Two weeks and counting!

Amy's due date is March 4th, just two weeks from today. Wow, what an amazing thought! I STILL can't believe we're going to have another little one...

There are of course a bunch of to-do items that go with preparing for a baby, like

• pulling out clothes and filling in any gaps created by giving away infant clothing because we thought we were done
• buying diapers
• and so many others...

But those are the obvious ones. When we were in the early stages of thinking about a fourth child, Amy came up with a "goal" for each of the older children.

We wanted to have:

• Kate walking,
• Peter potty-trained, and
  
• Sydney reading on her own.
  

And all before little brother joined us. Well,

• Kate is walking, running, climbing, and just about everything else short of ballet dancing. She's even getting safe on the staircase!
  
• Peter still wears a pull-up at night, but otherwise is astounding us with his ability to get himself to the bathroom and avoid accidents.
  
• And Sydney? I'll admit I was starting to despair. While she was learning the mechanics, you can't force a child to click with reading and desire to do it on her own. But Amy's hard work on that has paid off, and for the last 4-6 weeks, Sydney has been reading everything she can get her hands on! She helps me read during family worship, she picks up books and reads them out loud to herself with only minor input from us, and she's reading signs and logos as we drive around town. It is so fun to see her practicing new words and getting familiar with so many others.

What else? We of course created our own list of household projects, and are making decent progress. Our (long-ish) list of things to do before the baby arrives are getting checked off. Sometimes quickly, and sometimes sloooooowly...

• We sold the truck and bought a minivan so all six of us will fit in one car. I had tried to sell the truck myself, but the only calls I got were from people wanting to take a fee up-front to help me "find a buyer"... no thanks... As the clock was ticking, we ended up trading it in for a gently-used Odyssey, which the whole family loves. (I take Kate's decrease in fussiness as approval...) We even have baby brother's infant carrier strapped in.
• In conjunction with getting a vehicle that will fit in the garage (unlike the truck) we rearranged the garage so instead of 1 car and a bunch of bikes, kids' toys, and other random "stuff", we have two cars and a well-organized and usable garage. There are bikes hanging from the ceiling, tools in their places, extra shelves to store things on... it's a beautiful thing.
• We have had the bathrooms tiled (who carpets a bathroom, I ask you...?) and are almost done painting (just trim to go...). Once we get mirrors on the wall of the kids' bathroom, that will be done. (Slowest. Painting. Ever. but it will be finished some day)
  
• We are working on rearranging the office to make it more usable and fit in a couple new comfy chairs we picked up. We figure with a family of six, more seating options is better than fewer! We may even be able to buy a sofa from a friend to add to the kids' playroom and make it more of a second living area.
• I'm getting close to being able to shut down the Linux server I've been running for the last 8-9 years. Given the change in life from 8-9 years ago to now, that's a huge bonus, as I won't have to worry about being out of date on security patches, downtime for the websites hosted, etc. Once that is done, I'll have some freed up hard drives to use as backups for our photos, etc, and some freed up time to investigate all the new services and toys out there to play with, like DropBox, and CrashPlan. (Much to a friend's dismay, that won't include Star Trek Online...) Oh, and there won't be a constant humming sound coming from the top of that armoir in the living room...
• We're having the front door refinished. We were told when we moved in that it needed help, and the last two years of neglect have not been kind to it. I'm beginning to miss the North-facing painted metal door of our last house. A stained and finished wood door facing south in Texas is just one more thing that has to be maintained regularly to keep it from having to be replaced...

But hey, by hook or by crook, this little guy will be here soon, and all that logistical stuff will seem like just a flash in the pan. All this has just been prep-work so we can focus on our family and our new addition, and I'm so thankful that we've been able to get done all that we have. The kids have loved helping with the projects, and the support from friends and family has been unbelievable.

So, the long and the short of it, little man, is that we're ready for you! So come on, make your debut!