Baby fever.

I have got babies on the brain lately.
It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love babies.  Unfortunately when you have your own babies you take for granted the baby-ness that is so awesome. And right now I have a lot of babies waiting to come into my life. Some are waiting to come home. Some are growing inside a belly. 

It makes a teeny tiny part of me wish I was expecting a baby. 

Don't you worry friends.  At this moment as I write this We. Are. Done.

I spent a lot of my vacation time this summer thinking, "this will only get easier". 

Am I right?  I know some things get harder, but vacation - that gets easier, RIGHT?!

(please say yes, please say yes)

I came across these pictures last night that I had forgotten I'd taken.  They took my breath away.

That was me.

Can you believe that the tiny people we love actually grew in someone's belly?  Sometimes even our own?

 

Before I ever got pregnant, I promised God that if I was granted this one request I would never ever EVER complain about ANYTHING it involved.  

I made it until week seven.  With both pregnancies.  For those of you that need help with math, that means I spent the next 33 weeks complaining about my feet, my back, my sleep patterns, my uterus feeling like it was going to fall out of me, etc. etc. etc.

But looking back it's hard for me to remember those things. That's why people that can have babies keep doing it I guess.  We forget.

When I was pregnant I remember feeling Liam kick at night in bed, and having this overwhelming feeling that I now had a tiny connection to Miles' birth mother.  Until that point I couldn't relate to what she felt with him inside of her.

I bet he was a kicker.

Did she sing to him, or rest her hand on his tiny bump? 

How did she do it?

I mean, I complained the whole time, but I knew I was going to get a baby at the end of it all.  I was having a baby in a traditional marriage and I knew that I had a husband and tons of family to help me.  I also knew I had a great job that I could probably keep forever if I wanted to. I had a house with plenty of bedrooms and two cars with carseats galore. I had every amenity in the world for a middle-class white girl in America, but I still spent so much of my time worrying, complaining, and wishing I didn't practically pee my pants ever day.  (Damn you Eve and that dirty apple.)

So let's take the weekend to celebrate the bodies that grow the babies we love.  It's hard work making a human.  

But let's also remember that it's even harder work raising one.

Good news.

I have been a terrible blogger.

But I have good news for all of you.

I have lots of good news.

First piece of good news: We are out of the one-bedroom apartment and into our new home!  (cheers and "hurrahs" fill the atmosphere)  I can't stop smiling.  I am loving our new apartment.  And our landlord.  And the fact that I get to paint over some fancy green ivy stenciling in our new dining room.  In fact, I am so pumped up on excitement adrenaline that I just ordered a bunch of lumber to be delivered to our humble abode TODAY so I can build some bunk beds.  (I'm either drunk on adrenaline, or silly stupid.)

You know what the funny thing is?  I actually had a teeny tiny tinge of sadness when we were packing up and moving from the upstairs one-bedroom one-child-will-sleep-in-a-closet apartment.  We were only there two months (ONLY?!?!), and I hated it at least 2.5 times a day, but I'm weird, and get sappy about everything that comes into my life, and leaves my life.  Something about measuring the passage of time....blah blah blah.

So for purely for your entertainment, and to show off our amazing ability to live in utter chaos, I had the fore-sight to snap some pictures of the space.
Warning: Spaces appear larger than they actually are....(mostly because I used a wide-angle lens, but I don't want to bore you with the silly photo details).

Our bathroom.  The largest room in the apartment.  Okay, I'm kidding.  But it was the most normal-sized room if you know what I mean.

 

Our living room/dining room/master bedroom/toy room.

 

The bedroom we so graciously gave to our oldest and youngest children.  I wasn't kidding when I said one of them slept in a closet. Liam was the special child that chose to sleep in the "magical cave".

 

In case any of you are taking notes, the cupboards can be replicated simply by going to your nearest Sherwin Williams and purchasing "midnight oasis" and "oxblood crimson" in eggshell. (Totally made the names up, but the cupboards are awesome, right?)

 The "yard" - also known as the "hallway" and "entrance".  

There.  You've seen what I've been looking at for the past two months. (TWO MONTHS?!)  It wasn't bad, but I can't stop smiling because I appreciate our new place so so much now.  I love it.  

I said I had "lots of good news" so here's the second part...everything is easier when you don't have to climb an entire flight of stairs with three kids that don't want to come inside.  Okay, okay, so those two things are directly related.

How about a third piece of great news?  I now have a WASHER AND DRYER for doing laundry.

Alright, so all good news pretty much goes back to us moving.  I bet you get it though.