What's in a name?

We're getting ready for baby sister to get here! I started the weekly OB appointments today and next week we'll have the ultrasound to check her position. We'll have them double check "her" too - would hate to have all the girly stuff washed and ready only to be surprised by a he. Not to mention the turmoil of name selection that we'd endure. It's hard enough narrowing down the selection with only one gender to worry about! Speaking of, we've put our poll up! Vote to the right =====> and feel free to leave thoughts in the comments. [legal disclaimer: results of poll in no way determine the actual final name of the baby girl. so no need to stuff the ballot for or against any particular name. ahem. you know who you are.] Sorry to say, we found other options besides Dijionnaise.

Miles played hide and seek at The Little Gym on Monday and loved it. He was really into being quiet and still, waiting for Ms. Stephanie to find him. But we'll need to work on the concept of hiding. While at the Gym, he did get partly behind a mat; but tonight when hiding from daddy, well, he couldn't see daddy and that's what mattered!

Wide Open Space

Phase two-ish of the kitchen remodel has begun! While it has been a month since the first phase was in progress, we have had a functional kitchen and haven't been totally disrupted by mess. And even this won't be a total disruption, just a little messy with more drywall sanding, paint, etc going on. And look at the change with just one day! The wall is gone and the part that will become the banquette seat back is framed. The space looks huge!!!

When Wayne got home, the running joke for about half an hour was Miles shrugging his shoulders, saying "Where's the wall, daddy? Who took the wall?" And giggling. He was pretty amazed when he woke up from his nap and saw it done. Oh, the other thing to note is that the sink came in! (If you click on the photo it may enlarge enough for you to see.) It is set and the counter people came to make the template today. So fingers crossed for quick turnaround on that and then the actual "kitchen" part will be - dare I say? - done! We may beat baby sister here yet!

Speaking of baby sister, she's had a big week. Last Saturday several of my college friends came in town for a fun little shower. It was lots of fun catching up and reminiscing about life before we all had kids! Then at our Wednesday playgroup, the other moms threw a surprise shower. Miles has enjoyed seeing all of baby sister's new things, although I think he has wanted to confiscate a few items for himself.

a few odds & ends:

.: I almost don't want to say it for fear of a jinx, but my **ack-bay ain-pay** has generally gone away. I still have the waddle, no doubt there, but walking around is muuuuch easier.

.: Tuesday we had an ice-day from school. We played in our indoor fort and Miles texted all his buddies from school. Hee hee!

.: Miles just woke up in the middle of his nap and was so excited to tell me a story. It was about how his puppy dog picked and apple and shared it with black bear, and then brown bear put a piece in his (Miles') mouth. Oh, and one of the bears was riding on puppy dog's back. These are just some of the characters in his dreams, based on the stuffed animals he sleeps with. He also sleeps with an elephant, a fox and several construction trucks, so I can't wait to hear that story.

.: As I've been told by my friends, baby girl clothes mean trouble! I've needed to get Miles some bigger stuff, but just can't seem to walk out without cute stuff for her too. Help!! The only consolation is that it's deep discount after season sales.

.: and I promise, a name poll is coming very soon. We're whittling it down and have some good contenders. Maybe this week!!

Yippee!!!

After almost a full month, we finally have our new oven!! Of course we haven't cooked in it yet because we had to burn off the new oven smell, but it's here. Also, the sink is supposedly in town, so we can finally get our counters in process... hopefully that will take on the short end of the estimated 2-4 weeks. Although I have gotten used to our nice wood counters, maybe we should just seal them and move on. Would be a lot less expensive...

Today was the last day of Miles' Little Gym class, and he beat all those other punk kids for the medal! Just kidding, they each got to stand on the podium and get their prize. Doesn't he look like such a big kid in that picture?? We start the new session on Monday, and Miles moves up to the Super-Beast class. Roar!

To celebrate our big day (and since I couldn't bake yet) we hit our fave pizza place for dinner. Miles enjoyed a PB & honey sandwich, which he dipped in ketchup. We stopped trying to talk him out of it after he downed a few sections - I figured he'd quit eating it if it were really bad. Maybe I just need to serve all his meals with ketchup?

Hangin' in there

So the back/leg pain is still there. It migrates around, but pretty much every step I take is a little painful. I finally got around to scheduling the massage, and I've been working on Miles climbing up into his car seat on his own. But now Miles has started saying that "baby sister is hurting mommy." Yes, but I don't want him to start being mad at her already!!

But when daddy gets home, mommy gets to go off duty. His favorite evening activity is holding daddy hostage inside his "house" - one of the cardboard boxes from the cabinets. They color and read and play trucks, as well as lean on th sides, caving it in. They also like to close the doors and say "Where's Miles?" which is the prompt for me to go "hunting" for my lost boys until they burst out and yell BOO!!!! But as you can see, it's a little tough for 6'4" daddy to stay scrunched in that box for too long.

After that, the reading marathon begins. Thankfully we're beyond the 12 readings of the same story in one night, but we do read 5-6 books at bedtime. Here are some of those in heavy rotation right now:
.: "Bad Dog, Marley" by John Grogan (every day, many times a day. He loves yelling BAD! DOG! MARLEY!)
.: "A Mud Pie for Mother" by Scott Beck (He can almost "read" this one to us entirely)
.: "Llama, Llama Red Pajama" by Anna Dewdney
.: "Momma Will You" by Dori Chaconas
.: "How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight" by Jane Yolen
.: and "If you Give a Mouse/Pig a Cookie/Pancake" by Laura Numeroff are back in favor too.

And finally, I am in no way getting into politics on this blog, but Goodyblog had a link to this great site that matches you up with the candidate whose views are closest to your own. The nice thing about this one is that when it asks your opinion on a subject, it links to the Wikipedia article explaining in more detail. It then breaks down your three closest matches by issue. Even if you think you know who you like best, give it a shot!

Spies Like Us

I found a video baby monitor at a consignment sale last fall and Wayne and I finally set it up. I hope I can capture some of the feed to post here, because watching Miles "fall asleep" this week has been hysterical. About three seconds after we leave the room, he pops up and starts arranging his pillows, bears, trucks, blankets, whatever. He shoves most of the items under the covers by his feet. He rolls the trucks down the mattress. He'll sit there playing and mindlessly call out "Mom-my, where ARE you?" over and over. Finally he'll just lay down and call out a few more times. We were cracking up.

It's a good thing he still stays in bed, though, as I can no longer pick him up to put him back. My back is in massive protest over carrying another child around. I'm no longer Igor, but the pain has migrated around to right around my tailbone. I called the O.B. and they had me come in just to make sure nothing was happening - like, oh, labor. All was fine there. Her professional treatment opinion? Go get a massage. Um, I can do that. Of course it will take a few days to get one on the schedule. Since my next stop was the mall (to replace all Miles' high-water 2Ts with 3T pants) I made a detour to Brookstone, and without any shame plopped down into the chair with the iNeed and iSqueeze. Ahh! It was sweet relief, but alas, only temporary. By the time I made it through Gap Kids and Children's Place, I was achy again. Oh well, nothing that having a baby won't cure.

What other big excitement is happening? Hmmm... New Hampshire? the other Nicole? my newest must-read? oh yeah, it's my birthday! Thanks so much for all the cards, calls and e-mails, everybody made my day so great. I was even serenaded three times! Once by my niece and nephew, Aunt Elizabeth and YaYa, later by my dad, and finally a few times by my wonderful boys. Miles drew me a pretty card and gave me some beautiful roses. Daddy (Wayne) cheated on our "the kitchen counts for everything" deal and gave me a beautiful amethyst necklace - baby girl's birthstone! Wow! And I didn't even hit one of the milestone years.

No offense honey, but probably the best gift of the day - at least the one that made me shriek with joy - was from a total stranger. Kitchenaid is replacing our oven!! It shorted out upon installation over TWO weeks ago, but they wanted to try and repair it first, despite my concerns over the unit's safety. A part needed to repair is on backorder, so they called and said they wouldn't make me wait and would arrange for the dealer to get me a new one!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!! Okay, yes that made my day because now I can quit stressing over it. I'd been on the phone all day yesterday with a bunch of people, even e-mailed a friend who works for Ferguson in Detroit to get on their case.

This is getting long, but I have one last quick thing - we had to toss out an entire baby name book tonight because I found the entry Dijonaise in it. No lie. The "meaning" was given as "Condiment; combination of Dijon and mayonnaise." Seriously, that nullified every other entry in the book. Sheesh!

a new start

Since we're not going to be just about gettin' more Miles soon, I've been trying to come up with a new blog name. I think I finally have it:

.: It's All Brand New :.

I was inspired partly by the new year, and also by some other bloggers writing about their word for 2008. We have so much *new* going on right now.... New Year: 2008; a new year of life for mommy starts 1/8; new kitchen in progress; new baby on the way; new sister officially on 4/12... the list can go on. But I also think being with Miles so much through the day emphasizes to me how we could all look at day-to-day life. I love when he discovers something and says "Oh, mommy, look!" Things as cool as a big excavator now working down the street; simple finds like a seeing new things in well-loved book illustrations. Just 2 seconds ago he ran up to me wearing daddy's cap, the biggest grin spread across his face. I hope everyday for him (and all of us) is filled with the joy of discovering new and wondrous things in God's great world.


Enough waxing poetic! Happy January 5th! Along with some other bloggers, I'm also making a goal of a photo-a-day for the year. I easily amass 365+ photos during the year (that could be in one month!), but they're often spread over events, not just day to day life. So we'll see how it goes, I've already missed one day (Jan. 3). I probably won't post my daily photo(s), but try to do a monthly wrap-up. But here's today's: lunch at Aubrey's. It wasn't our first lunch stop, both of the first two were closed!! Hopefully we're not jinxing our favorite places.

Happy New Year! (+3)

So I can't blog right on New Year's Day, I guess there's nothing wrong there. We were caught up in the fun! We had our Christmas visit from Mimi and PawPaw, and Miles got to open a second round of presents. His new favorite is the Jr. Doctor kit - he goes around poking us with the thermometer, taking our temperature then saying "Daddy, you're all better" as if he's magically cured us of whatever ailed us.






I can now share the "big" gift that the grandparents got this year - a Blog book! I had ordered one for us in the fall and we thought it turned out so well we wanted to share. The site I used made it really easy, I just had to add higher resolution photos so they would print on full pages like I wanted. I covered the start of the blog through Miles's 2nd birthday, and it was a pretty hefty coffee table book size. So for any of you other bloggers out there, I definitely recommend their blog slurping service!


Not much else happening right now. I've taken down all the Christmas decor, which Miles misses terribly. We had to tell him that everything had to go home to the North Pole, but will be back next year, which I think he accepted. He's starting to focus on baby sister quite a bit, but I can tell at times he absolutely does not want to talk about her. The best time is bedtime, when I start singing his lullaby. It's a round of "mommy loves Miles, daddy loves Miles, baby sister loves Miles..." etc. etc. through the list of extended family, then reversed to "Miles loves Mommy, Miles loves Daddy, Miles loves baby sister...." Whew, it can get long. But recently when I say baby sister, he pops up and states "Mommy gonna feed her? Mommy gonna carry her through the mess? Miles gonna hold her like dis." Then he scoops up his bear and starts to sway veeeery slowly. Very sweet. And a good delay tactic for bedtime! (Oh, the "carry her through the mess" bit is leftover from the early kitchen work, when we wouldn't let Miles near the demolition and insisted that we carry him through the mess!)

Speaking of baby sister, all is well there. I had been concerned that she was breech, based on the feeling of hiccups and kicks in different places. But now I'm pretty sure she's flipped down. We'll see in about 4 weeks when I get my ultrasound. The only bad thing happening is that she's riding my sciatic nerve so badly that I'm literally dragging around like Igor. Good times.

We are working on names, and will probably do our poll like we did last time. (Of course last time the highest vote getter wasn't the choice, so any results should be seen taken with a grain of salt.) Check back for that fun game!!