Moving, and building, and kicking?

What a busy couple of weeks!

I can not imagine a more inappropriate task for a pregnant woman than moving. Moving AND construction on a new place.

We have just moved out of our apartment, which required a tremendous amount of heavy lifting. So, I was out there. My poor unfortunate husband had to do most of it all by himself. And to top it all off the front parking lot of our building was completely closed off, doubling the distance these heavy items had to be carried. Poor guy. However, the happy little door opener over here did a very good job, thank you very much.

Then came cleaning the entire apartment, which means potent cleaning chemical smells, bending and twisting to wipe down walls, climbing to unsafe heights to clean tops of cabinets... Again, a recipe for disaster.

Once all of our things were moved, and the apartment was spotless (and we were told we'd receive our ENTIRE damage deposit back, thank you very much) then came the hurried construction on the new place so that we could finally move out of that very uncomfortable little guest room at my mother-in-law's. Which requires heavy lifting, traumatically loud sawing noises, odourous and back strenuous painting, plus a whole lotta' jobs I quite frankly just don't know how to do!

And my poor Matthew was doomed to do most of it all by his lonesome. We did get help from my mother-in-law and brother-in-law with a lot of the cleaning and construction, and got some help from Matt's friend Pat with a bit of the REALLY heavy lifting that can't humanly be done by one person, AND we got a hand repairing some very disgraceful torn linoleum in our apartment from my dear ol' dad, but I would definitely say for the most part, my sweety has been on his own.

So at the end of a long day, when I look over at my husband and say in my very sweetest voice "Baby... do you think I could get a back rub?" he looks over at me and says "Can I have one after?"

We are clearly both working very hard. Thus the lack of blog posts. Things should start to slow down soon though, and hopefully VERY soon I can get another baby bump photo up, as it seems I've quite positively exploded in the last couple of weeks. I'm actually starting to lose my bellybutton and its freaking me out.

In other news, I've also felt the BABY KICK! On many momentous occasions. It happened for the very first time about a week ago, and since then has been happening all of the time. Sometimes it's a weird sort of rolly feeling, and other times it's a persistent little rhythmic thud on the inner walls of my belly. It is so incredibly strange and new. Matthew hasn't been able to feel it yet, not for lack of trying. But it seems my skin's not quite stretched out enough for the pounding to be felt through the surface. Although I could've sworn on a couple of occasions I've had my hand on my belly and felt it myself. I guess because Matt's heartbeat is so strong, especially in his hands, it's hard to distinguish between a tiny little foot, and an immense pounding heart. But baby will definitely be kicking for another 20 weeks or so, so he'll definitely get an opportunity, I'm sure.

Also, the ultrasound appointment is coming up NEXT TUESDAY! Which means finally some visible proof of life! Plus, we'll finally get to find out the gender of the baby! So place your bets now, people! Boy or girl? I've got about a thousand guesses that it will be a girl from coworkers and family, my Grandma Penner thinks boy for sure, but there's one daddy over here who's got a bit of a hankerin' for a little boy.

So what do you think it'll be? :)