Saturday, February 12, 2022- 5 Weeks

It's nearly nine and Sheldon is still in bed. He missed Dr. Who; I was already up when he would normally be waking up for a Saturday and tried waking him, but he pulled the blanket over his head.

I know he's been working on a list of things we need to do before our family grows. I've been working on one, as well, and I'm pretty sure the same thing is at the top of both our lists: a bigger place to live. I love our apartment; it's just far too small for us to bring a baby home to. It was during the lockdowns two years ago that we realized just how small it is and how little space we have here. We discussed moving then, ultimately deciding to stay here until we had a reason to need more room. I've been looking at listings in the area for a few days and made a few appointments to view my favorites today. If Sheldon ever wakes up, that is.

I'm double-checking the times and locations when I hear movement in the bedroom. Sheldon is finally awake. He shuffles into the living room, still tying his bathrobe. "Morning," he stoops to kiss my cheek. "How did you sleep?"

"Good. Same as always. You slept in. Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes," he answers, pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He sits across from me at the table. I watch him eat, I try to not be too obvious, but he notices within minutes, "Why are you staring at me?"

There's going to be no better time than now to tell him what I have planned for us today. "We both have lists of things that need to be done before October. I don't know the order of your list, but the top thing on my list is we need someplace bigger to live. This apartment is just too small for us to have a baby. We talked about buying a house after we won the Nobel, then the pandemic happened and you wanted to wait to move or have a baby or anything."

"I agree." I let out a breath. "Have you given any thought to what we might need? Do you want to move to a bigger apartment or should we buy a house? I think we should look for something with at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms."

Wow. He's given this more thought than I have. I didn't have a minimum number of bedrooms or bathrooms. I was looking for places that were close to the university. "I'd rather we buy a house if you're open to it. I want to bring this baby home to the house they're going to grow up in. I don't want us to have to move again. I don't know what you had planned for today, but I made a few appointments for us to look at houses in the area this afternoon. They're all within two miles of the university and on bus lines you're familiar with."

Sheldon finishes his cereal and drops the spoon in the bowl. "Can I see the information for the houses you want us to look at?" I turn my computer toward him with the browser already open. He's silent, clicking between the tabs. He mumbles to himself before closing the screen. "What time is the first appointment?"

"Eleven. I didn't know how long each one would take, so the appointments are at eleven, one-thirty, three, and five. I know this is going to take the entire day, but maybe we'll find our dream house today."

I follow Sheldon off the elevator after a long, defeating day of looking at houses. The homes I chose for us to look at were much smaller than I imagined them to be. I could sense Sheldon was growing tired with each house. This took far longer than I thought, and we missed our third appointment. The last house was one that I could see us living in, but not long-term. I'd expect us to be wanting to move within five years if we purchased it.

Sheldon and I are quiet with our thoughts as he prepares dinner. It's when we sit down to eat that I finally say what I've been thinking. "What if we don't find something?"

"We'll find something; if we don't, we'll build something." Sheldon looks at me from across the table. "Well, we won't be doing the building, but we can hire someone to build our perfect home."

"Really?" I hadn't considered us having a house built.

He shrugs his shoulders, like it wasn't a big deal. "I think building a house might be almost easier than buying one. We can select the location, the floorplan, everything. We should make a list of what we'd like in a house to make the search easier."

Sheldon and I continue our meal without another word regarding the need for bigger living quarters. We wash the dishes and clean the kitchen before Sheldon collects the laundry hamper from our bedroom. He leaves, only to return a few minutes later. Not expecting him to come back so soon, I was still getting settled on the couch, searching for something to watch. He drops next to me, a notebook in his hand. "Let's make that list. Where should we look for a house?"

"What?" I sit up straight, surprised he wanted to talk about this tonight. I thought for sure he would want to take a few days to get over the stress of today.

"Where should we look for a house? Do you want to stay in Pasadena? You seemed to like living in Glendale. Is there a maximum distance you would like to be from the university?" He rapid fires these questions at me.

I watch him watch me, pen in his hand, poised to jot my response. "Um," I want to make this process easy for Sheldon. "I don't think I'd like to be more than fifteen miles from work. It should be close to a bus line or one of our friends for you to easily get to work while I'm on maternity leave."

He takes note of my request. "I think we should look for a house with at least three bedrooms, preferably four or more."

"Four bedrooms?" That sounds like a lot for us. I don't think we need that many bedrooms.

Sheldon senses my uncertainty and elaborates, "We'll take the master bedroom, obviously. This baby will need a room. That gives us two extra rooms that we can use as a guest room for when my mother visits, or as a home office so I could have a space to set up my whiteboards and work from home while you're on maternity leave, or have an extra room so our children don't have to share a room as they grow up if we have twins."

Damn him and his logic. These are all really good points that I have to agree with. "Okay. At least four bedrooms. I know most houses in the area have one, I would like a garage, preferably attached so I don't have to go out in the heat or cold to put the baby in the car or make it easier to bring things in from the car." I've never lived somewhere I've been able to park my car in the garage. A new car was the one big expense Sheldon and I easily agreed on after winning the Nobel. I'd like to not have it exposed to the elements more than necessary.

"Okay," he looks at the notes in front of him. "We should discuss finances and the expenses that come with owning a home. Yardwork, for example. I don't plan on mowing the lawn, so we'll need to pay someone to do that. I also don't want us to have a pool, not only for the safety aspect, but pools are quite expensive to maintain. We can use some of our Nobel money for the down payment, but not all of it. I know we used a portion of it for fertility treatments, but I would like to be conservative with what we have left."

This is something that came up frequently when we were researching fertility treatments. We'd invested a good portion of our money and wanted to maintain that for our retirement or god-forbid an emergency that requires us to have access to a large sum of money. "Okay. Should we get pre-approved for a mortgage? Would that help us know the maximum we can spend on a house?"

"I'll call the bank first thing Monday morning to find out what we need to do for that." Sheldon lights up at this. While I shouldn't have sprung this on him the way I did this morning, he seems excited about it now that we've discussed it. I watch him place the notebook on the coffee table before he excuses himself to finish the laundry.

I slip into bed and wait for Sheldon to finish in the bathroom. He joins me and we kiss goodnight. I roll over and click off the lamp on my side of the bed. As I shift to find a comfortable sleeping position, I hear Sheldon turning the pages of a book, his bedside lamp still on. I flip over to face him. "Is the light keeping you up? I can go in the living room."

He starts to move to get out of bed, but I reach out to stop him. "Don't go." He's reopening the book when I ask, "Are you okay with everything? I've noticed you haven't been keeping to the schedule that you've followed for longer than I've known you. You slept through Dr. Who this morning. You started laundry late last Saturday. You didn't join the guys for new comic book night on Wednesday."

Sheldon shifts, sitting upright, resting against the pillows. "The last time there was a big change to my schedule was when we started living together. That was a sudden and unexpected change for me, but it ended up being one of the best things to ever happen, despite my not being so sure about it initially. I'm excited for us to become parents; I really am, but this is another huge change for me," he quietly admits. "I know things won't always go according to schedule after the baby is born. There will be nights we're up all night and the baby will finally go to sleep at five am. I'm not going to want to wake up at six to watch Dr. Who. I'm sure there will be other nights when the baby wants a few extra cuddles before bed, so laundry is going to get started a little late."

"Sheldon," I sigh at the thought of him putting our baby to bed. Our friends might give Sheldon a hard time and say he's an emotionless robot, but he is anything but. He's going to be an amazing father who loves his child.

"We acknowledged many things would be changing when we decided to start a family. I've spent a lot of time thinking about those changes, ever since we started trying over a year ago. I want to be as prepared as possible, starting with small adjustments to my schedule."

I rest my head against his shoulder, looking up at him. "I love you," I softly kiss his lips. "Is there anything I can do to make this transition easier for you? I'm sorry for springing house hunting on you this morning. We should've discussed it first and picked houses to look at together."

Sheldon snakes his arm behind my back, his hand resting on my arm. I feel him rub his thumb on the outside of my bicep. "It's okay. It was good practice for me to have an unexpected thing take up my entire day. I think we were both getting frustrated with the process, but we talked about it when we got home and learned a lot about what we want in a house."

"We did, didn't we?" I stifle a yawn before sliding down the pillows. I roll on my side, facing away from Sheldon. He turns off the light on his side of the bed and I feel him settle behind me, pulling me close and resting his arm over me, with his hand carefully placed on my lower abdomen.