Monitoring

On Monday we had our first Monitoring appointment. When they monitor the baby they use two disk-like amplifier things about the same size around as an apple, except thinner. They strap them around my belly with a big plastic band (putting some goop between the monitor and my skin) and then you can hear the baby's heartbeat on a speaker and it gets charted on a little printout like you see brain waves getting drawn in movies.

It was really cool to be able to hear his heart. It beats so fast! It was between 120 and 140 beats per minute and that was normal and good. (My pulse is around 80-90 I think.)

We have to be on the monitors at least once a week for 20-40 minutes every week from here on out and we'll do it before our weekly appointment. It's just a precaution to make sure everything is okay and the little guy is not in distress.

A Very Pregnant Morning

We had our last child birth class today. Now-parents who had previously taken the class come with their new babies and share birthing stories in the last class and there is general social time where current class attendees can talk about registries, concerns and just general life things. It was also a potluck, so we needed to bring food to share.

I had a recipe we used to make often for Raisin Bran muffins and had found another recipe for oatmeal muffins to try. Easy to make, transport and eat, so they seemed like a good potluck food. Making both for a taste test Sunday morning sounded perfect, then we could have them for breakfast and then bring them to the class that afternoon.

It was shaping up to be a great morning: I slept a ton (for a pregnant lady) and was feeling good. Plus Alan recently got me the "Beaches" soundtrack, which I used to have on tape and loved as a kid, so I could listen to it for the first time in years sing along while I cooked.

I was elbow deep in suds washing dishes to prep for the morning (everything is always coated in construction dust so we wash before _and_ after eating), I was singing and smiling and generally having fun. Then "Wind Beneath My Wings" came on. It was suddenly the saddest thing I'd ever heard and I started to sing and cry, and then laugh at myself for crying so hard at the song. That's when Alan walked into the kitchen. I'm not sure exactly what he thought, he just came up and gave me a big hug and let me cry on his shoulder for the duration of the song. Then a new song, nose blow and I was singing and smiling again. It was the fastest transition between insane crying and happy singing that anyone has ever had. Once the song was done I was completely fine... at least until replay had the song on again and I burst into tears, again.

I still managed to finish all of the baking. I'm not sure if this is evidence of 'nesting' or just my own personal insanity... I made FIVE DOZEN muffins. Then I took a nap.

Laundry Room Cathedral

Lucky people that we are, we now have the luxury of impressive cathedral ceilings in our temporary laundry room.  Technically that's just because they've torn out the old master bedroom floor to prepare for tying in the second floor of the new addition, but for now we can pretend we requested this.

The water heater on the left there has been moved to the right about six times now, which is making it increasingly difficult to make it over to the washer/dryer while holding a full laundry basket.  Then again, at least we still have access to free laundry for now so we don't mind a little navigational inconvenience.

 Follow the link for 2 more pics...

Addition Progress (March 31-April 15)

House Picture Catch-up Day continues with pictures of the new back of the house over the past few weeks.  The framing is done for the basement and the first floor, and the second floor is partially complete.  It's been sidetracked a bit because of the crappy weather here recently, but now that things are finally starting to clear up a bit we'll probably see this start going forward much faster.

Addition progress on March 31.  Basement is done for now, the subfloor is in place for the first floor and framing has started for the new kitchen.

9 more pictures for your viewing pleasure after the jump.

Excavation in the Original Basement (March 29 - April 27)

With all the bad weather we've had out here lately, Larry and the boys have been focused on getting things moving along in the old basement.  It's been progressing along down there for a while, and they've gotten a lot more done in the last few weeks.  The main things to do in the basement are create new footings and move/replace the support posts (done a few weeks ago), tie into the new basement in the back of the house, and redo the plumbing/drainage system.   It's the plumbing work that's the reason for the basement being so torn up right now - the original plumbing was poorly laid out which was giving us weak water pressure and slow drainage.  The plumbing still isn't completely finished but we've already seen a huge improvement in both of those areas throughout the house.

Excavation on March 29, digging out a trench to access the old drain pipe under the basement floor

Click "Read more" to see lots of pics of the progress in the basement over the past month.

Pinhole Kitchen

With the wall full of holes covered by plastic sheeting in the temp kitchen, Emily and I noticed something pretty cool that happens on sunny days.  The size of the holes and the distance to the house next door make the perfect conditions for a sort of pinhole camera effect, where an image of the window from the house next door is projected onto the plastic inside our house in front of each of the holes in the wall. 

Changes in the Temp Kitchen (Mar 28-Apr 4)

Over the past few weeks the temp kitchen has been changed around a bit, with cabinets coming off and going back up, walls and ceilings being torn out, and temp drainage pipes being run through the open space.  Part of this has been to prepare for plumbing changes, both down in the basement and for the future new bathrooms upstairs, and part has been to start tying in the new back of the house into the existing house frame.

The same weekend the sisters were in town, we came home to find that the walls and ceilings in the temp kitchen had been torn out, and a new (temporary) drainage pipe had been installed alongside the big pantry cabinet

More pics after the jump...