Our house is a little schizophrenic tonight: the front room is echoingly empty, while every other room is more or less untouched. It's like our living room stuff was repossessed by clutter-loving elves. Maybe they liked the sofa.

It's been a very long day. We got up at 7 to pack, clean & disassemble the front room - and despite the usual strains of moving day, we managed to get through the entire waking round without a single argument or bout of silent hostility. (I suppose we got it all out of our systems last night, when we screamed at each other for 15 minutes.) I've discovered that my old system (pack far into the night, then move in the late morning) is vastly inferior to my new system: go to bed early and pack in the morning. Maybe this has something to do with my general energy levels as a very pregnant chick, but I make shitty decisions at night and good decisions in the morning, so I might as well play to my strengths. And besides - I can rarely sleep past 8 a.m. anyway, despite the fact that I've been off work for a week.

Dirk & St. Pete came over to help with the schlepping, and were treated to both barrels of my grandmother, who was winterizing the garden when we arrived at my parents' house. I sat in the basement and directed traffic, as I was certainly unfit to carry boxes (yay!) I also did a load of tiny baby clothes, just in case the Sprout decided to show up today (I have a pimple in the exact same spot as I did when I found out that I was pregnant...omen?) We got our cargo into the Cave relatively quickly, and I drove the boys back home so that Pete could practice an atrocious cat duet and Dirk could read "The Odyssey."

Coming back to Mt. Olympus gave me a grim sort of satisfaction; the fact that we haven't left for good must be breaking FCN's shrivelled raisin of a heart. I can't wait until the coming week. I'm sure I'll get both barrels of her dissatisfaction, and then maybe I'll actually call the cops (instead of just threatening it).

We had a very good "home visit" with Hectate on Thursday. (I put "home visit" in quotation marks because it actually took place at Loftwyr & Gilamonstre's house, which is where we plan to labour & babymoon in the absence of our own Toronto address.) Gila, having done paramedic work in the past, was fascinated by the whole midwifey approach and she asked lots of curious questions as Hectate worked. Loftwyr came in after climbing, and the four of us talked until far too late for a weeknight. Despite my mother's apprehensions, I feel utterly comfortable with the idea of sweating, labouring & otherwise kipping out with the Sprout in this house. It's patently ridiculous, considering that I'm slow to warm up to people & I've known these two for a very short time, but there you go. Our biggest source of conflict is the perpetual accommodation dance that women do with one another, the "how can I take care of myself so I don't put you out/how can I take care of you while you're in my house" cha cha that makes ordinary chicks into disturbing xeroxes of Donna Reed. It's amazing how worked up one can get with the effort to be nurturing.

Booty Call: Day 253 - Baby is fairly plump now & seems to have no intention of leaving. I can & do use my belly as a battering ram against the Boy.