer of fat underneath his skin in preparation for life as a newborn. As a result, his arms, legs, and body are filling out. roo and i attended more baby school last night to learn about breastfeeding. roo really got a kick out of it i guess because it was wiggling throughout the whole 2 hour class. guess it's just sick of eating placenta and wants milk! stay put roo - you've got a few more weeks of baking!

the video

ok. anyone who has had a baby knows what i am talking about. the video. baby school continued last night with labor basics part one. the video. yeah. that. eek. overall it was a pretty good class. not really any new info as i have read the books, but a good reminder since i am thoroughly convinced that i will not know that i am in labor. at every check up my doctor asks if i've had any contractions - not as far as i know! we spent two hours covering the stages and phases of labor, looking at pictures of the tools of the trade (forceps etc.), and other general info. then the video. wow. of course it was made in the 80's so the people are just awesome. and every lady was completely naked while giving birth - no hospital gown, no nothing. i know that birth is the whole miracle of life thing but damn is it graphic. and disgusting. i have no need to see that ever again. ever.

This is hard :(

Well, it's been a week since I left Richmond. I got through my first week of residency, it wasn't too bad, just a lot of oritentation and training. I actually start playing doctor next Sunday. Fortunately, my first day I'm on-call :) I hear a lot about how difficult the intern year can be, well i can tell you it's not going to be as hard as what I am going through now. It's really hard being away from Keira, Roo, and the pups. I miss them so much. I know we will all be re-united soon but it can't come soon enough. At South Station in Boston, they have these billboards promoting things to do around Boston. The premise is they show a picture of something that is "lamer" than doing a Boston acitivity. There is then a calander superimposed over the picture promoting Boston.com. This was one of the billboards that I took a picture of, while they incinuate sitting on a couch with a beagle is lame compared to hitting Boston, there is no place I'd rather be right now than on the couch with my wife and the dogs. Daddy misses you guys!

dam it!

went to the doctor this morning... he's concerned about my anemia because my hemoglobin level has dropped since the last blood test in january (was 11.1 in january, and was 9.4 two weeks ago.) normal range for an adult female is 12-16. so that means i have to give another blood sample at my next appointment in 2 weeks so we can keep an eye on it. i thought i was done giving blood. hopefully i won't come close to passing out next time.

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better news - after two straight appointments having gained 5 pounds from the previous visit i did not gain anything since the last appointment 2 weeks ago. after the massive loss during the first few months, i'm only about +5 pounds from my original pre-prego weight. i needed to gain some weight, but we didn't want to keep up the pace of 5 pounds each time!

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otherwise everything is looking good. my blood pressure is good, the baby's heart rate is good, and my belly is roughly the right size.

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my next appointment is in two weeks and will probably be my last one in richmond - gotta get on with finding a doctor in boston!!!

happy father's day!

dad, mom is typing this for us because we don't have fingers. we love you and we miss you. we'll see you soon. happy father's day! love, abby, jackson, bailey, and martini and happy father's day to all the other fathers, grandfathers, etc. out there!

ebay is evil

got lots of stuff for a nursery. now just need a house to put the nursery in!

and then there were 5 (and a half i guess!)

jeremy and guinness the cat left here last monday. jeremy is now staying at aunt lois' house near boston and the kitty is staying with my parents at the other end of massachusetts. today, as my last act as a volunteer for brew beagle rescue, i drove up to dc to bring our foster dog sunshine to an adoption day. we didn't expect her to get adopted today, so another volunteer planned to take sunshine in as a foster until she does get adopted. i'm glad she was able to go into another foster home instead of having to go back to the kennel to wait for her forever family. but the numbers are dwindling down here in richmond. it's just me (and roo!) and the 4 resident hounds left. the house is so empty now. in other news, we had another house showing today, the second this week. don't know anything about the peeps that saw it today but at least business is picking up!

off with her hair!

a few months ago i realized how long my hair was getting. i wasn't growing it out specifically, just too busy to go get a haircut. instead of sucking it up an getting it cut, i decided to keep growing it out until it was long enough to donate to locks of love. i figured i'd let it grow until roo was born and then chop it off. but my hair has been driving me crazy lately. it's just way too thick to have long. and hot when it's 97 degrees and humid. last weekend i measured my ponytail to make sure i had the necessary 10 inches and i did. off with it! jeremy and i went to get haircuts on sunday, but all the places close early on sundays so no haircut for me. today after work i decided to go for it. it's gone! my hair is pretty short now - as short as it has been since second grade when becky got gum in her hair so mom gave us all boy-cuts so she didn't have to deal with that again. (roo did not like the blow dryer - it kicked me the entire time she was drying my hair!) had to use my cell phone to take the pic of the ponytail before they sent it off to locks of love so it's not the greatest quality but you get the idea. i hope the hair that was driving me crazy makes some little bald kid very happy :)

fun new toy for roo

ebay is my friend. there's lots of good stuff out there. i'm going to go broke.

30 weeks

30 weeks. wow. 30 is a big number. it is also close to 40 weeks. yikes. the end is near. 10 weeks to go. from babycenter.com: Your baby's a bit more than 15 1/2 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and fills out your uterus. Her eyes open and close, she's able to distinguish between light and dark, and she can even follow a light source back and forth. Once she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have a visual acuity of only 20/400 — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. roo and i attended our first baby school class last night called "for baby's sake" where we learned about all the bad things that can happen to babies and kids. we watched a ridiculously old video about household safety that contained nothing more than common sense. but then again, they wouldn't have to tell people not to leave loaded guns on their coffee tables unless some idiots somewhere did it. we got a 30 minute lecture about preventing diaper rash followed by a 30 minute lecture on using the booger sucker. good times. all the other soon to be mommies were frantically writing down everything the nurse said. made me glad i married a pediatrician. :)

better news!

just got word from the realtor that that couple that was scoping our house for their daughter got back in touch with him wanting to know if the house was still available. still may not pan out, but it's better news! guess i just have to anonymously blast random people on a blog to get them to respond to their email ;)

house selling update

i wish i had better news since jeremy has already moved up to beantown and the pups and i are still here, but... still nothing back from the couple who was scoping out houses for their daughter. our realtor has emailed them a couple of times but has gotten no response. we think our suspicions were correct that they were just snoopers with a cover story as not to seem like snoopers. oh well. then we got excited on sunday when we got a call from our realtor (at 11 a.m.) saying that one of the other realtors in his firm wanted to show the house to some of his clients at noon. as much as it sucks to scramble to get the house cleaned, vacuumed, dusted etc., get dressed, load all the pets in the car, and get out in under an hour - it's the only way this place is going to sell. we were out by 11:30, grabbed some limeade, and camped out in the parking lot across the street to wait. the couple and their realtor came right around noon and were in the house for a decent amount of time. good sign, right? wrong. this couple was yet another who is looking for an older home with older home charm and quirks. it kills me. our house is only 6 years old - you know that. you know that's not what you want. why look??? glad we scrambled so they could see it (rolling eyes) oh well, shot down again. we asked our realtor to provide us with a list of all the houses for sale in the neighborhood, the prices, and how long they've been on the market. there's 9 active houses in our tiny neighborhood now and most have been on the market about as long as we have. there are 4 houses with contracts pending and about 4 more that have sold recently. so stuff is selling. but then you look at what is selling. the 8 houses that have sold are either the really small/cheap houses (closer to 200K with ~1000 square feet) or the really, really nice houses (400K+ and 2000+ square feet). nothing in the middle range is moving. roo's arrival is getting closer and closer. and i really really really don't want to live in an apartment, at least not for long. so we decided to drop the price a bit more to see if that does it. but that's as low as we can go to leave room for negotiation. it is now priced below tax assessment. hopefully this will stir up some action. if not we'll have to just let it sit while we rent an apartment or try to rent it out and put it back on the market when the it starts to pick back up. i really dislike the sub prime people who couldn't pay their mortgages and the foolish lenders who thought they would. (and this comes from a girl who sends credit card offers to sub prime people for a living.) darn you fools.

Last Post From Richmond

Hello all! First of all, thanks to the Leonards for an awesome baby shower. I really had a lot of fun and it was great to see all in attendance. Thanks also for all of you who came to celebrate our the coming of our first bundle of joy :) Today, I am leaving Richmond and heading to Boston. To say I am filled with emotion is an understatement. Just about any emotion one can experience, I've got it :) It's very hard to leave behind ones you love so much, but they will be up there with me soon enough. It's also hard to leave friends and family behind. I will miss not seeing you more often, but we have the perfect excuse to come to Boston, "You have to see the baby!" And to the puppies, Kiwi and Roo, Daddy misses you, loves you, and will see you soon enough!

29 weeks

wow it's getting big! from babycenter.com: Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to accommodate his brain — which is busy developing billions of neurons. With this rapid growth, it's no surprise that your baby's nutritional needs reach their peak during this trimester. To keep yourself and him well nourished, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamin C, folic acid, iron, and calcium. (About 200 milligrams of calcium is deposited in your baby's skeleton — which is now hardening — every day.)

i passed!

had another appointment on monday, including the glucose screening to see if i have developed gestational diabetes. had to drink the horrible sticky sweet orange goo and give a blood sample an hour later. the nurse taking my blood only had to stick the needle in once this time (as opposed to stabbing the heck out of my arms last time.) however, once she was in there she dug around for a while (painful!!!) leaving a massive bruise on my arm. i hate hate hate giving blood and almost passed out this time. the nurse said she hoped i passed the test so that i wouldn't have to go through the even-worse second round of testing. fortunately the dr's office called today to let me know i passed. yeah! no more giving blood for the duration of this pregnancy! woo hoo! unfortunately, i am still anemic and have to start taking the massive horse-pill iron supplements again.

Movin' on Up

As my very pregnant wife keeps reminding me, I haven't posted on the blog for awhile. Well here I am now. I now have about 1 weeks of freedom left in my entire life. Residency starts June 13, though I won't actually being doing doctor stuff until June 24. I am very excited and nervous about it but those are the least of my concerns. I am having a difficult time adjusting to the fact that since our house has not sold that I have to leave my pregnant wife behind in Richmond while I am in Boston. Hopefully she will be up there soon! I will miss her and the baby belly very much!

boy or girl?

we don't know. and we won't know until roo joins us in august.

to hold you over until then here's what the internet has to say about roo's gender: -

according to the chinese lunar calendar, roo will be a girl because babies conceived in december to mothers who are 28 at the time are female.

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according to the gender predictor from childbirth.org, there is a 31% chance that roo is a boy and a 68% change that roo is a girl. even better this calculation is because:

• You are carrying the extra weight around the hips and bottom, so it's a girl.
• The hair on your legs is not growing any faster during your pregnancy, so it's a girl.
• Boys are carried low. You are going to have a boy.
• Your feet are not colder than they were before pregnancy. You are having a girl.
• Dad-to-be is gaining weight right along with Mom-to-be, which means that you'll have a boy.
• The maternal grandmother has gray hair, so a boy will be born.
• You had morning sickness early in pregnancy, so you are expecting a girl.
• Your chest development has been quite dramatic during pregnancy. You should expect a girl.
• Since the sum of the mother's age at conception and the number of the month of conception is even, it will be a boy.
• Your urine is a dull yellow color, so you will have a girl.
• You are craving sweets, which means that it is a girl.
• Your nose hasn't changed during pregnancy, which indicates a girl.
• You have been craving fruits, so it is a girl.
• Your baby's heart rate is 140 or more beats per minute, so it's a girl.
• Your belly looks like a watermelon, so it's a girl.
• You use the handle, so it's a boy.

so based on 5 minutes on google, it's kinda looking like roo is a girl. that is, if you trust the internet. which of course i do. isn't everything on the net true?!?!?!!? ;)

28 weeks

28 weeks! and fortunately it has not been as scary as the movie! the third trimester is here and the kid is getting huge! from babycenter.com:

By this week, your baby weighs a little over 2 pounds and measures about 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can open her eyes — which now sport lashes — and she'll turn her head toward a continuous, bright light from the outside. Her fat layers are beginning to form, too, as she gets ready for life outside the womb.

You're in the home stretch! The third trimester starts this week and lasts until 40 weeks. If you're like most women, you'll gain about 11 pounds this trimester.