Baby Watch & House Dilemma

As always, I have an article due tomorrow, and I am blogging to warm up my writing brain.

So what's been going on aside from my non-stop growing?

Well the baby's been moving--really kicking up a storm in there, making the rounds of my belly. Baby usually starts out mid-tummy, making me aware of its presence with a well-aimed kick (and to think these are just tiny, 5-month-old baby kicks! what more when baby's almost due?). Then baby starts trawling the bottom of my belly, moving side to side, nudging my bladder. I like that the least.

Funny thing is, at my last OB visit last month, I couldn't feel baby move at all. "You mean you can't feel anything, even a flicker?" asked my OB in disbelief. And instantly I felt like, what kind of mother am I, can't even feel my baby move! "Well, maybe she's shy," said the OB, with what I felt was doubt in her voice (but that's paranoid me talking). "Try playing faster music."

I'd been playing a lot of classical music lately (good thing I enjoy classical and the opera). But one day after my OB visit, I decided to play Everything But the Girl's Home Movies album. And all of a sudden, I felt a sort of weird gurgling, bubbly feeling in my belly. Baby finally moved! And hasn't stopped moving since. Apparently classical puts baby to sleep; she prefers EBTG (particularly Apron Strings), U2, a little Bob Marley, some Jars of Clay, Brazilian-percussion-heavy music. This is my kind of baby! The Hubby was excited to feel baby move. You can really feel the kicks when you put your hand over my belly!

We're going for an ultrasound this weekend, hopefully we'll know if baby is Trist or Raine. Would be great to finally refer to baby by name and correct pronoun. I'm excited!

We have to decide how to set up the house soon. Right now, our second bedroom is our office-cum-guestroom. It has its own bathroom, but it's weirdly cut up, so it seems to have less floorspace than the other room, which we currently use as our bedroom. We were thinking of converting the office into our bedroom, and our bedroom into the nursery-guestroom (it's usually my mom and sister who stays over anyway). But where to put the office? With the bed in here, there won't be space for much, let alone two desks with two desktops, two laptops and a plethora of peripherals.

It would look terrible to put the office in the living area, which is tiny as it is. Unless we totally cut down on hardware. Can we survive with a laptop each and a desktop as Hubby's server? Probably. But what about the printer, scanner, humongous fax? I am so terrible at space planning and interior decorating. Which is why more than five months after we've moved in, I still have several boxes of unpacked things!

I was thinking I'd probably have baby in our room till the sixth month, then move him into his own room after. So we could still stay in our current bedroom, which has more space for the crib (our crib is a huge heirloom one, which used to belong to my dad!). But wouldn't it be harder to move rooms and rearrange and all that when the baby is here already? I was hoping to have the nursery set up by February. Right now our walls are plain white. I want a colorful mural on the walls of baby's room. And we'd need some cabinets installed in there. I am also planning to put my ever-so-comfy-ever-so reliable sofa bed (desperately in need of a paint over and new upholstery though!) in the nursery. I suppose I can nap there once in awhile, and guests still can have some privacy. Hmm. What else does a nursery need? And how do we solve the displaced office dilemma?

Argh! Can anyone help me out here?