I'm a terrible blogger..

I'll just throw that out there to begin with. Although, I will say that the time that has elapsed between postings is a perfect indication of how busy we have been and how fast time is flying by. I'm now referring to how close the due date is in terms of weeks rather than months, which is a scary thought! At this rate, before I know it Ava will be in high school driving my car and I'll be fully gray and developing a serious case of Dunlap's disease (dont know what it is? Google it).

So what exactly has been going on since my last update? Well, without going into the complete minutia of every single task, moving to a new apartment undoubtedly occupied a vast amount of our time. Although it kept us busy, stressed, and at times exhausted, the move was a long time coming and very very welcome. We essentially doubled our space, and are now in a literally brand new apartment that will be the perfect place to start out and welcome our little girl.

For me, there are two parts of moving that are by far the worst:

1) Cleaning the old place for inspection. Long story short, I can't wait to stop renting. I have yet to be a part of a 100% pleasant renting experience, although I'm trying to be optimistic that our newest place will change this. I would love to go on a rant, naming landlord's and throwing out names of apartment complexes that have infuriated me over the past few years, but considering one of the recent lawsuits that made its way into national headlines, I think I'll refrain (as hard as that is for me).

2) Making all the phone calls. I know, this one sounds stupid. After all, they are just phone calls, right? No. They are audible hell on Earth. Between transferring cable, setting up a U-haul, correcting my U-haul receipt, changing setup dates for power and mail forwarding, etc. I'm starting to realize that 'customer service representative' is the most ironically inaccurate job title out there. Yes, what a SERVICE it is to me to put me on hold for 10 minutes, then transfer me between 5 people before hanging up on me. Your SERVICE is impeccable when you overcharge me by $65 and your method of fixing it is by charging me another $60 before crediting my account. Oy. /crotchetyoldmanrant

BUT, the beautiful part of it all is that it is DONE. We are in our new place and absolutely loving it. There's something strangely comforting about being able to sit in your home and not feel like you are seconds away from the onset of a claustrophobia or anxiety attack. Ah, such bliss. And while Ava's room is currently a temporary storage spot, it's exciting walking into that room and envisioning it as her space. We keep reminding her that she is a very lucky girl to have her own bathroom before she is even born! It's safe to say that almost every time I'm there, I envision that first day when she'll be coming home, and we walk in saying 'This is your room, Ava!' I should note that we have already begun training the dogs to understand that the room is off limits, and violation of this rule will result in behind-swattings and alpha rolls. I'm a strict disciplinarian, what can I say.

And while we haven't outfitted her room yet, we took a big step towards doing so this past weekend by making our registry at Babies R' Us. Just a warning to all future parents, this is one of those things that you don't think twice about when its casually mentioned during the pregnancy, but you should know ahead of time that registering WILL be an event in itself. Amanda and I were there for 3 hours, and I'm pretty sure we are on the low end of the totem pole when it comes to how long people spend there scanning stuff. The woman who set us up made sure to mention multiple times that they were open until 9:30 PM, and that there were places to eat all around. She also noted that the guns only hold 250 items on them, but if you fill one up and need another, you can do that. GOOD LORD. I figured we would be walking around and see women building campfires in the middle of the layette section (for those of you that don't know, that's fancy talk for 'clothes' in the baby world). That's how intense this process is.

Despite the intimidating introduction to registering, it was actually a pretty fun process one we got rolling. I quickly realized this: no matter how much we research and deliberate over items for the baby, ultimately Ava is going to decide what she likes and what she doesn't like. That's the beautiful thing about human beings; we are opinionated as hell the minute we come out of the womb, and our little girl will be no different. The best we can do is have fun with it and pick things out that we hope or think she will like. If she does; we are great parents. And if she doesn't; we try again and will still be great parents. All of this being said, someone please be sure to pick up the 'DOGS' book off of our registry; even if Ava hates it, Amanda and I sat there giggling like fools when we looked at it so we know it will provide somebody in our family with some entertainment!

Oh yes, and a warning sign that I'm getting more and more ready to be a dad: I found myself getting excited at the discovery of The Children's Place having a sale on its website. And proceeded to order 4 things for Ava, including the onesie below (except the one I bought says DAD instead of MOM). The girl isn't even born and I'm already being suckered into buying her clothes. This is dangerous.



I think I can speak for Amanda as well as myself when I say that having the move and registering done was a huge weight off of our shoulders. We are finally at a place where we have a little bit of calm, and definitely a lot less stress. Is it the calm before the proverbial storm? Maybe. But at the same time, it's a storm of things that are incredibly exciting and just bring us closer to get us more prepared for that big day.

P.S. I'd also like to give a shout out to my dad aka Grandpa Dave; it was his birthday yesterday!

Posted in: baby registry,moving