Reliving the Remodel

My mom is right. She accused me of spending all my time showering instead of blogging for the last three or four days (since the water's been fixed). I have been taking wonderful stink-free showers. For four days straight I've been chomping on lovely fresh ice with no aftertaste. I love eating ice -- it was especially good while I was pregnant -- don't know why -- but lots of things tasted and smelled better while I was pregnant. The smell of fresh cut wood, for example, could send me into a trance -- mmmmm -- I loved going to Lowes while I was pregnant, which was a good thing, given that I was in charge of supplies during our big remodel project. Our contractor, Jamie, always sent me to Lowes when he needed anything because I was always able to get help (and, of course, I was the one with the debit card). I was 7-9 months pregnant during the remodel, so I was huuuuuuge. I would waddle into Lowes with a list in my pocket and make my way over to the lumber. Eventually, I learned to just grab a salesman on my way in. Salesmen don't typically argue with pregnant women. I tried to play it close-to-the-vest with them at first, "Excuse me? Can you help me with the drywall mud?" I'd ask. "Sure," the poor unsuspecting salesman would say, "how many 50 pound buckets do you need?" "Just 15 -- and these other 17 things on my list," I'd say while I smiled sweetly and rubbed my back with one hand and my belly with the other. I'm sure that the closer I got to my due date, those guys were taking bets on when they'd get to stop helping me.

I was also the one who met the inspectors when they came to sign off on whatever stage of construction we were in. At the end of the inspection, the inspector invariably said something along these lines, "Well Mrs. Flamingo, normally I would want to see an actual wall here where this big blank space is, but I can see you're probably in a hurry to move this project along, so I'll just trust you all to take care of that." I'm not kidding -- this is the reason Grandma still doesn't have a garage door and the new ceiling in the playroom doesn't meet up with the old one.

One of my other favorite memories from construction was Flamingo Joe and I moving our bed around from partially completed room to partially completed room until we finally ended up putting our bed in the breakfast nook for a while. By the time I went into labor, we weren't even able to sleep in the same bed (either because I just wasn't sleeping well and kept him up or because I got the last available bed space and he was sleeping on an air mattress somewhere). Honestly, I can't remember where he was sleeping the night I went into labor. I was in Grandpa's old room (now Mace's room) upstairs and Grandma was in the framed-in, but otherwise wall-less space that was eventually going to become the master bedroom around the corner. Grandpa was sleeping on the porch because he didn't stay in Idaho like we told him to until after the construction was finished (we told him there was nowhere for him to sleep if he came back early and we meant it -- don't push a pregnant woman in the middle of a large construction project or you will end up sleeping on the porch). I woke up at 2 or 3 a.m. with back pains and started pacing. Grandma heard me because she didn't have a door to keep out the noise (and I'm not sure she ever sleeps, actually), so she came in and told me I was in labor. I had never gone into labor with Casey, so it was a good thing Grandma was there. Joe appeared from wherever he was sleeping (the kitchen? the bathroom? under the stairs?) and drove me to the hospital. And the rest is history.

Or it will be history -- as soon as we finish the house.