After determining last Saturday that painting over high-gloss paint was more of a chore than we wanted to take on, we decided to just move already. So, Monday morning we bought a couch at the Salvation Army, and Monday afternoon, we carted all of our furniture over to our new apartment.

We are fast settling in, and it already feels more like home than the place we have lived for the past year. After all of the anxiety and indecision, it is good. So, so good!

Daniel was really thrown off at first by the whole proceeding. "Go home?" he kept on saying. He spent a couple of days acting out, and one night in our bed, but now he seems to have taken it all in stride. I need to work on our routine, to minimize the bad behavior that comes out when he gets tired or hungry. I hope I can have things well in hand before the next major upheaval of his little world happens in about seven weeks (is that possible?!?).

My favorite place in the apartment, and where I spend most of my time, is the kitchen and dining room, which are divided by an island. It is so nice not to be isolated from the rest of the house while I cook,, and it is amazing to have more than two inches of counter space to work with. I am in the enviable position, for the first time in years, of having more cabinets than I have things to put in them!!! I am already plotting all sorts of culinary adventures, now that it is not so darned cramped to cook!

My mother in law has been here for the past week, helping out with the packing, moving, cleaning, and settling in. She is wonderful -- I don't know what I would have done without her help. Probably put myself into pre-term labor lifting heavy boxes. Daniel is thoroughly enjoying her company, too, especially when she lets him sit in her lap and listen to silly Danny Kaye songs on her computer!

In other news, my pregnancy continues uneventfully. I have the usual aches and pains, for which I have been seeing a chiropractor, and recently started having long bouts of Braxton-Hicks contractions, especially when I forget to eat or rest, but other than that things are going along just swimmingly.

I am now 33 weeks, and finally got to meet with the midwife who will be delivering the baby. It turns out that I had met Helena before -- she was just starting her internship after Daniel was born, and sat in on a couple of my postpartum appointments with Kelsey. Over the past two years,she has finished all of her formal training, and has been attending births alongside a midwife in her home town, five hours away. Now she is back at FBS to help fill the vacancy left by Kelle's departure and to finish up her last few births before certification. I really like her. She is older -- she has a grown son and a couple of grandchildren -- and has a very peaceful, serene air about her. She is very businesslike about the whole thing, but also kind. I feel very comfortable with her, even after just one appointment.

About a week ago, my paper journal, which I had been writing in a lot, suffered the unfortunate and career-ending mishap of being thrown into the toilet by my son. I screamed (not at him, I am proud to say), fished it out, and tried to salvage it, but it was really beyond saving.

So, here I am, back at my long-neglected blog.

How have things been? Good on the whole. We are getting our key to the apartment at the Colony on the 30th, and will spend a week painting before moving our stuff over. I am getting excited about it. I want to make it a beautiful, peaceful place, especially since I will most likely be birthing our baby there.

Speaking of the new baby, I am now 29 weeks, and starting to feel very third trimester (oh joy, oh rapture). I am planning to get a netflix membership to keep myself in cheesy vampire movies and mindless action flicks for all of the sleepless nights I know are ahead. On the positive side, I am getting more and more excited about meeting our little girl. I had a dream about her birth, and I really just can't wait to get her out from under my ribs and into my arms!

I think we are going to co-sleep with this one, which is something I have been considering for a while. Unfortunately, the loss of a washer/dryer in the apartment means that cloth diapers are not a viable option. I am looking to add to our collection of slings -- I am thinking about a moby wrap, since I think it will be easier on my back than the Mei Tai.

The pregnancy has been very uncomplicated. My prenatal appointments have hardly been worth the car ride out to Grand Prairie, since everything is normal and I really don't have any questions! How different it is with a second child! Unfortunately we have to start going every other week from here on out. Also unfortunately, I have to get my iron checked at the next appointment. Hopefully this time they will be able to find a vein -- last time I was left with horrific bruises on both arms for three weeks after the blood draw!

Daniel is doing well. I think he is having a growth spurt, since he now eats almost as much as I do! He continues to be a joy and a delight -- he loves to dance and sing (sometimes I can even tell what song he is going for -- various things from his Raffi CDs are great favorites) and play in the pool and cook soup and pancakes and "scous-scous" in one of my big pots in the living room. He also tells me stories (the one about throwing Mama's journal into the toilet is a great favorite) and runs up to me to tell me that he "luffs" me, and talks to his little sister who is "hiding" in my tummy ("Come out, baby!" "Ope tummy!" -- I think I need to explain to him a little better how babies are born...).

We read together a lot. He is still obsessed with "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" which he calls "Cloudy, Peepols," but recently he has been getting into his Bible Stories for Children (illustrated by Tommy di Paola). He loves the entire nativity story, especially the parts with angels, David and Goliath, and (of course) Daniel in the lion's den. But his favorite, especially at bed time, are the Psalms. He loves "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "Let Everything that has Breath Praise the Lord" especially. He listens attentively while I read and then says "Amen!" and makes the sign of the cross. I did not teach him to do that, nor did Amos. (The other thing he does that is just too sweet is, when we go into the little chapel at our church where the tabernacle is, he kneels down for about five seconds to say his little prayers, and then goes up to the crucifix at the far end and kisses the wall underneath it!)

Amos has been very busy with all of his various jobs. His boss at the tutoring center keeps giving him more hours, which is great, and the window cleaning business is starting to pick up. He is also reading Plato and Aristotle in preparation for teaching a section of freshman philosophy in the fall.

So, busy happy times!

It has been a bit depressing around here lately, as I continue sick and weak and largely unequal to keeping the house in order. To cheer myself up, here is a list of the things I would love to be doing:

-thoroughly dust, vacuum, and tidy the living room. This would involve washing the curtains, getting behind all of the furniture, and deep into the nook under the stairs that has become a storage dump.

-air, dust, and re-decorate the bedroom. I want to order vintage book plates of wild flowers from etsy to hang on the wall, get a new cover for our comforter, and more shelves to store the books that are currently taking up one of my laundry baskets.

-cook pizza and other treats for my dear husband, who has been so loving, patient, and helpful. He has not been eating well, since anything that produces smells is intolerable to me most of the time, and I can't wait to make it up to him!

-re-decorate the seasons table for Lent -- I am a little ashamed to admit that Baby Jesus is still the centerpiece (surrounded by much clutter...)!

-get back into my knitting projects. I bought yarn to make gifts for a few friends who are expecting babies in the spring and summer, and have not made much progress at all! And now I want to knit for my own little one as well. Before I got sick, I was hosting a weekly craft night with a few of my friends, and it was so great to have a little community for creative work. It will be so wonderful to get back to it!

That is quite enough to be getting on with, I think! And soon, soon, I will start actually doing some of it!

I have sat down to update this blog too many times to count over the past...two months? But something always prevents me from posting. First the Christmas rush, with our wonderful, wonderful trip to Massachusetts kept me in the moment, and this past month I have been struggling with morning sickness which, while not nearly as bad as during my first pregnancy, has not been very fun.

So, yes, I am nine weeks pregnant, due at the end of September.

I am happy, of course. This is the fulfillment of months of longing for another child. But at the moment I am tired and sick and not able to run my home or care for my husband and Daniel as I would like. I am working hard to accept my limitations and do what I can, and looking forward to when I can do more.

We went for our first appointment at the birth center a week ago and met the midwife we are going to be primarily working with this time. Her name is Kelly, and she is actually a student midwife under the supervision of Lisa, who supervised at Daniel's birth as well. Kelsey, who birthed D. was very young and not a mother herself, but Kelly has three teenage children of her own, and has been a doula, childbirth educator, and prenatal exercise instructor for years. I loved Kelsey, and trusted her completely, but I am happy to take advantage of Kelly's experience this time.

I am tentatively planning a home birth this time, possibly a water birth, although we will see how things feel a little closer to the event.

We have another appointment with Kelly on March 1, when we will hopefully hear the baby's heart beat for the first time. I can hardly wait!