What a difference a weekend makes

It poured again today as I waddled to the bus, and all I could think was "holy hell, am I going to get home to buckets of water and a collapsed roof?" Ok, I knew it couldn't possibly be a replay of Thursday night, but once burned and all that...

However, I have to hand it to the contractor's team. They worked all day Friday, Saturday, and Monday, and the difference is remarkable. Yes, the living room ceiling still needs to be repaired (and to a lesser extent, some patch-up work in the kitchen and elsewhere), but we now have the framework of a second story and an attic. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it's pretty cool to see the progress at the end of each day. My obsessive compulsive clean side (yes, DAD, I DO have one!!) is cringing at the dust and general upheaval associated with knocking down walls, but it will be well worth it in the end. Baby boy, whatever your name may end up being, you were the impetus for this construction, so I don't ever want to hear you complain about cleaning your room :).

We're well on track to being one of the taller houses on the street. The top green part (which is actually now completely framed around) is the attic dormer. The attic room, which is larger than I'd originally envisioned, has been earmarked for multiple uses: workout space, playroom, "Christopher Escape Zone", the MUCH better "Kate Escape Zone", library for the overflow of Kate's language books, and overflow room for Kate's snack supply. We shall see what the final decision is.

The chimney will be extended up so Santa still has access.

Hard to see, but the view from the backyard toward the street. That's a massive dumpster in the driveway. Classy.

As always, a Maya photo. Her new favorite perch, looking out into the back yard. Little does she know she'll soon have two additional floors for play space.

View tonight of the laundry room walls knocked out to make room for the stairs.

There used to be a wall behind that dresser - welcome to our new dining room!



Laundry room and lots of dust

Annnnd the obligatory bump watch 2013. Though when I woke up on Sunday, Christopher and I both agreed that it had grown overnight. Yikes. How the hell some women carry twins or TRIPLETS is beyond me!

I've said all along, Mother Nature is a bitch...

Definitely one of the more, erm, exciting things to happen in a while. All week, rain was forecast every day, so the contractor's team didn't do any work Monday-Thursday. Of course, every day it was supposed to rain, it didn't, so they could have gotten a fair amount of work done - most important to our cause, they could have gotten the floors set on the addition. However, hindsight is 20/20, and we certainly don't blame them for what happened. Last night/Thursday night, it started pouring around, oh 10pm. Not just a hard rain, not JUST a downpour - this was an absolute torrential downpour that flooded the street within a few minutes. Low and behold, the roof started leaking in a few places, so we started putting pots and pans in a few select spot to minimize damage. But then the noise started - noise that was the tarp covering the addition being ripped off. Within minutes of that happening, we had water pouring through multiple holes around the house, and the ceilings of all of the front rooms started to buckle under the pressure of the water build-up.

Our contractor and his foreman came over as quickly as they could, and they and Christopher got up onto the addition to try to mitigate the damage as much as possible, and I stayed downstairs trying to monitor the buckets and mop as well as I could. By this point, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the damage had been done, and the ceilings started to give way. First came the closet ceiling in the guest room. Next was the laundry room ceiling. Finally came the living room ceiling. Complete and total disaster. I'll admit that, when the living room ceiling gave out, I fell apart and spend a good 20 minutes crying in the bedroom with Maya, but once I pulled myself together and realized there was nothing to be done but move forward, the next step was assessing the damage.

There are a few bright spots in all of this. They may not be glaringly obvious to the untrained eye, as the house looks like a war zone at the moment, but, in no particular order: 1) the electricity somehow miraculously did NOT go out last night. Trying to combat everything in the dark would have been way worse. The power grid or whatever we live in is very well known for losing power at the slightest indication of bad weather, so this truly was miraculous.

2) The laundry room ceiling was going to need to be ripped off at some point anyway; I guess we're just a little ahead of schedule on that one :)

3) In emptying the guest room closet, we came across a Fine Young Cannibals tape, along with an old, old bottle of men's hair balm. First, I'm pretty sure that tape of FYC (and oh yes, I remember them well, too - I just wasn't a groupie like Christopher was) is one of 3 in existence anymore, so we may very well end up billionaires as a result of that fine. Second, finding hair balm that was once in Christopher's possession is a bit like Indiana Jones' discovery of the Holy Grail in "The Raiders of the Lost Ark" - when was the grail/hair last seen? What do you do with it once evidence of its existence has been irrefutably proven?

4) Well, that's about all I've got, but our contractor and crew have been very helpful and responsive, and they're moving quickly today.

5) Oh, I didn't go into labor last night as a result of the stress. Sparky kicked the ever-loving shit out of me until well after 1am in his evident excitement, but no early labor. Always a win-win.

I'll keep posting pictures as they work on it over the weekend, but a few pictures to give an idea of what it looked like last night:

The laundry room this morning. You can see the gaping hole.

The relatively minimal damage in the kitchen - that ceiling won't need to be replaced, though there is still a lot of clean up to be done. *Sigh*

Laundry room at the start of it all. Just starting to leak.

Laundry room after the first collapse. It collapsed a bit further from there.

Living room collapse. That ceiling will need to be completely ripped out.

General laundry room disgustingness.

The Roof is on Fire

Ok, not really, but when I returned to Kansas, I did come back to a demolished roof. Which I was VERY happy about. I took a few pictures last night of the progress so far, and they were hard at work already when I left for work this morning. So far, so good!

Poor Me

I'm feeling like quite the martyr today. As I slave away at my desk, my parents are gallivanting around Europe and Christopher is go-carting with his "work". *Sigh* It's tough being the only one committed to earning a living sometimes.
 

Anyway, I guess in all fairness, my parents are visiting my brother and family, and Christopher's go-carting exploits are a legitimate work outing (Carfax is a pretty absurd company in some ways - good ways, but still).

So back to the point of this post - my recent trip to Kansas. I arrived late Saturday morning and stayed through Tuesday morning. Which was, in hindsight, not nearly enough time for me to recover between plane trips. Ok, I'm sort of kidding, but who knew plane travel would be so uncomfortable at 7 months?? Answer: probably a lot of people, but I was still surprised at how much my back and butt hurt. But it was a good trip, punctuated mainly by my napping, eating, shopping at bookstores and, much to my father's delight, waddling. That's right. I'm now a full-fledged waddler. I did manage to run fairly comfortably while there, though my pace was far below that of my glory days on the LHS track team, but walking was a whole mess of uncomfortable. When my dad, who has been through major knee surgery, is walking faster than me, I think it's time to finally accept that pregnancy does, in fact, slow you down.

But among the highlights of the trip: a quick stop at one of Tonganoxie's 5 Sonics en route home from the airport for some cheesy tots. Yes, we'd already stopped to pick up lunch at Arthur Bryant's, but since I don't eat meat, I felt justified in needing the additional "nutritional support" of cheesy tots. Man, I could go for some of those now. I did not, however, make it to a Dairy Queen. That's not to say I wasn't well-fed with sweets, but this did not, unfortunately, include a blizzard. Oh, well.

Other highlights: Annie kindly let me share my old bedroom so I didn't have to sleep on the horrible futon in my brother's old room (hint to Mom and Dad - REPLACE!!), I went on several nice walks with Annie, ran into a few old friends' parents (always a little awkward, but fortunately, when you're pregnant, all you really have to do is gesture in the general direction of your large belly and conversation steers itself), walked around downtown quite a bit, and napped. Oh, naps are a beautiful thing.

But sadly, the trip had to come to an end, and, after a nice breakfast at one of downtown Lawrence's many hipster cafes with my dad, I found myself once again at Kansas City's beautiful airport.

Of the many things I can't wait to share with Sparky about his Kansas heritage, the airport is probably not high on the list. BUT I did see Lawrence in a new light - that of introducing my son to where his mom grew up - where she went to high school, where she worked (no comments, Dad), where she got a traffic ticket, etc. Very strange sensation, indeed, but not an unpleasant one!

The 30-week bump. Ummm...how the hell am I expected to deal with 10 more weeks???

Dad and Annie on Naismith trail near the house. I remember when there was no trail through that park and it was just a random mini-forest where the druggies went.

Mom and I on the back porch.

Grams and Gramps. Babs and Jean-Louise?

I'm pretty sure I'd given up on maintaining posture by this point. I need a massive Ace bandage to support my stomach.

Annie making an appearance. She doesn't usually like to go outside.

Had to take a picture of this at the KC airport - only in Kansas (well, technically, Missouri) will you see a "Tornado Shelter" sign at the airport. Home, sweet, home!

And the ever-obligatory photo of Maya after I got back. Not sure how she contorted herself into that position, but she seemed to be comfortable enough!

May 10th...just another day in the 'burbs?

May is evidently a big month in this family - specifically the first half - as Matthew's kids were born very close to each other (ok, Olivia was born April 30th, so not technically May but damn close, and Nathan was the 8th), my sister-in-law's birthday was on Tuesday, and Christopher's birthday is, well, today! So, Happy Birthday, Christopher. :). Tonight we'll go to a good Indian restaurant in Clarendon, maybe hit up an ice cream joint (ostensibly for his birthday, of course, but really, it's for me), then he has the entire weekend to himself to relax.And though my brother is always very thoughtful and nice about not specifying age for Petra's birthday, I have no such qualms (uh, Sparky may be reading this some day - I'm pretty sure he'll want to know how old dad was when he was born). He's 43 today, a spring chicken! Compared to some people. *cough, cough*

And since we don't have updated pictures of the house to show yet, here is part of what I got him. In all fairness to me, to show I'm not ENTIRELY insensitive, I did also get tickets to Daniel Tosh's live show in DC in June for his birthday. True, I will also be in attendance and therefore also benefit, but Christopher loves his show, so I thought it was a good idea (they both have the sense of humor of an 8-year old).

Did I consider getting him a sweet, lovey birthday card instead of this "Awkward Family Photos" card? In truth, the other main option I considered was a cat-lady-joke card, but I did at least shop around before deciding this one was too good to pass up. Fortunately, after I finally stopped cackling to myself as I signed the card, he also appreciated the humor.

This book - it's genius. And, I'm sorry to say, Dad, there are a few pictures there that remind me a little too much of pictures I've seen of you circa 1978.

And the obligatory Maya photo. Believe it or not, she was sound asleep in this position. She's now taken to sleeping at the foot of the bed, like a dog, every night until about 4am. At that point, she wanders on up to our faces to 1) purr, and 2) stick her butt in our noses to indicate hunger. Such a sweetheart.

I also visited another childcare facility this morning for a tour and orientation. The facilities were nicer here than the last one I visited - primarily because it's housed in a wealthy church (but fortunately is not religiously-affiliated). However, digging a little deeper into how the waiting list works, the director really told us that, if you aren't able to get your child in as an infant, you basically have a snowball's chance in hell of getting your kid in before they're 3 or 4, and even then it is FAR from guaranteed. For example, this year, the entire infant group (6 kids) was made up of siblings of kids already enrolled, who get priority. So I decided to save my $100 non-refundable deposit on this one. Unless we can somehow convince the center that Molly is, in fact, 4, and enroll her just long enough to get Sparky a spot. Hmm.

But the group - there were 7 or 8 of us - was composed of the typical Arlington snobbery. I WAS planning to play the single-mother sympathy card since Christopher couldn't come. You know, I'm there by myself, huge and waddling, my child's father died in Afghanistan when he jumped on top of a grenade to save the lives of schoolchildren, I was going to wear a McDonald's uniform and rub french fry grease all over my belly...I had it all planned out. Unfortunately, only one "partner" showed up, so that plan was blown to hell.

My favorite part was, of course, as I already told Christopher, when one woman, who was about 2 months pregnant, saw a bag of - HORRORS - mini-bagels in one of the classrooms and said to the director "I would imagine if my child does not eat processed food, it would be difficult". Given that I was by far the most pregnant one there, it was not easy to restrain myself from throwing said mini-bagels in her face, screaming "just WAIT until you're so big your thighs are rubbing together and you can't see your feet and the only thing that gets you through the day is the tub of frosting you plan on devouring when you get home...just see how your processed food aversion sounds then!".

Anyway, classy as usual. But it's looking more and more like we're going to go with private, in-home care. Which is fine, just another minefield to navigate. *Sigh*

At least it's Friday :). And, once again, Happy Birthday, Daddy-o Christopher!

Pregnancy Cravings or Just Chubs Making an Appearance?

Today is the bake sale at the office for a group of people running the "Race for the Cure". It's a 5k this weekend supporting breast cancer research. Normally I would scoff at a 5k - "I don't RACE anything less than 10 miles!!" (said in a VERY imperious tone of voice with a possible roll of the eyes) - but I would have probably done it this year were I not already going to be in Kansas. If there's any time it's acceptable to "lower" your standards for race distance, I'd say it's when you're 7 months pregnant and waddling like a constipated duck.

Anyway, I dutifully showed my support - all the while grumbling how I "have to take stuff home to the kids....Christopher has SUCH a sweet tooth...of course none of this is for me!". Somehow I don't think anyone was buying it. I walked with $20 worth (well, $14, but I figured $6 toward a cause, why not). The true test will be how much of this makes it home tonight. But I'm pretty clumsy these days, so it's entirely possible I won't eat any of this during the day and will, instead, accidentally drop it all on my way to the bus.

Super interesting post today, I know. But due to inclement weather, the major kick-start to construction has been delayed, so hopefully I'll have more pictures of that to post shortly. Today's not entirely a horrible day out, so there may be progress today.

Finally, the new #1 name for the baby.........Thor. Christopher doesn't know it yet, but I think it's a solid choice.

Beginning of the End

We came home to a large pile of various types of wood on Friday, so construction will be starting in earnest this week. It feels like it's already been going on for months, but I'm just happy it's underway. Plus, I should mention that my sense of time is horribly skewed at the moment. For example, it FEELS like I've been pregnant for roughly 47 years. In reality, I might be overstating the time a bit.

Anyway, a few additional pictures of the house and mess associated with it. Oh, and a couple of Maya...she's soon going to be old news, so I'll let her have some of the spotlight while she still can.

Maya LOVES the attic. It didn't however, occur to her to help the pregnant lady move stuff - she mostly just wandered around getting dirty.

Living room post-attic clean out. Most of it is my stuff from my old apartment, so I have NO clue what's in those boxes and bags. I suspect there may be a copy of an AP Euro History report for Mr. Ortman, as well as my prom dress (and, quite possibly, my prom hair).

Per my dad's request, blueprints of the (eventual) house. Front and left side.

This shows the back of the house and the right side.

First floor after construction - the main differences are the wall knocked down between the living room and the guest bedroom to create one large front room. Wall between kitchen and back bedroom will eventually go, also.

Second floor blueprints. 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. Stairs going up to the attic.

The little piece of paper that held everything up. *Sigh*. Oh, Arlington, why must you be a gigantic pain in the ass.

 

Materials for the construction, delivered on Friday and now making it impossible for the front lawn to be mowed.

During one of my multiple trips up during the night, I realized that Maya had taken over the foot of the bed. I also realized that there was a packet of crunchy Chinese noodles from last night's delivery on the floor by the bed. It wasn't there when we went to bed, that's all I'm saying.

Point of No Return

Not that we were at a point of return before this, but I am officially in the third trimester - known to some as the home stretch. Known (so I hear) to others as "misery". If I hear from one more person how I'm going to blow up like a balloon now ("Kate, you look great so far, but it's coming"), I'm going to snap and start pelting anyone who comes near me with stale cookies.

BUT I am happy to report that, according to the doctor, everything is perfectly fine, on track, and healthy. At this most recent appointment on Tuesday, she even managed to somewhat assuage my concerns about day care options and share my frustration with the Arlington childcare "scene". It's a pretty amazing microcosm of some of the other competitive aspects of DC in general. But I'll leave that rant for my always-willing brother :).

Anyway, as I sit at my desk sipping my homemade "latte" (i.e. microwaved milk with cinnamon, yes, I am 97 years old), I wonder what progress has been made to the house today. Because they have FINALLY started. Demolition/construction has officially started, MUCH to our relief, so keep your fingers crossed that everything goes (more or less) according to plan.

Day 1: as of yesterday, they'd started removing brick from the current attic exterior. I'm hoping that they focus next on building my home gym and sauna.

Now, I'm a realist, some might say a cynic, and, despite the July 1st deadline our contractor wants to adhere to, I'm pretty sure there will still be a not insignificant amount of activity going on well into July (and August?). But my main predictions for the next 2-3 months are:
   1) Maya will escape, at minimum, 3 times. We have somehow managed to strike terror in the heart of
     each person working on the construction at the thought of losing her. I promise we didn't overdo it or
     freak them out intentionally, but we've definitely been asked more about the best place to keep the cat
     than anything else. I say she will escape not through any fault of anyone else; she is simply determined to
     be an outdoor cat, even if only for a few, fleeting moments.
   2) Upon finally going through all of my old stuff that was, until Sunday, being stored in the attic, I will
     discover at least 9 language learning books that are NOT German, 4 pairs of ipod headphones, and,
     possibly, my old Comcast box from 2001.
   3) Christopher will spend no fewer than 400 hours over the next 2 months reading HGTV magazine AND
     watching HGTV. Scratch that, 600 hours.
   4) I will go into labor while home sick on a random Tuesday in mid-July, and I'll have to be driven to the
     hospital by the construction worker who speaks the least amount of English.

Ah, good times.