This Week // 01.09.15

Roman peeking over my desk.

I gave M. the hair gel and asked him to style Roman’s hair away from his eyes. This photograph is the result of that request. It’s a pretty good representation of what this past week has been… crazy. As I type this, I can’t believe that it’s already Friday night — and that Monday will start the third week of January!

Nesting

The past week has flown by. I’ve started “nesting” — but it’s not a fun, pretty, “preparing baby’s nursery” type of nesting. It’s a holy hell, this house (and all of our crap!) is making me crazy kind of nesting. When we moved here, we only intended to stay five years at most. Well, last month we celebrated our six-year anniversary in this place…

There are a lot of wonderful things about our home — especially the yard, the woods, & the location (so close to both of our families). But there are some things that make it very wrong for us. The main problems are that there is no designated space for Matthew (he has no privacy, ever) and there is limited storage. We don’t have a garage, the basement is cinder block/dirt floors, and the attic is a crawl space. That leaves no place but closets & cupboards for storage, and those filled up a long time ago. We’d also love to have a second bathroom and one more bedroom so that our two babes don’t have to share one forever. Change may be on the horizon, but for now, here we are.

We are truly minimalists at heart. We’ve been living together for seven years and have paired down our possessions time & time again. In recent years, some things have begun to accumulate and we need to meet them head on. The worst offenders at the moment are clothing, shoes, and miscellaneous junk. This week I started the process of sorting through it all.

Our first priority is getting our bedroom to rights so that we can rearrange furniture and make room for a bassinet. It’s been an uphill struggle, but I finally cleared the hardest part (our shelving unit) yesterday. Next up I’ve got to tackle a few areas in my office and then we can get someone in here to help us with moving the furniture. It’s daunting. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment, but I’m breaking it into manageable pieces and pushing myself forward.

Pregnancy

Speaking of time flying past, I’ll be twenty-nine weeks along on Wednesday. What!? It’s really incomprehensible. Because of the complications that I had early in my pregnancy, and then M’s injury and hospitalization — my first two trimesters were such a blur. It’s only recently that I’ve really had time to think about my pregnancy at length.

Generally, I feel good but my lower back pain is becoming a true challenge. Since M’s injury in October, I’ve been the sole caretaker of Roman and our house. That means that all of the high-impact jobs (taking out garbage & recycling, raking leaves, shoveling snow, carrying laundry & groceries upstairs, every single bath-time, meal-time, & diaper change, etc.) fall to me. Mix all of that bending & lifting together with my rapidly changing body — an expanding uterus that is shifting my center of gravity, stretching and weakening my abdominal muscles, and putting a lot of strain on my back — and it’s a recipe for pain.

I really need to see a chiropractor and I’ve found a great one who specializes in prenatal care, but it’s been difficult with all of M’s appointments, arranging care for Roman, etc. I am going to try really hard to get an appointment scheduled this week. Sometimes I literally can’t walk by day’s end and that’s just a dangerous position to put myself in.

Roman/Winter Blues

Before I close this week’s summary, I have to mention my sweet boy. The weather has been brutal. We’ve had snow and arctic wind & temperatures far below freezing. It’s been painful to be outside for even a few minutes. That means lots of time cooped up indoors and a mama who is hesitant to leave the house at all costs. Gratefully, Roman has been good as gold and sweet as pie through it all. His new Christmas toys have been keeping him busy and I’m always looking for creative, entertaining projects like stickers, coloring, & building.

It’s really incredible just how much he is developing these days. He’s so sweet & smart that it just bowls me over. I’ll be doing a full update on Roman James @ 20 Months shortly and I’ve got so much to share.

That’s it for this week, friends. I’m hoping to make this a regular thing so that I can look back & remember our weeks in the future.

How about you? How was your week? Anything fun planned for the weekend? Hope it’s a great one, whatever you do. xx