Pediatricians and Floor Staining

In between running to the grocery store for last minute Thanksgiving supplies and spending time with friends from out of town, E and I squeezed in a meeting with a potential pediatrician and stopped in to check on the floors yesterday.

The meeting with our new pediatrician was first and we absolutely loved her. She was recommended by our midwife and honestly couldn't be a better fit. She actually went through IVF to conceive her baby so she really understands our journey and how the challenges shape your perspective on parenting. We were completely on the same page and it was really affirming to hear someone else vocalize exactly what we've been feeling. As a plus, she is supportive of cloth diapering and had no problem hunting down latex free vaccines for baby girl in case she inherited my allergy. We both feel really good about her and I don't think we need to interview anyone else. 

After the doctor, E and I stopped in and the house and I was so excited to see that the floor guys have started staining! They ended up needing an extra day to sand and prep so I wasn't sure if they'd be ready for the stain yet. Clearly, we were pleasantly surprised.

 

When we were there they were just starting on the top floor and I didn't stick around to watch them because the fumes are definitely not pregnancy safe. I snapped this quick shot of the master bedroom getting the first coat and this shot below of the nursery. From my quick peak, it looked like they had one person applying the stain by hand and another person following after them with a buffer. 

 

I'm not sure if the stain is applied in one coat or two but I know they're putting 3 layers of commercial grade satin finish polyurethane on top which I'm hoping will do a good job of hiding scratches and scuffs. The floors are in such beautiful shape after sanding, I cringe just thinking about our wonderful pet's claws digging in for traction and the wheels of baby's future tricycle tearing down the hallway. I'm also going to have to buy lots of those little felt pads to attach to all our furniture, refinishing would be such an incredible pain if we were actually occupying the house, I'll do just about anything to avoid having to do it again!

Gender Reveal!

E and I are so excited to finally announce that our sweet baby is....

A little GIRL!

E and I had our first baby shower yesterday and finally, at 33 weeks, announced to everyone, with the help of some delicious and adorable cupcakes, that our baby bean is a little girl. Nearly everyone thought bean would be a boy since I'm carrying high and all in the front so E and I got a big kick out of their surprise. 

I think we somehow managed to forget photos, but the shower was everything we had hoped for: Super laid back and casual with lots of good food and good company. Baby girl got some lovely gifts but more importantly, we got to see and hang out with all our friends before the baby gets here. I may have eaten too much, I'm sure my midwife S won't be thrilled with the amount of sandwiches I managed to fit in my stomach, but baby girl was Hungry and everything was delicious.

Our next shower is in 3 weeks and by then I'm hoping to have baby girl's room ready to fill with her crib and furniture and most of our house moved in and unpacked. Not being able to nest is getting tough but I know we'll get everything done in the end.

Hardwood Refinishing Progress!

As of November 18th, we have been officially kicked out of the house for floor refinishing! Our electrician R was trying really, really hard to get everything patched before the floor guys came in, but it just wasn't possible, even with an extra set of hands. They were able to get all the baseboards off though and got maybe 75% of the patching done before getting the boot.

 

This room is baby's soon to be nursery and you can see the patching out in the hallway and above the light switches that hasn't happened yet.  They did get everything wired for the smoke detector (above the door) and the new outlets (under the window) and the other side of the room is patched as well. You can also get a teensy peak at the sanded floors, I'm so thrilled that they're in good condition underneath all the scratches.

 

This is our master bedroom and you can really see how gorgeous the floors are. The original wood looks pristine after just the sanding and I think there's very little for them to repair or fill with wood putty. The two outer outlets under the window are for power and I believe the middle one is for internet, while the hole high up on the wall is stuffed with cat 5, coax and power for our TV.

Another shot of the master, I'm pretty sure we're almost entirely patched in that room. 

With all the sanding basically complete, E and I had to make the tough choice on the floor color. I was having a tough time picking based off tiny swatches of paper, since stain looks different on actual wood, so the floor guys made us a grid of all our top choices.

It's pretty hard to get an accurate sense of the color based on my crappy phone picture, but these were our final options. We nixed the lighter colors first, we definitely wanted a dark floor, and then nixed the red toned stains next. Our furniture has a lot of red tones in it and when you put red toned furniture on top of red toned floors, you get way more red than we wanted. In the end, we went with dark walnut which is the bottom, left corner. It's the color toughest to see in this particular photo but it has a really rich tone and E loved it right off the bat. I could probably have debated it for a few more days before ultimately making the same decision, but he expedited the process lol.

While the floor guys do their thing, R and his helpers have shifted their focus to the garage which we are attempting to turn into a finished space. That room is going to be a much bigger project than anticipated but in the end I think it will completely worth it. It's a 2 car garage with a gabled ceiling and R is going to loft 50% of it. This leaves an 8 foot 2 inch ceiling below, with recessed lighting, and a large loft above where we can store a ton of stuff or eventually turn into a little hang out space. The loft requires a massive engineered beam, which we have on order, and then drywall and insulation for the entire space, epoxying the floors, removing the garage door since the track takes up so much space, and building our own barn doors to replace them. It's really going to be a beast but the extra space will give us a laundry room, storage, and a work out/man cave space for E.  I can't wait to see what it looks like when the project is complete.

Baby's First Car Seat

If baby were somehow born tomorrow we'd have an actual car seat to take them home in! I had intended to wait until after our baby showers to start buying the big stuff but Babies R Us was having a killer sale and Target was willing to price match. I snagged our Chicco Keyfit 30 for almost $100 bucks of and got a $25 gift card on top of it which makes it more than worth it in my opinion.

Since I'm getting really big and my pelvic girdle pain is starting to slow me down a bit, I wanted to get the base installed while I can still get myself in the back seat of the car. The Keyfit 30 comes with a really awesome latch system but like most cars, my Highlander has the latch connectors on the two outer seats and leaves out the middle. You'd think that you could just use the two inner connectors from the outside seats but Chicco specifically says "Use of lower LATCH anchors in the center seating position with non-standard spacing between the bars (more or less than 280 mm) is prohibited." So much for the fancy, new installation!

Since latch was out, I installed the base using the middle seatbelt and the Chicco seatbelt lock off.  It was still really simple, leveled easily with the little bubble leveler and adjustable foot, and doesn't budge when you push on it. The lock off is a nice touch as well that really ensures you get no movement in the belt.  All in all, I think baby will be nice and safe in their car seat which is the one thing I was completely unwilling to compromise or cut corners on. Our kiddo will basically be rear facing for as long as I can physically fit them in a safe, rear facing seat and it looks like the Keyfit 30 will be a great start.

31 Weeks

Somehow, time keeps rushing by and we are getting closer and closer to baby arriving. Last Thursday marked 31 weeks and if baby actually makes their appearance on time, we'll be meeting our little bean in less than 10 weeks! 

According to our every 2 week check ups, baby is doing really well. Active, growing, doing all the things a baby is supposed to do. There is still a good amount of room in there for moving and lots of fluid so we've got a lot of position changes going on. The baby usually doesn't hang out in one spot for too long, not when there are somersaults to be turned and a bladder to bounce on.

I'd love to show you pictures of an in-progress nursery, sweetly painted with furniture being assembled, but the truth is our house is still in the electrical stage. We have made really good progress though and are at the point where things start happening really quickly. We passed our rough electrical inspection for all the rooms except the 3 that weren't ready to be inspected yet. Both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were patched AND painted, holy crap two mostly finished rooms, and the second round of inspections is this Thursday. Once the last 3 rooms get signed off on, low voltage stuff can be run, patching can be kicked into overdrive and the floor refinishing crew can do their thing. This month is going to be a flurry of activity and I think we have a really good shot at actually moving, with nursery furniture, in the early part of December.

Although we have a lot of stuff in storage, we've got a pretty big shopping list going of things we're going to need. The biggest is definitely the sectional for the living room, followed by nursery furniture (crib, two dressers, lamps, bookcase, rug, chair), side tables and lamps, a desk and filing cabinet, bookcases for the living room, possibly some chairs. We're going to have more space than we've ever had and while we don't have to furnish everything at once, I'm very aware that if I don't do it now, it's not likely to get done once the baby is here.

I've got another appointment coming up at the end of this week and will hopefully have photos of fully painted bathrooms to share!