The Hardest Year?

Well, there's certainly lots to tell.
In order of importance, we're expecting a baby in the beginning of January 2001; we bought a house and have moved a bit further south to San Jose; and I'm still at B__R__.com full-time, but have been promoted to Product Mangager.

The past six months have been very full.  September and October were especially difficult.  We've been doing too much at once at a breakneck pace and are hoping to get things in order so we can have a calmer winter while we spend our last days as a childless couple.

The pregnancy itself has been relatively easy.  Like about half of pregnant moms, I had no nausea, but slept through some real exhaustion in my first trimester while I was busy building a baby, working full-time, eating and doing almost nothing else.  That went away, though, and I could start to feel the baby flutter around inside.  We had an ultrasound and got to see the little one yawn!  Very, very cool!  Now at six months I most definitely LOOK pregnant especially from the side, I can watch my belly ripple with kicks, and I can feel my uterus toning itself with Braxton-Hicks contractions.

We are very excited about the prospect of becoming parents in a few short months.  We are doing a lot of preparation, although so far most of our concentration has been on the birth itself, with Bradley classes, reading, and frequent meetings with our midwife Kathe.  It has been wisely suggested that we also do what reading we can about the BABY part BEFORE the baby arrives as we are more likely to have the time and energy beforehand.  We're trying to take this advice as well as that about establishing a schedule and routine now, though this too has been complicated by the move and the job changes.

After an inordinate time between our offer on the house being accepted (mid July) and finally closing on the house (early October) we moved into our own house the first of this month.  Yes, Bay Area housing prices are frightening, but we didn't really pay that enormous amount of money to anyone.  We're just renting from the bank, getting a tax break, and can do to the place whatever we wish.  It's a three bedroom, one bath, single level house with a detached garage and a yard.  C and a bunch of helpers prepped and painted living/dining room, hallway, and two of the bedrooms.  We look forward to remodeling the bathroom, the kitchen, one of the bedrooms, re-roofing, and uncovering some hardwood floors before we sell and move back to the Northwest.  It's fun to have a house again (we really hated renting).  We are still settling into it, unpacking, and making lots of lists.  Most of the boxes are confined to the unpainted bedroom and the garage, but even those are navigable by now.  Soon we will have our guest bedroom ready for visitors, curtains, and some pictures up.

Both of our work lives have been full of promotions and increased responsibilities.  Most of the projects and products that I am managing involve a relatively short turn-around time, but there have been an awful lot of them at once.  I am looking forward to what has been my own little product management department growing to three; I have an assistant now, thank heavens, and a Director and mentor has been hired who will start next month.  C is very busy trying to get his product line in shape enough for him to take more time off come January.  Of course, doing the things now that will make things easier in the future, in addition to the tasks that need to be done now, only means that there are more things to be done now.

It has been quite a summer, and the beginning of the year 2000 looks very far away.  I guess we've been doing some serious traveling through time.  Our lives are only on the cusp of some serious changes with the new baby due in January, but we are really looking forward to growing and sharing the new shape of our lives with dear friends and family.

I hope all is well with you and yours.
Peace,
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