Breaking the fourth wall (5/3 - 5/12)

The reason the temperature and weather affected us so much this past week is because we're now getting to the point where they're tying in the new construction parts of the house into the existing original sections.  This means that areas that so far have been safe and untouched (the upstairs bathroom and the 1st floor living room in particular) are now starting to suffer some of the same violations that the master bedroom and kitchen already went through.

The start of the new second floor above the temp laundry room

Lots more pictures and details after the jump...

Well-deserved

It's not always as tough as this weekend has been.  This is a picture from earlier this month of Emily (and baby) enjoying some sunshine and quiet time, both of which have been far too rare lately.

Fixing a hole where the rain gets in

This has been the toughest couple of days of the house renovation process for us so far .  When the work on the new roof started the forecast was for a day of light rain and then a warm weekend.  As soon as things were opened up that changed to something much wetter and colder.  It's been 10-15 degrees colder than normal for this time of year and we had almost constant heavy rain.  The worst part was Friday night, when it rained steadily from early evening until late Saturday morning.  Larry set up a drainage system in the kitchen to funnel the water from the leak back outside, and that caught most of it.  But there was just too much water so it spread out into more areas than the drain could handle.  So we ended up with buckets all over the kitchen to catch the drips, and had to keep adding new containers and emptying the old ones throughout the night.  This is what we ended up with around 3am:

The biggest leak was dripping off the vent pipe over the stove, but fortunately that space was exactly the right size to fit our trash barrel which you can see wedged in there in this pic

When the levee breaks

Sorry this post took so long to go up... Blogger has been down for the past day or two. 

We had a bit of excitement last night in our normally uneventful life thanks to a large amount of rain and a small amount of roof.  Heavy rain was expected yesterday but the roof over the new back of the house isn't complete yet.  And in order to build the new roof shape they needed to tear off the back side of the original attic and the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom.  Larry told us yesterday morning that if they started on the roof that day it was likely that they wouldn't be able to finish so there was a chance we'd get some water in the house.  Figuring we could handle a little dripping here and there, we told him to go ahead with the roof so we could keep things moving.  And he was right... we did get some water:

More details and pictures after the fold...

Here comes the rain again

The night that a huge thunderstorm rolled through was a really bad time to not have a roof on the back of the house... more details (and pictures) tomorrow after we dry off and clean up a bit.

UPDATE: I had hoped to post more about the storm this morning but haven't had a chance yet and I'll be away from my desk for a few more hours.  I should be able to have a new post up by around 3pm Chicago time though.

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.