Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

This is the fourth place Paul and I have lived in together in the three years we have been married. The first was a house in Starkville that was right next to the train tracks. And by "right next to" I mean within 15 feet of them. At first we had the train schedule memorized and would hear it every time it went by; but after a few months we thought the train had stopped running because we had gotten so used to it that we never heard it. 

The next place we lived in was our first apartment here in San Diego and it was about 3 miles from the airport and directly under the flight path of every departing plane. That was a little more difficult to get used to because a plane was going over about every five minutes all day long. By the time we moved out after 8 months, we were still aware of the noise but pretty accustomed to it.

After that we lived in our "charming cottage" in North Park that we just moved out of. As far as noise goes, this house was definitely the worst. It was situated on a hill overlooking the intersection of the 805 and 15 freeways and the traffic noise has been a constant presence in our lives for the last 10 months. We went to bed every night to the low drone of late night truckers and woke up to the high pitched honking of early morning commuters. Paul even did a project on the situation for his Acoustics class at school and found that we were averaging like 60 decibels of noise inside our house (the average quiet room is 30 decibels). 

So after literally living with the sounds of trains, planes, and automobiles for the last 3 years, needless to say, the blessed silence of this new house is a new and wonderful sound for us! Yes, there are a lot of other houses and apartments around with "people" noises but that's a welcome change and one that generally stops around bedtime. Just one of the many reasons we are LOVING this new house!

With the help of our great friend Corey, Paul moved our furniture in on Tuesday and we slept here for the first time that night. We have pretty much everything out of the old house by now except for a few loose boxes which we'll get out by this weekend. I worked on unpacking the kitchen yesterday and today and now have almost everything situated in there. Then I guess I'll move on to the living room and our bedroom and then the fun begins in the nursery! After packing all those boxes and moving them from one house to the other, I sat here the other night wondering how I was ever going to have the energy to UNpack all of them. But I've decided there's no rush and I'm just going to take my time with it. 

In other news, we entered the third trimester today! Wow, I can't believe we're finally in the home stretch. And we have finally decided on a full name... Wilder Roman Taylor. The first name is my grandmother's maiden name and the middle name isn't a family name at all but one that we both really love. Hurray, "baby" has a name! My belly is getting bigger by the day it seems and the baby is still constantly on the move. I have to admit I often get distracted at work because I'll sit there and just watch my belly bulge and jump. It's a strange, awesome feeling that I'll never forget and can't get enough of. I'm still feeling pretty great except for getting a little more uncomfortable while sleeping. I'm also a LOT more clumsy and feel like I'm constantly dropping things. At the same time, I'm less able to bend over and pick them up so I've gotten pretty adept at picking things up with my feet, haha. I'm evolving in all kinds of ways these days. :) Here's me and Wilder at 27 weeks:

We had our last childbirth class tonight and, I have to say, after the panic-inducing first class I wasn't too sure about the merit of it, but in the end I definitely feel more confident, prepared, and knowledgeable and far less nervous about the experience than if I hadn't taken the class. I definitely recommend taking one for any new moms. Oh, and it was really neat too because at the beginning of tonight's class (which was on the same floor as the birth center) one of the husbands popped his head in and said he and his wife wouldn't be there tonight because they had had their baby yesterday. :) Kind of scary though... he said she was in labor for 43 hours, eek! 

Hmm, OK, I guess that's all for now. Adios!