Malcolm's Ramblings

Annie and I are about a month and a half from most likely bringing home a baby, so of course we pilled on selling our current house, finding a new house, and hopefully moving, right?

While Annie is finishing her Master’s degree, and gearing up on her dream job, we are also trying to figure out just how much stuff we need to organize for Pixel, the nickname of our baby, before they come home with us. We are hesitant to do too much because we’ve had to deal with the aftermath of having baby things without having a baby to use them, but we also don’t want to be underprepared.

Pixel’s C-Section date is November 8th, but our surrogate doesn’t think Pixel will gestate that long. Her guess is closer to the end of October or the very start of November, though we hope to not have a Halloween baby, just so they don’t have to share with a well known and celebrated holiday.

Our plan is to live with Annie’s sister, brother-in-law, and their family in a few weeks while my mom stays here to watch the house. It’ll mean we are closer to where our surrogate lives and is likely to give birth.

After Pixel is born, I’ll be taking parental leave from work and being the primary parent while Annie finishes her Master’s program, and then ease back into work during the end of the holiday season and/or the start of the New Year.

That means getting things set-up at work that I can step away and keep Acquia and my clients successful in my absence. Thankfully, it will be the holiday season with American Thanksgiving and then Christmas and New Years, hopefully my leave won’t be too impactful on things. I take my job responsibilities very seriously.

Then, with a newborn, we will have to hopefully finish selling our home, which is already on the market, move our stuff into storage if we haven’t found a new home, buy a new home, and then move into that new home so we can start our new adventure closer to my wife’s family and all the other new little ones there that have been added in the last few years.

Hopefully, we don’t have to wear out our welcome staying with Annie’s family. It would be awesome to find a place we can close on around the same time as closing on our house so we don’t have to move everything into storage. It would be nice to find a place of our own to decorate for Christmas. It would be nice to be settled before jumping back into the deep end with work early in the new year.

After Annie graduates, and I head back to work, the plan is that we will work together to help Pixel succeed while balancing our work schedules. I am definitely feeling old and stressed right now, but excited to see what this next phase brings.