A Family of Squatters

I've been told that becoming a parent can bring out the best in a person.  I don't know how much "best" I have in me, but some is certainly shining through, I think.

Every time I look at Harper, I am amazed.  I don't understand how I could have lived my life to this point without her.  True, I was on time a lot more often and it was easier to schedule things, but so what?  Today, she is 13 days old and I'm having trouble remembering what I thought about before she was born.

She's been spending more time with her eyes open, looking around.  Her eyes are a beautiful slate, but I know they will change soon.  I've been trying my best to help Sara with her as much as I can.  There are certainly limitations in terms of feeding, but I do (in spite of my promise to myself) help change her (when I can't pass her off as just hungry.)  I will happily wander the house with her in my arms to try to calm her down, and I seem to be much better at burping her than anyone else.

In terms of sleeping through the night, she's been alright, not great.  She sleeps for several hours, but Sara has to wake her to feed her around 3 am.  If she doesn't, Harper is so cranky in the morning, she can't seem to find to nipple.  Story of my life, right?

Over this Thanksgiving break, we moved all of our worldly possessions into our new house.  We are living there illegally because we haven't closed yet.  The closing company has been dragging its feet and coming up with new and absurd things they want in order to close the loan, but that's a story for another time.  My point here is that, in moving all of our worldly possessions, I have completely wiped myself out.  On Saturday night, I slept so heavily that Sara put a screaming Harper next to my head and I didn't even stir.

In this new place, we had to buy a fridge, which Sara took care of last week.  She went to Lowes', braving the Black Friday crowds, toppled an old man and trampled a group of orphans hoping to sit on the lap of an inflatable Santa in order to get us a great deal, which she did.  I, however, did a mediocre to piss poor job of measuring the space.  The fridge space is 72 inches by 36 inches.  The fridge is 70 inches by 35 3/4 inches.  It fits.  What I didn't think to measure, was the door to the house.

In order to get the fridge inside, we had to take off both French doors, the bottom mounted freezer door AND the house door.  The fridge is in place and if we move again, we're leaving it the hell there.

As a direct result of my failure in this department, I made several trips to Lowes' (now 5 minutes away) over the past few days and fixed several minor issues around the house, including, but not limited to the following:

Installed blinds in the bedroom (we were changing in the hallway so my neighbor, the town constable, wouldn't vomit at my pasty thighs)
Installed door stops to keep knobs from scratching the paint (euphemism?)
Fixed the shower so we can get hot water (it was set to luke warm)
Replaced light bulbs around the property

Small things, yes, but I actually felt like I was accomplishing something.  When this morning rolled around, I could think of nothing I wanted to do less than go to work.  I held Harper and walked around the house for an hour, after making breakfast for Sara.  We've decided, at least for now, that the TV will remain in the basement and the living room/dining room will remain without visual entertainment.  I will be hooking up the DVD player to the TV in the basement so that I can start doing Tae Bo again.  I've been meaning to for a while, but now I have lots of time in the morning and an ever-burning desire to get into shape.

I want to be able to run and play with my daughter when she gets old enough.  I need to be able to.  I was also thinking about joining the YMCA in Greensburg and go swimming in the morning, but I think I'll wait to see how the Tae Bo goes before spending money on a gym membership.  If I can't be bothered to go to my own basement, why would I drive across town?

I understand why people would want to be stay-at-home-moms and -dads.  I love our new house (which isn't ours yet) and I would love to work on projects around the house and take care of Harper.

She is so beautiful.