Home Sweet Jungle Gym

The construction site that is my home has returned to its former chaotic state after a brief reprieve. While Hernan had work outside of the home for a few weeks, the place got tidied up a bit, but now he’s back in full force building a wooden deck and trying to get it done before my mother arrives… and before the baby arrives. That’s right: the race is on! How many fix-up project can we start and finish before jr. jumps on the scene? Bets?

So now, when I leave my little upstairs apartment to go downstairs to my in-laws’ place, I have to traverse an obstacle course of beams, wooden planks and scraps, power tools, cords, saws, nails, screws, levels, and other sundry objects of constructiony charm. I’m just a nine month pregnaz acrobat.

Let me see if I can explain. So, we’re building on top of my in-laws' place, a little casita of our own. This is because I’m American, and I want my “own” place. While our little casita isn’t as removed as my preference would have it (say, down the street), it's made my life a lot more comfortable as we have been able to build it.

We still really do live with my in-laws. I get in “trouble” if I don’t spend enough time downstairs, for example, and we eat all our meals downstairs with the family. Rather than saying we have our "own" place, it's more like an extra-fancy upstairs bedroom with it’s own bathroom and kitchenette.

When exiting our place, we had to immediately take four (nowhere near up to code) steps down to the slopey roof that has been our “patio”. Then we would walk a few feet across the slopey roof to the steep, metal “staircase” (ladder) that takes us downstairs. To get to Hernan’s little brother’s bedroom, which is also upstairs, we would go down those first steps, up and across the slopey roof, and then up one big step to the not-slopey roof and enter his bedroom through a door there. So his room is at almost the same level as our place, but you have to do some up and down work to get there.

Since my mother is coming out to visit next week and will be staying in my brother-in-law’s bedroom, and because it would be chill to have a non-sloping patio, Hernan felt it was really important to make a level patio over the slopey roof, such that the ups and downs and tricky dance moves that are currently required would be reduced to maybe an easy step or two.

SO, the construction site has returned. It's a good challenge. If I should ever be on one of those physical challenge shows, in which the contestants have to scale walls and jump across slippery, floating foam pads, and other ridiculousness, and all the contestants are preggers, I'll totally win.