Movin' on out

Oh, that's right, people. November 1st I will be making my triumphant exit from my MIL's house, where I have lived for the past 2 1/2 years. It's into a small apartment, and when I say that people make a face and say, "An apartment?" and I say, "I've been living with my MIL for the last two years. I started out sleeping on the floor of Jacelyn's room, with only my clothes with me, stuffed into plastic rubbermaid drawers underneath her bed. An apartment will be a palace". And it will be.

It will be 980 square feet of heaven, is what it will be. It will be privacy and personal time, it will be time I can spend with my daughter, just the two of us. Right now, we can't lie in bed on a Sunday morning and have a tickle fight without someone banging on the door or just barging in, asking for rides or for help or for Jacelyn to go get the paper out of the driveway. I can't discipline her without somone coming behind me and allowing her to do whatever I said she couldn't do: if I tell her she can't have anything else to eat because she didn't eat her dinner, my MIL gives her a popsicle. If I tell her she has to go to bed early, my SIL slips her a flashlight and a coloring book and markers. If I tell her she can't leave her room until its clean, someone slips in and cleans it for her while I'm busy cleaning the tub. Aunties and Grandmas are nice to visit but not the best place to live if you're trying to instill some discipline. Please don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to have them around. It's wonderful for Jacelyn to have so much family surrounding her, and they love her very much.

It's small, but small equals less to clean. It's affordable, and will allow us to save some money so hopefully buying a home will be in our future, maybe a year from now or so. I won't have to worry about cutting grass. I won't have to worry about getting my lazy husband to fix something around the house. Little Guy won't have his own room, but he probably won't notice. I plan on nursing, but I'm a lazy nurser, so he'll be in a bassinet in our room for a while. And the very best part? It will be ours. Jacelyn can roam around in her panties, if she wants to, or even *GASP* naked. She has sadly been denied the childhood pleasure of partial nudity at whim. I had to convince her it was OK to take her pajama pants off at night, if she got too hot in bed.

I'm excited. I'm glad we're doing this now, before I'm too huge to help. My goal is to be completely ready for Little Guy by the end of the year. Moved in, unpacked, organized. I've even been doing some reading on freezer cooking, and I think I'm going to do that occassionally (prepare an extra meal and freeze it, only requiring thawing and reheating), so once LG does make his appearance we'll have easy to fix meals on hand and not have to order pizza or eat out or spend every evening at my MIL's house. I remember what it was like to have an infant, but this time around I'll have an infant and a five year old, who has to get to bed on time and get to school and be picked up and whatnot, amongst feedings and cleaning and working and all the other stuff in a day. Mothers are superheroes.

Jacelyn is on her way to Tampa as we speak. Brian's grandmother (from the Phillipines) is having her 80th birthday party this weekend, and Jacelyn, Michelle, Joe, and Brian's dad are all driving down there to surprise her. She has never met Jacelyn before, so it should be neat. I miss Jacelyn, terribly, but I'm sure she'll enjoy herself. Brian is in Tallahassee for the Florida State and Miami game today - he'll be in later tonight. Everyone is off enjoying themselves, while I sit here at work. Blogging, granted, but at work nonetheless. Sigh. Oh well. That still cannot dim my enthusiasm for MOVING DAY! Hooray!

I'm going to get to work. Thanks to TX Jen, for making sure we all weren't blown away by that tornado that zipped through town, and for taking time to make certain I was alright. You're a sweet girl!