75 Godiva St | Afternoon

[defenderofdesmoines]

You know that stage of moving where your major furniture is all set up, and you can technically live in your home, and you're considering maybe just that your life is cardboard boxes forever, and maybe they're actually sort of cute? Cardboardcore. Start a new trend.

Anyway.

"What should we actually do with all of these boxes when we're done?" Annie wondered, opening up yet another box of books. For such card-carrying members of Team Himbo, they had, like, way too many of these. Kindles for everyone before the next move. "Make a fort in the backyard?"

Aww. They had a backyard now.

[for the husband!]

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[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie adopted a wider-legged stance, bending her knees slightly, and rolled her shoulders -- you know, to get ready and in position for all this unpacking. "Ready. On three?"

She totally already had her first box picked out, too.

"One, two --"

[knife_bender]

Diego was off as soon as "three" was uttered, going for a box that he was fairly sure was full of his vast collection of black shirts. Nothing that had to be on a hanger, just shove it in drawers.

See, he was already thinking like a winner.

[defenderofdesmoines]

That was a solid strategy. Annie thought she had a pretty good idea here with starting with this box of her own shoes, since they could just be chucked neatly in vague pairs on the floor of the closet.

"Do we break down the boxes as we go?" she wondered, calling it loudly to be heard over the noise of her own thrown shoes.

[knife_bender]

“Later,” Diego said, grunting a little as he shoved all his shirts into one drawer. Seriously, did he need that many?

“But, yes, we don’t want to be the neighbors who are jerks about recycling.” He had a house for like a day and a half and already he was worried about impressing the neighbors.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"No, we have to be really awesome about recycling," Annie agreed, totally on that same we-have-a-house-now page. Plus it would help not clog up their basement with whatever cardboard they kept for these ambitious future children's art projects!

But in that case, she was just going to neatly pitch her newly-emptied box out into the hallway to clear the way to the next one, which held a lamp right on top.

Cool, this lamp went on the dresser now. Executive decision! And Annie was half-tempted to just keep going and not plug it in, but that actually did not feel like 'putting it away,' and she was all about keeping things fair.

[knife_bender]

They couldn't disappoint the hot firefighters next door!

Diego grabbed another box and opened it up. "Aw, man."

It was a bunch of Annie's lady stuff, like, accessories and shit. He didn't know where that went!

[defenderofdesmoines]

That was the beauty of the game! And at least Annie was still wearing her most important accessory -- her wedding band -- as her hands were not yet too swollen to wear it! Something fun to look forward to this summer!

But Annie had a fun box, since the lamp had actually come from a nightstand originally, and now she was pulling out other things from that same nightstand.

"Probably don't want to lose these," Annie teased, dangling a pair of handcuffs off a finger before dropping them on top of that same dresser.

Someone was totally cheating by just cluttering things on top of the dresser, now, yes. And also by being distractingly cute, or so she was angling for.

[knife_bender]

Diego looked over and laughed. "I mean, honey, I work at a police station."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"And I can break them without thinking about it, but that's not the point," Annie retorted, making sure those handcuffs were very safe and secure so he wouldn't have to bring more home to replace these. (Annie was also clinging to the idea that their days of mildly kinky sex weren't actually behind them, now that there were kids on the way, but that was a separate issue.) "Plus wouldn't you get questions from, like, Calvin if handcuffs started going missing around there?"

[knife_bender]

"Calvin can suck it," Diego said oh-so-maturely. He looked down at the box that was giving him trouble. "I have no idea what to do with this stuff."

It wasn't fair all he had was black clothing and knives, easy stuff!

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Wanna trade?" Annie replied, feeling generous. (Again, she knew no matter who 'won,' she was probably going to actually win the prize here, so that made it easy.) "This is all nightstand stuff. I think I see some ancient condoms in here."

Part of moving was packing trash and realizing you had to throw it away in the new place.

[knife_bender]

"No, no, I said I wouldn't take it easy on you so you shouldn't take it easy on me," Diego insisted. He pulled out what looked to be a dangerous weapon but was, in fact, a hair claw clip. "What the hell is this?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's for hair," Annie told him, miming a squeezing motion for him so he could see for himself how it worked. "And also for, like, pretending your hand is a dragon, sometimes."

The gift of imagination!

[knife_bender]

Diego popped open the claw hesitantly for a second, then becoming more confident after realizing he wasn't going to be break it. "Oh shit it's like a little langolier."

He snapped the clip open a couple times and made a 'rawr' sound like a big dork.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I have no idea what that is," Annie admitted, though it was more than a little fond as she watched him snap the clip around, "but you get it, that's totally how you play with it."

It was nice that these 'oh my god, this dork is going to have so much fun with his kids' moments didn't make her want to cry anymore. But that sentiment was still all over her face.

[knife_bender]

"It's a monster from a really bad TV movie," Diego shared. "I could've been sporting one of these when my hair was longer I would have been so fashionable."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's a shame you cut it before all the cool 90s stuff came back," Annie pointed out with a tsk. "We could have put it back in butterfly clips, too. And, more importantly, it keeps it off your face in addition to being cute."

[knife_bender]

"That bit of it was annoying," Diego admitted, tossing the clip back in the box. "Can we just say you win? This is already more than I want to do today."

They were going to be lucky if the house was unpacked by the time the twins came.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I think we can sleep in here the way it is," Annie decided after a moment's consideration, dropping a throw pillow back into the box she was unpacking since she didn't know where cute things like that would go yet. "We'll just have to chip away at it."

She kicked her box to the side lightly, crossing over to wrap her arms around Diego again. "Like how you eat an elephant, you know?"

[knife_bender]

"Is that a saying or did you pull that out of your ass?" Diego asked, putting his arms around her in return. It was kind of cute that there was a little bump separating them now.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"It's a saying," Annie replied, rolling her eyes at him and similarly still tracking the novelty of her teeny little bump closing the distance between them a bit earlier than she was used to.

Again: this summer was going to be a revelation for Annie, considering how fun her itty, bitty first-trimester bump was.

"You eat an elephant one bite at a time," she explained as she reached up to smooth a hand over his hair. "Same way we'll unpack these boxes: one at a time."

[knife_bender]

"I like that plan," he said, leaning in for a kiss. "Until we realize we packed something we need."

But that could turn into a fun game in itself.

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie leaned up into the kiss with a soft, happy sigh. "Well, that's when we rematch."

Just unpack this house in a series of insane box-unloading races.

"Or we get a new one." That option was also looking more and more appealing by the hour.

[knife_bender]

"Then we'll have more stuff to put away," Diego said with a grin. "I think the problem is we have too much stuff."

God, and they haven't even started buying two of every baby thing they needed.

[defenderofdesmoines]

And that was, honestly, the biggest reason Annie was irritated her mom kept buying things in pinks and blues. Shareable neutrals, Donna!

"I think we have just enough stuff," Annie countered, raising her eyebrows, "but you also might have a point. Maybe some of this unpacking is also a little...downsizing. 'Cause, like. We're super not done buying stuff, Diego."

And baby stuff -- weirdly! -- was both pretty bulky, and also legion.