Friday, May 09, 2008

Highly Observant Commenting

This from kbow on the post about Margaret's big premiere:
Also, whaaa!? You instigated a life-altering household move when your wife was eleventy months pregnant? Mrs. Moe is a ROCK STAR!


Yes. She is. Like Queen of the rock stars. Atop her throne in Rockstasylvania.

And also, yes we did move while beset with pregnancy. We found out about what would eventually be Margaret late last August. So everything written on this blog since then was written with the knowledge of our knocked-upatudedness. That means deciding to move to St Paul, getting ready to sell our house, selling our house, packing up, moving across the country, the I'm On To You phenomenon, watching Mr. Megnorium's Munger Penorium. Everything. And it also colors the sort of multiple nervous breakdowns I had along the way. The baby was actually part of our decision to move out here. We could afford a 4-bedroom house in St Paul and could have three kids there. Seattle is more a place for the one child wrapped in plastic sheeting inside a $400 stroller. We were becoming a Midwestern family; better get our asses to the Midwest. The baby that would be Margaret made only indirect appearances here.

I was excited and delighted about the baby, of course, but I've been around enough to know that things can happen in the pregnancy process and it doesn't always go according to plan. It's stressful, as is moving. But you look forward to the brighter tomorrow you're arranging for yourself even as it all seems like great big truckloads of madness.

I remember last December, my arms covered in paint and my head full of hassles trying to get our home gussied up to attract suitors, thinking how in May I would be living in a different part of the country in some house taking some baby for a walk. It did not seem real. It wasn't going from point A to point B. More like going from point A to point 672JKLH991.rr3. And actually that daydream of that walk really sustained me. It was the happy place I went to even though it seemed about as likely as walking into a movie.

And once again, kbow, yes, Mrs. Moe. Holy Toledo. Give it up for the woman. Everyone up on your feet. While I was psychically weighed down with this existential blah de blah, she had a person in her uterus and all the attendant STUFF that goes with it. So while we planned this whole thing and made eleventy billion phone calls she was going through all that. And she was tired and couldn't lift things, which is kind of a big part of, uh, moving. On the plus side, repeatedly lifting most things we owned did wonders for my upper body strength. First rule of Move Club: don't talk about Move Club.

But we got through it in two ways: first, we had sort of sealed our own fates on this one. We had set things in motion that were pretty much irreversible. Secondly, we knew that time passes. We would get there, the temperature would rise above -4, the baby would arrive, that walk would take place. And a couple of days ago after Margaret returned from the hospital and experienced direct sunlight for the first time ever, that walk DID take place. It also featured Kate clinging to the side of the stroller and repeatedly poking Margaret, which was not part of the plan but whatever.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alternate realities

"I love my family."
He and that damn hamster are keeping me up at night.

"That's why I drove a hamster to Minnesota in a minivan."
There must be a way to get a few full nights of sleep before the baby arrives."

Anonymous said...

Happy Mothers' Day to the very brave Mrs. Moe!