It's Official!

Joe accepted the job yesterday morning! Wow. . .we are really moving this summer! For those who are local, please continue to keep this news on the down-low as Joe doesn't plan to tell his current job for another couple of weeks because the starting date hasn't been set in stone yet - we are waiting to hear back from insurance. (The only downside to the job is that the insurance doesn't kick in for an entire calendar month after Joe starts, so we will have to buy our own temp insurance for the time after his current job ends and until his new job's insurance begins.) But, overall it was a great offer - $8K more than what he's making now with 11.5% bonuses, and an additional $10K to relocate. With our family all living in the area, old friends, and our old familiar territory, it just seems to make sense and feels right.

Thanks to my mom and stepdad, we are now eliminating the idea of staying in an apartment while our house here sells. Our hope is to move straight from this house to one in the West Des Moines area. So, unlike what I wrote in my last post, we ARE going back now next weekend (May 20-22) to see my brother while he's visiting from Cali - and we will look at houses and neighborhoods to live. (We decided to cancel our hypnobirthing class.) We will probably go back the following weekend as well (Memorial Day weekend) after Joe and I see Wicked here in Omaha.

I asked La Petite if Logan could start going three days a week next month (due to Joe moving before me, and that Logan's last day will be sometime in July) and they said yes -- and that there is a daycare/preschool in Des Moines called Childtime that is very similar to La Petite. Unlike the two La Petites which are 30 min from what will be Joe's new office, the closest Childtime is 14 minutes away so that is a possibility, as well as those two that I mentioned in Seven Months Pregnant (A Child's World - 2 min from Joe's office and Kingdom Kids Academy - 9 minutes). So hopefully in September Logan can be going to preschool again (am assuming we'll take the month of August off).

So, it's all coming together and I'm excited despite the stress! It still seems crazy when I think back to that random day in February when Joe got online and went to The Ladders website (which you're supposed to pay to be a member of but he just snuck a quick free look) and decided to apply to this job. If he hadn't done that, there's no way he would have applied to anything in the following weeks/months and so right now we'd be here preparing for our baby's first year here in Omaha. Instead, we are going to start packing next week and our baby will spend two weeks at the most here.

I sure hope Logan remembers something about our life in Omaha. It makes me sad to think that he won't have a ton of memories, but I hope he has a few since I do of my ages two & three. I'm glad I took a lot of pictures! Most of all, I hope that our move at the same time as the baby isn't too traumatic for him. I know that the adjustment to moving will be far easier now than at any age in the future and that he has always done well with every transition in his past, so that gives me encouragement. It seems like what's most important is that Joe and I are with him, as well as all of our things/his toys, Bella and Cosmo, etc. He's not going to know that we're moving to a different state; he'll know that we're moving to a different house, but as long as we continue to do fun stuff there, he's not going to logically think about how we're not going to the places that we have been going. Plus, like I said in a previous post, we do plan to visit Omaha when we can so that his last time at the zoo, etc, won't be before we move.

Since I last wrote (The News), our friend Chris and her husband and 27-month-old son came back from Virgina (where they moved from Omaha last March) so we had a nice Saturday, May 7 with them. On Sunday, May 8, Mother's Day, my mom and stepdad came over and we took them out to eat to Zio's Pizza. They left on Monday morning, May 9, and Logan & I met Brooke and Kaelyn for lunch. They gave me a gift bag with newborn diapers and two baby girl outfits :-) Afterward, Logan and I went to one store to try and find me a summer maternity outfit because it was SO hot outside, but we did not have any luck so we just went to the grocery store and then it was naptime.

Tuesday, May 10 was even hotter - it reached a high of 97 degrees. I wish I would have had the energy to blow up Logan's kiddie pool so he could have gone swimming (btw, that's a downside to moving this summer -- I was all ready to sign him up for his first swimming lessons at our local pool, the exact day that Joe got the phone call out of the blue in April about the job he'd applied for in Feb, but now things are just too crazy. At least with places like the Y he can take them year-round, so hopefully this fall he can in Des Moines).

I kind of felt depressed yesterday because Logan and I were only able to spend a couple of hours in the morning outside (we took a really quick walk and then had a picnic on our deck) so I thought, well if it's going to be like this from here on out then I might as well just move with Joe because I'm not going to want to go anywhere here! The heat just wipes me out these days and I felt so awful that I turned our air conditioning on and was a couch potato for most of the day. I was sooo relieved at how well Logan entertained himself. He just played with different toys and used his imagination (pretended to be a chef, etc.) all day, and was so well behaved -- telling me every hour that I am going to be okay and that he likes me, I'm his best friend. It really helped me out especially since it was Joe's golf league night.

But it made me wonder if I really want to keep the plan that I wrote about in Seven Months Pregnant as far as staying here for a month by myself after Joe moves. Joe's mom can't come stay with me after all, and three weeks with my mom would be too much (sorry Mom, but I'm sure you'd agree, lol) so if we end up getting a house quickly then I wonder if I should just move at that point, and then when I'm in labor Joe can drive me the two hours to Lakeside Hospital in Omaha. I'm not kidding.

I'll stick with our plan for now, but I guess it may change depending on what Joe finds out from insurance about his best day to start and also how the house-hunting goes the last two weekends in May.

As for everything else, the ease from 90% to 100% of Logan wearing underwear in public has been flawless last week and this week (no accidents in underwear anywhere - at home or elsewhere - since his 3rd birthday on April 18). I am definitely done buying pull ups and regular diapers!!!!

I put away two more of my maternity tops, the first because my boobs gave new definition to "popping out" - although I think pregnant women get a special pass, it was just TOO ridiculous, haha. The other top is too hot nowadays. Both were from my pregnancy with Logan; now I have a total of 11 shirts and 6 pants. I hope to look at another maternity store the next chance I get to hopefully have better luck buying a summer outfit.

Baby girl has slowed down A LOT in her movements. I haven't really gotten used to it. Ever since her first kick when I was 15 weeks pregnant, she has been so active, every minute I could feel her. But now I can go an hour without feeling anything. Apparently things are getting cramped in there so there's less room for her to move. But when she does, she's like an alien as you can see her rippling and jabbing my stomach from the outside. I am 29.5 weeks pregnant now and up 26 lbs.

In Six Months Pregnant I wrote about the two nursing wraps that my mom bought me (Loved Baby and Bebe Au Lait). Well, they weren't as great as I was hoping (although bigger than most, they didn't cover enough for this modest girl). I ended up becoming a nursing wrap pro as I tried nearly every brand out there -- Hooter Hiders, Utter Covers, Baby Balboa, and more -- and while some of them weren't bad, I ended up deciding on The First Years and Tommee Tippee. Both are cute designs (which are hard to find) and give maximum cover (they were the only ones where no matter how I held my fake baby, or moved around, nobody could see even a glipse of my skin) without being too heavy for Baby and allowing me to look down to see her. So I am very comfortable and excited with those two items, as well as my first two nursing shirts which arrived from Motherwear. They are for the fall, winter, and spring, though so I am currently waiting for my summer shirt to arrive also from Motherwear. I also got a new nursing pillow, a brest friend, as well as more of those nursing bras (that I'm also wearing now) from Motherhood Maternity that I gave a link to in that Six Months post.Back to the whole moving thing, I contacted an old friend from HS who lives near West Des Moines and she gave me the names of her two pediatricians, and I plan to call my pediatrician here in Omaha to see if they have a recommendation as well so that we can have one immediately lined up for the new baby when we move. She also gave me the name of her OBGYN in case things do change with our plan to have the baby here. But I really hope not. Back in February I would have been fine switching since I just met Dr Sullivan in December, but now I've formed a connection with her and really want her to be the one to deliver my baby. Hopefully, somehow, everything will work out.