Grandparent Exploration

First, it must be noted that I am typing this somewhere approximately 30,000 feet above Utah. Yes, we now have free WiFi on flights too! And thank goodness, seeing as how all we're doing for the next month is flying, so I'm not sure when I'm going to get to update this -- and like I said, there's lots more to update these days.

I know that I promised a 5-part series on the senses, but I'll get to that.

We're on our way back from visiting Nomi's (i.e. Mo's) family for Thanksgiving. It was fun to see the enthusiasm of his parents at becoming grandparents. Because this is going to be a first grandchild on both sides, you know. Though David & Sara are only one month behind us, so my parents are getting a double whammy grandparent run!

Since both sets of our parents live flights away, it's difficult for us to figure out how to involve them in the pregnancy process. So one thing we did while in Texas was to start discussing names with Mo's parents. His mom had mentioned earlier that she wanted to give us a list that I could choose from (because she says that the mom gets to choose, for some reason). So instead we sat down as group with her, Mo's dad, and his brother Asad and called up a couple of websites with Pakistani names. It was pretty comical going through the list, trying to figure out which ones would be disasters in the context of the United States (bad rhyming potentials, would always have to tell people how to pronounce it and it would still be challenging, etc.). Some were just downright disasters to begin with -- like Wadud (Wah-dude). That's just no way to start out your child's life.

But we ended up with a good starting list. And now we can go to Wisconsin at the end of the month and double the list!

Mo's parents have said that they would like to buy us a stroller. We have told them that we want to be able to choose it so that we can be sure to get one that we like. They were ready to go get us one while we were there, but we were only prepared to do our initial scouting. Getting this through to them was a major feat in and of itself. In fact, even when we left the store saying that we wanted to go home to do some research since there are a ridiculous amount of options, Mo's dad still said later that he had tried to find the one we liked best so far "on the line" to buy (as Mo's mom calls the internet) the night before but wasn't sure which model it was! Aahh!!

It was also hilarious watching Mo's dad, an engineer, waxing philosophical about which ones were worthy of purchasing and which were total crap. And trying to figure out how to work them with all the tricks of breaking it down to put in the car. He'd quickly lose patience with my own figuring out and take over, only to take longer and press at non-existent buttons. Since the employee was also clueless, a friendly customer in-the-know intervened at oen point and enlightened us as to the trick. Mo & I were having a very hard time not laughing.

But, we're on our way. In lieu of a stroller, we had them buy us a few items of clothing, a portable diaper changing thingy, and a monkey play mat. Which of course didn't fit in a suitcase, so we've been lugging it around airports all day and had to have the flight attendant store it in a separate spot since it doesn't even fit in the overhead bin.

But at least we got to do something baby-related together -- and don't worry, they'll still be getting us a stroller.

Transitions

And, I'm back. I've really actually missed this, so I'm happy to be back at it. And hopefully I'll be more active now again. We moved in the midst of all of this, so I was caught up in packing. And then moving. And then unpacking. And then not having internet yet in our new place. (Aahh!!)

I have all kinds of updates for you, but they'll have to be spread out. Otherwise, what would I have to talk about?!

So for now I'll tell you about the new place. It took me a bit to convince Mo that we needed an additional bedroom and more space. For those of you who didn't see our old place, it was a bit like this:

 Okay, maybe not *quite* that bad, but that's what it felt like. And it wasn't a whole lot cheaper than that. So now, for just a little more than that price, we have a whole additional bedroom, a whole additional bathroom, a broom closet, a jacket closet, a separate dining area, a usable balcony, access to an outdoor courtyard, a walk-in closet in the bedroom, somewhere to store our bikes (that isn't our balcony), tons of kitchen cupboard space, sliding kitchen shelves for the pots and pans, and more drawers than I know what to do with! (Okay, just kidding. They're all full already -- but it was so fun filling them with things that were crammed in boxes and bins and shoved on top of each other in one closet before.)

Now it's a bit more like this:

So what this means is that, in theory, we have a room for Blueberry. Of course, in practice, it's also becoming the computer room, guest room, closet for all my Pakistani clothes, etc. It *might* require some modification as we go along.

But in the meantime, we're having fun settling in and are enjoying our new location close to all kinds of fabulous things. And we're no longer streetside, which means that we don't have to listen to the building door buzzing people in all night long, motorcycles zooming by, car alarms going off, partiers coming home jabbering at each other, or trucks bumbling along. It's delightful. Yes, we have the freeway a block and a half away, but that immediately become white noise. Ocean, right?

We still need some furniture and things to round it out. And since Mom was coming to visit, lots of the annoying small things that still needed to find homes got shoved in the closet to make the place livable for her visit -- to be dealt with later. (No, really!) 

But at least it feels like a place we can call the first home for Blueberry!

In other news, I haven't updated the Baby Score in a while. Honestly, I've lost track. Because at least one has been added to the pregnant side, and one moved to the new baby side last weekend. So I'll have to figure out the actual score and get back to you, but it must be something like 6-12 at this point.

Stay tuned for my one-sense-at-a-time look at the current stage of pregnancy!