And she's one.

Today, at 9:42 a.m., my kiddo turned one year old.

The BabyCenter emails I receive weekly have changed from a subject line of, "My Baby This Week" to "My Toddler This Week." That stinks. I think I'll unsubscribe from those emails.

She opened her present of books, a drum and a coat this morning. As expected, once she tore through the tissue paper, climbed over the drum and chewed on the books, she has moved on to pulling magazines down off a shelf she has only recently been able to reach, and trying to pry open the one DVD case we forgot to move out of her reach.

The dog and cat prepared a little something for her special day - from the dog it was/continues to be full facial licking, and from the cat it appears to be a resolve to not run away immediately.

The day has only just begun; we have plans to visit our midwife with homemade brownies in tow and to buy a child bike trailer as a one-year gift to ourselves.

Last night, before falling asleep, I read her birth story...at least, as much as I have written down. It may have happened 365 days ago, but I feel more ownership and more deep pride at her birth than ever before.

Happy birthday to me.

Chameleon

Spent the afternoon in Seattle today.

Had sushi.  I went to get my hair did while hubs and baby kicked around Fremont and Wallingford (Freford? Wallmont?  Whatever.  Anyway, both neighborhoods have way more people and cars than I remember).

After the hair cut we all went up to Molly Moon's on 45th for some ice cream to tide us over on the ride home.

Baby wore her hat that is made out of an old wool sweater, the hat that we bought at the Bellingham Farmers' Market for probably too much money but it's local and made of recycled sweaters.

Down in Oly, and up in B'ham, the hat on her head makes me think of workers and revolution and fists raised.

In Seattle it made her look uber hipster with obviously hipster parents because look at that too stylish hat perched rakishly atop her sweet head.

I like to be able to slip in and out of situations and places and be comfortable no matter where I am.  Glad to know my kid is following in the same footsteps - be they made in ballet flats, peep-toe heels or Converse.

But not in Birkenstocks because those are ugly.

Rope. End.

I love my kid.  Most of the time.

However, you wouldn't know it today when I yelled at her (maybe more like raised my voice) on my second attempt to get her down for a nap.

And you know what she did?  She kissed me.  Okay, for her it is more like coming at me with her little cute mouth, probably hoping I'll feed her some sort of yummy snack that I have hidden in my pocket because big people always have delicious solid food snackies with them, but it looked like she was coming in for a kiss and so that is what I did.

And then I asked for forgiveness from whom or whatever gave me such a good kid that when something goes wrong I don't know what to do so I act like a damn idiot.

That felt awful

Was out walking around my neighborhood yesterday (literally around - it is a loop and I know that if I do five loops it equals two miles).  Anyway, out walking, had the baby and the dog with me.

Loop one: walked past neighbor leaning on his car, calling for his son to hurry up and come outside.

Loop two: neighbor and son are in the cul de sac, tossing a football back and forth, looks to me like they know what they are doing.  My dog tries to pull me, the stroller with the baby and himself over to investigate and possibly take the football and run off.

Loop three: neighbor asks me if I am new to the neighborhood.  No, I have been here three years.  Really, says he, wow.  I don't know what to say to that so I reiterate the three years bit.  Plus, I walk around the loop A LOT so it's on him for not seeing me before.  Where do you live, he asks.  I point, he asks if we have the yellow Beetle, I say yes.  He asks what I do.

I say that I left my job to stay home with my baby ohbutIalsoamacommunicationsconsultantfromhome.  Before I can rush that mouthful out, oh, says he, and asks what my husband does. 

I head off on loop four, alternating between mentally hitting myself in the head for saying that I stay home with my kid and drowning myself in guilt for feeling like that was totally lame.

But he was the one who acted all dismissive when I said that, so he shouldn't have made me feel badly.

But I am the one who felt badly.  

So again I ask you, why do we hate mamas?  

The new reality

Turns out, I've been sleep deprived for going on nine months now.  I've grown accustomed to the familiar feeling of choosing to only pay attention to six rather than nine things at once because that's all my gasping brain can handle, to the constant race I am in to drink enough water to stay one step ahead of the ever-looming exhaustion headache that has taken up residence in the back of my brain.

But I guess it's not supposed to be like this.  Oh, it is for new parents, don't doubt that, but for the general population - no.

I went to sleep much too late last night (a stupid recent trend, I'll admit) and was awoken a glorious 90 minutes later to the sound of a crying baby.  Now this baby, she never cries at night.  When she usually wakes up after eight hours of sleeping and is hungry, she starts to stir and make grunty noises.  I get up and get into her room before things escalate to the point of actual wakefulness or sadness.  I do this every night, on my own, while hubs slumbers, peacefully undisturbed.

So when she cried last night, I knew it was his time to get up.  He didn't, not right away, anyway.  Anyway, that's a story for another post.

When the kiddo is back down and getting dozey, I find that I have been awake for two hours and can't fall back asleep.  Pre-baby, this would really freak me out.  Post-baby, this has happened more than I care to admit.

When hubs' alarm went off three hours later, I dutifully climbed out of bed, got dressed and combed my hair.

The kid woke up not long after, which is to say WHY IS SHE NOT TAKING A NAP RIGHT NOW?

I am hoping that by continuing to leave her in her room she will magically drift off to sleep.  I am also hoping that someone else will show up to take care of this.

Peevish

There are a few things in this world that really, and I mean *really*, rub me the wrong way. Try as I might I just can't get over my annoyance when these little thorns pop up.

In no particular order, a few of my least favorite things...I feel like I've written this before...

* When you are filling out a form, be it an application, a survey, online or in hard copy, whatever, and you are asked to select gender, why is it that "Male" is always listed before "Female?" Alphabetically, it doesn't make sense and if it's just random, well, those are pretty great odds to come up male all the time. I think we all know the answer to this one - it's so entrenched that we don't realize it anymore, but it's because men are thought of as superior to women. I really hate that.

* When people find out I gave birth to my healthy daughter at home they immediately ask one of two things: a) how far away do you live from the emergency room (because birth is an emergency, right?) or b) what was your backup? I want to say my backup is my midwife who was there by my side. (I've had to delete the rest of this paragraph because apparently I was feel pretty rageful when I wrote it and not only was it snippy, it didn't make as much sense as I thought it did).

* When people don't wave when you let them in front of you while driving. I just don't get this. I wave emphatically and have even been known to flash the peace sign for an exceptionally kind let-in.

* When people try to hook up my kid. No, she doesn't already have a boyfriend; no, I don't want her to meet your strapping eight-month old lad. She's a BABY. Let's let her be one, shall we? I'm not pimping out my daughter.

* Myself when I don't get back to a good friend. I hate it when I do that.

* Bad spelling and poor grammar, because I am a nerd. Although sometimes these are the things I find the most hilarious, because I am a nerd.

Baby Steps

Today marks the end of day two of being at home along with the baby. True, husband has come home both days to see his little girl and to kick his shoes off, put his business-socked feet up and watch a little crappy daytime reality tv (I know, redundant), but still, this has been two days of full, 100 percent responsibility for another life for more than two hours.

Yesterday, I had goals. Call the doctor about my trip to the emergency room to have the abscess that had set up shop in my right boob taken care of, call my midwife to let her know the same story, walk around the neighborhood once and pick up my prescription of Percocet. Check, check, check and check.

Today, the adventure for the day was to get to afore-mentioned doctor's office, making it the first car trip with me and baby on our own. The preparation was intense. In an effort to keep the vocalizations ("Why am I in this damn car seat again you know how I hate it why is this blanket hanging over the car seat so I can't see a thing you know I want to be fed right now and I am making a poopy diaper as we speak unnnnnnn..." (that's the pooping sound)) down, baby had third breakfast right before we left the house.

Plan was to give her a bottle with the breast milk that I have only days ago started pumping. Get bottle out of fridge, run hot water to warm it up...remember that the one with the boobs shouldn't give the bottle to avoid confusion and isn't breastfeeding hard enough anyway without confusion, so back goes bottle into fridge, shirt comes off over the head, bra comes off, baby comes to boob and she eats. Baby usually eats for five to six minutes at a time, so I'm thinking we have time. Yeah.

For the first time in a while, she eats for close to ten minutes, meaning I make the call to settle for peeking in the leg of her diaper to see if a changing is needed and skip the outfit change all together. She's five and a half weeks old, Eau de breast milk is IN this season.

Finally she's buckled into her car seat. As she expresses the appropriate amount of displeasure at her current lot in life, I sherpa myself up with a diaper bag, purse and car seat and head out to to the car. Being baby's first trip in the Beetle, I'm not prepared for the leaning forward past vertical position that the passenger seat has to be in in order to make room for the car seat. I take this as another sign that I will never, ever get my old life back.

Drive to doctor's office was fairly uneventful - took advantage of new baby-ness to call the doctor's office and let them know I was running late because this was the first time I'd traveled on my own with the kid.

Doctor's office visit also fairly uneventful - got another shot of lidocaine so that they could pull this "wick" (tape-like piece of cotton gauze) out of me and put another one in to keep soaking up the shit that abscesses when you have an abscess. Great news, we know this hurts like a son of a bitch but please pull it out a little bit each day and your boob will heal behind it as you go.

Drive home fairly uneventful as well.

Get in the door of the house, the dog has pulled stuff down off the counters and the table, I see the breast pump boob part on the ground, baby is fussing to eat, so I go to my default mode and cry. Get baby out of car seat, take her upstairs to eat, see that I forgot to put up the gate on the stairs so the dog has also pulled down my basket that I carry with me for breastfeeding, dirty laundry from the hamper, condoms (I know, hopeful) from the nightstand, the Twilight Turtle from the table and dirty baby mitts from the baby laundry basket. Default mode now is pissed off.

After a quiet but very pointed "bad dog!", I get her (the baby, not the dog) changed and fed. While feeding it becomes clear that someone needs to changed again, so we change again and then feed again.

When all that is done I know I should pick up the stuff the dog has strewn all over the house but that would entail putting baby down and putting bra and shirt on so instead I wait for hubster to get home so he too can see that awful awfulness perpetrated by our dog and make me feel better by agreeing that the dog is so bad and knows better. And maybe he'll pick it up.

Battle of the Bulge

There comes a point in everyone's life where they are given cause to take a step back and reflect on their own "deal" - their life, their mission, their relationships, the direction of those relationships - and make a true turning point decision.

That time has come.

First, some background:

I have a (several?) clogged milk ducts in one of my boobs. This happened once before in the other boob and it developed into a low-grade breast infection that landed me with a fever and directions to take echinacea and vitamin C to fight the infection, make and eat a shittake mushroom soup made with (ancient Chinese medicine) astragalus root and a clove of garlic added each time you dish up. Also, nurse the baby with her nose and chin pointed toward the blockage as much as possible and apply castor oil with heat before taking a warm shower and massaging the oil in. Worked. Plugged ducts became unplugged, lah dee dah and off we go.

Because I am not one who likes to keep a good thing to herself, a week ago there's another lump, this time in the other boob. Shit. Only a slight fever this time that I'm able to knock out pretty quickly, but the lump, on the other hand, is hanging around. I've done the soup, the castor oil, the echinacea, vitamin C and now I'm taking a lecithin supplement to make the ducts "slippery." Babe is feeding with her nose pointing toward the blockage every night when she feeds side-lying.

Here we come back to the point - the time for pause.

The midwife said that I can also have dear hubster...nurse...because he is easier to manuever around and I can tell him if he's hitting the right spot. I love LOVE my midwives - I will cry when I have my last appointment with them - and the following should in no way reflect on how much they mean to my life.

We have been all for the natural, traditional way of doing things during this pregnancy and, for the most part, during this baby's life. Homeopathic rather than western medicine, no medical intervention, hospital birth, etc.

However, and this is a big however for me personally, when all is said and done I love my husband for more than just his hippie tendencies (luckily, not bathing is not among them) and I want him to love me back for the same reasons. Hence, the reason I will continue to wear a bra during the day even though I'm breastfeeding and why I will not ask him to nurse on me. My relationship with my daughter is vitally important to me, but my relationship with my husband is sacred, in big part because it allows my strong relationship with my daughter to grow and flourish. I want to be able to return to that relationship with him at some point.

Baby Addiction

Hi, I'm a new mom and I have a baby addiction.

Hi, new mom.

It started out innocently enough - the first few days after she was born I was uncomfortable going anywhere (in my own house) that was far from her, for fear she would start to scream and need to be fed immediately.

It turned into a nervous internal voice waking me up to turn on her little SnuggleNest light to make sure she was a) still breathing; and b) not gagging on her own spit up.

Now, it's gotten to the point where yesterday, when hubster took a nap upstairs with said baby and left me downstairs, I made food, cleaned some stuff up and then had no idea what I should be doing.

For me, this is different than the idea of baby as narcotic (see this great article sent to me by another new mom friend: Katie Roiphe: My Newborn Is Like a Narcotic. This isn't necessarily something pleasurable - it just is.

The article got me thinking. Yeah, I call myself a feminist and have done so for a long time (feminism - the other f word). Yeah, I'm taking a significant chunk of time off from work, more than I have taken since I started working some decade and a half ago. Yeah, my plans after that aren't even firm enough to be called plans, just ideas about what life could be like if this, this and this happened.

So, yeah, a lot of which which I'd based my personal sense of strong and female on in the past has been twisted into a new form of my life. I haven't yet gotten friendly enough with this new life to figure out why it is uniquely female and inherently strong.

Right now, my baby addiction is functional - I need to do things for this baby to make sure it lives and grows and thrives and bonds with me. When I'm not there, I worry I'm losing those chances to build that deep bond and trust that will benefit both me and this child as she grows. I know, and I hope, that soon that addiction will change into something more like the pleasure high from a narcotic.

Brown chicken brown cow

There is a little miniature bed that has taken a place of honor between me and my husband's pillows. In said little miniature bed is a little miniature person who is squirmy, grunty, kicky and wants to be fed from the boob every three to five hours at night. Said person also has a toilet attached to her bum so she can go whenever she needs to, but the toilet does need to be replaced when it gets full, so middle of the night booty calls have taken on an entirely new and not as fun meaning.

Needless to say, the level of intimacy in the bedroom has taken on a National Geographic indigenous feel, with milky boobs being the extent of the excitement these days and even then, only one of us is excited (one guess: the grunty one).

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

Disclaimer: This is going to be a really scattered post. I haven't posted anything in a while and this topic has been bubbling around in my head for a few weeks. Also, over at http://www.glossolaliac.typepad.com/ there is a much more well thought out post about this. Read the article. Share it with your friends. And for god's sake, help a mama out. Any mama.

Thank you to Al Franken for the title.

Or, maybe more appropriately, this post should be called "Why didn't anyone ever tell me, and why isn't it in the books, just how f'ing hard this will be?"

I was scared about what to do, I had/have a rush of hormones flooding through my body as the pregnancy hormones peter out and the breastfeeding/mama hormones rush in to fill the space, breastfeeding is H.A.R.D. and hurt like hell (my nipples were bruised and cracked, dark red and purple for about a week), I'm healing from essentially running a marathon and, in my case, a tear, and, on top of all that, there is this small, squirmy, little being sleeping in the middle of my bed that cries to be fed on my poor boobs, that makes messy diapers and keeps me and my husband up and away from the life we used to know.

That's the stuff nobody tells you.

Really, I'm almost indignant about it. I feel that, if you have ever had a child before, it is your job, nay, your DUTY, to be realistic with all new moms from then on out. None of this "aren't you just LOVING it?" bull shit.

And, for that matter, what's with the baby books that barely even address the "baby blues" or postpartum depression? How about a little reassurance that postpartum depression is the far, far end of the spectrum and that no, you probably aren't going to go that far down the path. But yes, you will have crazy thoughts about what the hell are you doing and why did you get yourself into this.

Acknowledge the difficulty, acknowledge the darkness out loud so that new moms don't go into their own heads and start to get scared about the thoughts in their heads. We can help each other out if we are honest about what the time period immediately after birth is really like for new mamas.

New mamas are truly doing something extraordinary and we owe all of them the straight dope on the post-pregnancy experience.

It's only by talking about it, by bringing light onto an all too common state of mind, that we can make it less scary and lonely for the millions of women who experience it.

Baby Girl

She's here.

She was born on Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 9:42 a.m.

She weighed in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 inches from top to bottom.

She came into this world in a beautiful birth at home, in a birth tub, in her mom and dad's bedroom.

I am sure that more will follow, but I didn't want this incredibly momentous event to go undocumented for too long. Believe me, the delay is only due to the tough adjustment to our new schedule.

Nothing to Write About

I just complained to hubby dearest that I had nothing to write about, because who wants to hear about what I'm thinking about?

No one, that's who. But I'm writing it anyway so suck it.

I mean, who wants to hear about how the dog's incessant, unfounded whining to go outside in this crazy heat is driving me crazy, as is his nonstop private parts licking, and how the cat won't stop stealing his bed which just leads to more whining.

I don't even want to hear about that stuff.

And who wants to hear about how I REALLY want to go buy some new clothes because I am so majorly over the two skirts, one pair of yoga pants and two shirts I have that are actually suitable to wear in public (and the yoga pants only make the list because by public I mean at prenatal yoga class). Or how I am a teensy bit concerned that the non-maternity tops I've been stretching over my belly are actually now ruined for good. Also, I am tired of flip flops and low-heeled sandals.

No one except maybe occasionally me wants to hear about my made up schedule of wake up, take homeopathic tabs, get up, maybe go on a walk, putter around, maybe make smoothies while hubster gets ready for work, take my iron and orange juice, say goodbye to hubster, explain to the dog that he doesn't need to lie next to the door because hubster isn't coming home in twenty minutes, clean up the smoothie-making materials, drink said smoothie, fill up water bottle, play a game on the computer, make some toast and refill water bottle, check email and other necessary Web sites, check the pet's water bowls, pee (for what will seem like the tenth time already), shuffle around papers on the table and counter, balance checkbook, glance at the clock to see if it is time for lunch, realize it isn't and try to think of something to write on this blog...

Yawn. Maybe a nap will help wile away the hours.

One good thing about today is that it is Thursday, so hubster won't have to go into the office tomorrow and I will have someone around to talk to who actually speaks English, rather than trying to get some sort of meaningful conversation out of the furry, four-legged members of our family.

Punting

Not that I like to necessarily call it this, but last night my husband characterized our decision to put both last names on the baby's birth certificate as "punting." Which, essentially, it is. Once they're both on there, we can figure it out later, or let the kiddo figure it out. No pressure or anything (although Jacobsen is obviously a much more less-abnormal last name than Demerice - just sayin').

I think it was a good decision. One of the best, you might say.

Working from home and other things we do to prepare for birth

I started working from home yesterday. It's kind of nice, but at the same time it sucks because my co-workers still at the office aren't attuned to the ways of pregnancy, so it feels like they think I can once again do everything now that I am at home and can, theoretically, work in my pajamas (if I stayed in my pajamas all day I would also stay in bed - not getting dressed makes me feel like a worthless member of society).

In reality, I can't do anymore than I could when I was at the office in uncomfortable clothes; now I just am able to try and get more than six hours of sleep a night and I can walk around all uncomfortable like in my flip flops and eat little mini snacks all day.

On the plus side, working from home has seriously helped my timing - there are some things I do every day. Some of these are specifically for my health and have nothing to do with baby, some have everything to do with baby.

For example: for the last I don't know how many years, we've made smoothies in the morning for breakfast. I swear these smoothies are a huge contributor to my overall good health, both before and during this pregnancy. They're made with plain, nonfat organic yogurt (I don't want my milk tainted with chemicals and don't want to drink a cow's milk that has been, either), a mix of frozen berries (we buy them by the two bagfuls at Costco), a banana, lean whey protein powder, ground flax seed and now black strap molasses (for the iron).

I also take, twice a day, an herbal liquid iron supplement, along with an iron tincture made with yellow dock to help the iron absorb (both are not so yummy so I shoot them with orange juice - vitamin C also helps absorption). Calcium inhibits iron absorption so I have to time the iron to be on an empty stomach (for maximum effectiveness) and to not eat for a while afterward. They say wait an hour but I can't do that, so I usually call it good at about 45 minutes. The iron supplement stays in the fridge so I didn't bring that to work with me - too many questions when people see it in the communal fridge.

Two times a day I take three little homeopathic tabs made up of arnica and some other stuff that I can't spell or pronounce. It's friendly name is EZ-Birth and it's from Canada. They taste like sugar (delicious!) and I just let them dissolve under my tongue. Can't take these when I have just had orange juice or brushed my teeth, or eaten or drank anything else that is strong and will overpower the teeny bits of magic herbs in the tabs, so that's 15 minutes on either side.

I'm also drinking 2 - 3 cups a day of pregnancy tea, which has raspberry leaf, chamomile flowers, nettle leaf, dandelion leaf, oat straw and peppermint. Good for your uterus, I'm told. It's tasty. No cross-contamination issues here, although if I drink it later in the evening it becomes good for peeing.

Also, vitamins, 3 times a day. Not a big deal, I just have to remember to take them.

And evening primrose oil. Not to go into detail, but suffice it to say it's not going in my mouth, so no timing issues here, although I've found some times are better than others.

All in all, we do so much to keep these babies inside all warm and nestley (not the chocolate) and then - boom! 37 weeks hits and it's all you can do to get the baby out. It makes me SO grateful to have chosen the traditional, non-medical path of care, though. If I was doing all this with chemically based, non-natural products I would probably be pretty sick and, even worse, would be sending all those chemicals to my baby.

With this regimen, the most unnatural thing I'm taking is probably the plastic of the little cup that I use to measure out the iron supplement.

What's in a name?

So last night we made a very important decision.

The baby's last name will be Demerice Jacobsen. Put it all on the birth certificate and then we can sort out the logistics later.

Yesterday

Yesterday was July 7. My husband's birthday.

Also, yesterday marked 37 weeks of pregnancy.

For a good portion of my life, for over a decade, one of the goals I've had for every day has been, "Do not have a baby today."

For the first time, that changed yesterday. Yesterday was the go ahead date, the date where this whole game changed.

What's that feeling in my belly? On July 6, the answer was "hope it's just a practice contraction." Today? "Hey, maybe the baby's on the way!"

Last night I laid in bed trying to envision the birth, putting good images in my head.

Instead, I ended up thinking about how we need to clean the bedroom and move the storage chest thing out and the bed over so that the tub can go in, and when we move the bed over we need to also move over the wall hangings above the bed because I have this thing with symmetry and I would not be happy having to look at wall hangings that weren't hanging centered over the bed and we should also take this opportunity to dust the floor trim and actually vacuum all the way to the walls and where will the dog go during the birth and will our families just give us 72 hours to get used to each other and our new little family and for me to heal before they barge in and where am I supposed to get this food that we should stock up on and why is our freezer so small.

So maybe the visualizations aren't what I need to be doing right now.

Prequel

In two weeks, if I go into labor, my midwives will say, "okay, cool, so let's have a baby."

TWO WEEKS.

Two.

We'd better get some diapers.

Jicama and other oddities

Currently, my baby is the size of a large jicama.

WTF?

Thanks, BabyCenter weekly emails, for forcing me to learn about fringe veggies.

Musings of a 32+ Weeks Pregnant Woman

This may just be the increase in hormones racing through my body and playing their little game of change and preparation on all the important innards and outtards of my body (read: brain, heart, lungs, uterus, skin, hair, nails and so on) but I feel ridiculously out of my normal alignment today.

Yesterday, I heard the fantastic, amazing news that a friend, someone whom I respect and has been an enormously supportive and wonderful person during my pregnancy, gave birth to her first child (http://glossolaliac.typepad.com/). Maybe the hormones can also be blamed for feeling so close to this person, or maybe I actually CAN be friends with girls (there's a thought), but I was so overwhelmed with the news and so damn happy for them that the only place my happiness could go was out my eyes.

How weird is it to cry for someone else's joy when yours is just around the corner?

Today I read her birth story, which set off a whole new wave of weepiness. My husband and I had been planning on birthing at a birth center, not at home, but over the last week we've discussed with each other and our midwives the idea that maybe we do want to have a home birth. After reading the aforementioned birth story, and reading the stories of others who have recently given birth, I'm having a very difficult time imagining this birth taking place anywhere BUT our house.

Yeah, so we do have a lot of work to do at the ol' homestead before it would be ready (mainly making the backyard look pretty so I don't see turned up soil while breathing through my eighth hour of labor), but a home birth is feeling more and more like the only way that this was ever going to happen anyway so why fight fate?

At the same time, I wonder, "can I actually do this?" Birthing at home seems so much more personal and...close than birthing anywhere else and I don't know if my shyness, my concern of making others feel uncomfortable to be around me, my worry about looking unprepared or like I didn't do the right thing, makes me a good candidate for home birth. I like my midwives a lot and I love their attitude toward birth, but they haven't seen me naked or sitting on the toilet.

And then there are the silly thoughts that my house won't be ready for people to be in it - there will be dog hair on the carpet and under the fridge, the cat box will smell, our fridge will need to be cleaned, our pictures are dusty, we haven't even been able to get the living room how we want it yet (decorating, furniture, etc.).

So that's where I am right now. I'm so freaking excited I can't stand it, but there are lot of other things that are pulling my focus between now and then. I wish I had all this time to focus on and prepare myself for the birth.