Update and Photos

I've been an absent blogger of late for a few reasons - a growing "To Do" list at work (it should be shrinking! Not growing!), extreme exhaustion, and lots of things to get done around the house. Here is one of them, which grew from what was supposed to be a small project to a large, expensive THING that has prevented us from using our master bath shower for a couple of weeks:




For the last couple of months, M. and I had noticed that a couple of tiles on the shower bench were buckling a bit. Along with the mildew-stained caulking that I've had a running battle with since we moved in, it looked decidedly yucky, and became a fixation for me each time I used the shower. So, at my hormonal urging, and to prevent water damage, we decided to try to repair the area. Ideally, this was going to involve simple removal of the 2 or 3 offending tiles, cleaning them up, sticking them back on, and regrouting. If some water had seeped behind, we would even try our hand at replacing any damp cement backerboard before putting the tiles back on, but we figured the area would be small. Boy, were we wrong. M. barely touched the offending tiles with a scraper-thingy, and they fell right off. Along with several others right next to them. Um, clearly a lot of water had already gotten behind the tiles. The pictures above show where we stopped before running off to Lowes to get some supplies - by the end of the day M. had removed all of the tiles on the vertical part of the shower bench, as well as some from the two walls that were kitty-corner to it. He stopped at the point where he was afraid that he would break something crucial, like the glass shower wall, if he continued. That's when we called our home improvement/contractor service.

Our $50 project has turned in to a $1600 renovation job. One that we MIGHT have been able to tackle ourselves, but certainly not with the speed at which it has progressed the last week. With the clock ticking on this pregnancy, it's money I feel is well spent. Since exact-match tiles (it's amazing how many different kinds of square white tiles there are, and how many of them DON'T match our tiles) couldn't be easily found, we ended up having probably half of the shower tiles replaced so that we could put in a transition row of decorative tiles that make the new white tiles stick out less. We're planning on slapping some paint on some of the walls and trying to actually make the bathroom look somewhat nice (as opposed to the glaring white wonderland it has been since we moved in), and I'm hopeful that when all is said and done this "emergency" fix will actually make me happier with our bathroom. But in the meantime, we've been showering down in our basement shower at night. A lovely shower, really, but 1) the basement is cold, 2) I hate showering at night, it does nothing for my hair, and 3) the shower is quite small which means a) my belly is constantly in danger of whacking the tile wall, b) I cannot possibly shave my legs (though really, at this stage of pregnancy, who's looking, right?), and c) there is constant groaning from me every time I have to bend over to pick up a bottle of shampoo/conditioner/body wash/face wash from the floor. I am hoping, though, that we will be able to use our own shower as early as tomorrow - yay!

Physical evidence of my difficulty fitting in the basement shower, bending over, basically doing ANYTHING:




Me at 35 weeks, just over a week ago. I am now 36 weeks 2 days and, if anything, even bigger. It has become very, very hard to get around. I am definitely nearing that necessary point at which a pregnant woman actually starts to look forward to labor, just so I can breathe again. Or last more than an hour at night without making a bathroom run. If I didn't have so much to do at work in the next few weeks, I'd be trying every natural remedy in the arsenal to speed things along.

As squeezable and cute as all these babies, brand new or at least newer than Finn, in my family are, I do need to throw in a few pictures of my little guy just so Grammy and Bumpa remember how adorable he is. Disregarding the sleep issues we've been having lately, which I will not detail as frankly they frustrate me too much, as they don't detract TOO much from his cuteness:


March 2, unexpected snow day, Mom and Dad try to distract Finn with some Elmo on TV so they can get some work done


He looks so happy!


In definite need of a haircut


Planting seeds, love the Dora watering can he insisted we buy for him. Very confident in his masculinity.


Post haircut, with his "I don't want to smile for the stupid camera" look.


Post haircut, with his ridiculous "OK, if you want me to smile I'll take it to the extreme" look.

Will try to be good and post later this week - first internal exam with the OB (and who's not curious about the state of my cervix, right?), and we will hopefully figure out if this baby is head down or not. Only a couple more weeks to get your birthday guesses on record at expectnet.com (see right sidebar)!