Just some baby stuff

When I was pregnant with Gabriel, his defining characteristic was that he got the hiccups. All the time, all day long. But I don't remember him moving around very much at night.

This baby (and we have picked out a name but are going to wait to tell everybody except for Gabriel), has had the hiccups a few times in the past few weeks. But his defining characteristic is that he likes to move. Especially at night. All. Night. Long. Which both thrills me and wears me out a little. And it's not just in one spot, so either he's huge already or he really knows how to get around in there. So I can pretty much guarantee he already has his days and nights mixed up.

Gabriel has started saying good morning and good night to his baby brother and kissing my belly. It's really sweet and I think he's starting to grasp what's happening and get excited about it. On PBS there is a little daycare-like setting in between shows where they teach preschool type things. One day recently they were supposed to make a scrapbook with pictures showing what made them different from other kids. At one point the teacher asked the kids at home if they have any brothers or sisters and Gabriel shouted YES!.

Pretty cool.

Big boy bed!

We finally put together Gabriel's bed Sunday, and I was (of course) a little apprehensive about how he would adapt. Even though we've been talking it up for weeks, he seemed a tiny bit worried when they started taking down his crib. But when Jav and his Dad started bringing the pieces of the new bed in, he started to get excited and even wanted to help. I caught him at one point in the kitchen banging on the wall with a REAL hammer, luckily before any damage was done. The first night I woke up once an hour thinking he might be scared or confused. But he's been doing great, and sleeping all the way through the night and having pretty good naps too. So far he's still waiting for me to come and get him out of it in the mornings, but yesterday he was already on the floor playing after he woke up from his nap. He's pictured above with his two Curious Georges, one of which belong back at his grandmothers house. They are his best buddies right now.

Busy, busy, busy

I feel like our house is just a nonstop whirlwind of activity lately. There seems to be so much going on.

I'm fully within the nesting phase right now. I'm having Jav rearrange furniture in the whole house, not just kid rooms. I've decided you need to live in a house at least three or four years before you should buy any new furniture. Some of our early big and bulky purchases just don't work in our rather small family area, due to some strange quirks in our house. One is the angled fireplace. It's pretty to look at, but it cuts off an entire chunk of the room and really limits our space. Another is the floor being at a slightly different level halfway across the living room (which used to be two rooms until previous owners decided to take the wall out). The result of these two things is that we're having to try out different arrangements of the furniture to see if anything works best.

I've got several other projects going right now. I'm trying to clean out closets, drawers and cabinets to make room for baby stuff. I had 7 bags of clothes and other stuff that I gave away with the first sweep, and I'll have another 6 or so for this coming Friday. I'm also working on trying to catch up and straighten up our pictures. We had saved some to one website, and the rest to another. So now I've got them all in one place, and all backed up to an external drive. I still need to catch up on copying the last-year ones from the computer to both places now. THEN I need to figure out which ones we've printed out and which ones never got printed. THEN I want to start putting them in albums, in our hallway gallery, and into a makeshift scrap/baby book for Gabriel. All before the next one arrives. Good luck with all that.

Gabriel's birthday is fast approaching, though, so the month of September I'll stop doing all of this and concentrate on getting the house and yard ready for his birthday party. This is always a great excuse to do some Fall cleaning. I want to clean the windows, inside and out, clean blinds and cabinets and baseboards and ceiling fans, hose off the front and back porch, and wipe down all of our wood furniture with lemon oil. Since I am moving slower than normal, this will take me the entire six Mother's Day Out days I'll have until his party.

His theme this year is dinosaurs, but the only things I'm really incorporating that into are the centerpiece for the cake, the actual cake and a pinata. We're working on his gifts, and finally decided to chock up the money for a swing set this year. His Godparents are going in on it with us, and (God bless 'em) have agreed to come and help Jav put it together. He's going to be so excited!!!

Mother's Day Out starts back up on September 8th, and I think I have all my ducks in a row ready for it. I got my immunization update signed by his doctor, and we'll go "meet" his teacher on September 2nd. The assistant teacher from his class last year will be his main teacher this year - yay! He absolutely loved Ms. Amy, so I know he's going to be fine.

So I'm trying to do all of this, plus walk Molly three mornings a week and do my pregnancy yoga fat-burning DVD three times a week. And do you know that the nurse practitioner at my OB/GYN had the nerve to suggest I might want to try 7 days of exercise to slow down my weight gain? Is she nuts?

End of summer fun

They've been replacing our sewer pipes and Gabriel's been in absolute heaven! These were taken after the guys went home a few nights ago.

He wanted me to take his picture with Molly after running around in the water yesterday.

He looks so big to me all of a sudden!

Late birthday pics

Sandra and boyfriend (and gourmet cook) Michael, who made a birthday lunch for me that was wonderful.

Our little prodigy, who never really just bangs the keys, but seems to have a plan every time he sits down at the piano. One day I'd love to find a used piano on Craig's List.

Luckily he at least waited until the candles were blown out before licking the icing off of them!

Gabriel and his Tito. I think he was begging for even more cake.

Love, love, love this boy!

Poignant moments

We don't have many channels that we regularly check on TV. We have a tendency to stick to Public TV, Turner Classic Movies, Independent Film Channel, ESPN (Javi, not me so much), Bravo, and TLC. That's pretty much all we surf if we're not watching something on the DVR or a Ranger game. Last night, I was checking these and happened on a concert on KERA, our Public TV station. It was Chris Botti, who is a trumpet player that is popular on "Smooth Jazz" stations, I believe. I'm not a fan of smooth jazz-it's one of the few genres I just can't get into. But I stayed with it because the female guest that came out was singing "I've Got You Under My Skin", and he had a great Big Band and Orchestra behind him, and I'm a sucker for those kinds of tunes. We found out afterwards she was Kathryn McPhee, who was a runner up on American Idol one year. The music was good, but the cheesy flirting between she and Botti drove me a little nuts and we decided to watch one of our 15 episodes that we are behind on The Office. I'm not sure why we stopped watching it last year, but we did, and now we're trying to get caught up before the new season starts.

When we finished our episode, the show was still on, with Yo Yo Ma playing a number with Botti. I love Yo Yo Ma, and think he is one of the greatest artists of our time, but the song was ending and Jav had to ruin what was left by asking, "Is that Yo Yo Ma Ma?" which is what he thought his name was for the longest time. And I think he thought he was a rapper instead of a cellist. Anyway, we were about to change the channel when the next special guest to walk out was Steven Tyler. Yep, that one. The androgynous, flamboyant lead singer for Aerosmith? And as of late has been in the news for falling off the stage during a concert? (It's tough being a aging rock star). Well, as he strutted to the front of the stage carrying his signature bandana wrapped microphone, we were intrigued, to say the least, to see what would happen. What happened was one of the most moving and surprising performances I've seen in a while, and one I won't ever forget. He sang the song "Smile", a beautiful song that Charlie Chaplin wrote the music for and used in the movie Modern Times. The lyrics are trying to get you to just smile even though your heart is breaking, so for me it ends up being a really sad song. Tyler put so much feeling into that song I can't even describe it, and his voice sounded so clear. They kept showing the front row of the mostly late middle-aged to elderly audience as he sang, and I thought, "I bet they were dreading this part of the show, but they all look as surprised as I am". When he finished he introduced his Dad, who had been one of those elderly gentlemen in that row, and I actually got teary-eyed. I have a newfound respect for the man.

Forty-two, fat and happy

I had a great birthday yesterday.  I was originally dreading this birthday, because a year ago I knew we would probably stop trying to have another kid and that made me sad.  Little did I know what life had in store for me!

I started out my day with a nice walk with Molly, something that always gives me energy and makes me happy.  We're not going as long as we used to, but I'm still managing to get out there with her three times a week, and plan to continue that unless someone tells me not to.  When I got home, I checked my computer and found lots of really sweet birthday wishes on Facebook, which made me feel really good.

Gabriel and I shared our bowl of yogurt, blueberries and granola while watching Elmo, something that has become a nice routine during the summer.  My Mom came over and we three went to the mall to get Gabriel's big-boy comforter ordered, and since sheets were on sale I took care of those too.  I also had to buy a few more t-shirts in larger sizes to get me through the next four (you've got to be kidding me) months.  

Mom took us out to lunch at Chili's, where Gabriel ate almost all of his quesadilla and most of his Mandarin oranges.  Mom and I chose burgers (there's no where else that does them better, I think) and fries.  Then we went back home and had big bowls of cookies and cream ice cream.  We were all three very full but very happy campers!  

Gabriel took a nap, which is touch and go these days.  Which meant I got one too.  Our therapy coordinator LaToya came after we woke up and was as excited as I've been about Gabriel's speech improving exponentially the past week.  It's looking more and more like we might not need more therapy after he ages-out of their program in September.  Gabriel even requested and sang his favorite current song while she was here:  Happy Together by the Turtles.  

Then Gabriel and I cuddled up on my bed and watched The Wizard of Oz.  I know I'm supposed to be rationing his viewings, but hey, it was my birthday.  He had his head on my shoulder and the baby started kicking, and I felt so amazingly happy I could have cried.  The only thing missing was my wonderful husband, who was on his way bringing dinner home.  And I continued to get birthday wishes from friends and family all day long, ending with Macy's phone call in her sweet little voice telling me happy birthday and that she was watching The Cat in the Hat.

After our Chic-Fil-A feast (I was good and had a wrap and carrot salad, ok and maybe a couple of Gabriel's waffle fries), it was time for cards and gifts.  But the best part was hearing Gabriel sing happy birthday to me for the first time.  I was also pretty excited about getting one of the things on my list - a croquet set!  I foresee hours of fun when the family comes over, it brings back so many memories of the fun we used to have at my grandparents' playing.  Plus it's one of the few games I can actually play right now!

After we got Gabriel to sleep, Jav and I watched the Ranger game, playing in probably the most important series of this season against the Angels.  But both pitchers were working slow as Christmas, and it turned into a very long game.  So I worked my crossword until I fell asleep, and I'm not sure if they won or not.  

But even if they didn't, I'd still say I had a perfect day yesterday.  Who knew forty-two could be this great?