Looking like his daddy

Name suggestions

I just wanted to thank everyone for their name suggestions. Bryce and I both looked at all of them, and come to the same general consensus on each one. I do now have what I think is a perfect, wonderful name for the new baby, but it's possible I may change my mind once I look into his wee little eyes. For that reason, and also to avoid any rude reactions we may get - which always irritate me - we are keeping it secret until he comes. I'm not flattering myself that everyone is just dying to know the baby's name, but I wanted to acknowledge the suggestions and thanks for the help!

Update

1. Bryce was not home early from work yesterday. In fact he was quite late. But he's going to go in late tomorrow. Because...
2. ...while Fynn is better, Ewan is not. He's already sicker than Fynn was.

*Sigh*

Good things

To make up for my earlier rant, and to put myself in a better mood after Fynn threw up again all over his crib and bedding, and Ewan had an accident on the floor, I'll now post some things that are good right now and that I am grateful for.


1. John showing up to pick Ben up a little early, bearing an ice-cold 20 oz. Coke. And he didn't even take me up on my offer of $1,000,000.

2. My new table and chairs, which I plan on posting about soon. Too long I endured a peeling table from Goodwill. No more. Ikea to the rescue. My kitchen looks so nice.

3. The dogs are staying in the yard. For now.

4. The littlest baby is moving more and more every day and making his presence known.

5. We are getting a brand-new, FREE double stroller from some incentive program at Bryce's work. YAY!

6. Fynn is napping. Hopefully to wake up puke-free this time.

7. No one else is sick (crossing fingers).

8. I think I figured out what happened to the fish. Pretty sure it swam way up into the shell in the bowl and got stuck. Which, you know, is sad, but at least I know. Whether it was suicide or not, I can't be sure.

9. On my table are several good fashion magazines just waiting for me to peruse.

10. Bryce promises to not be late from work.

11. I dreamt I had adopted another rabbit. Woke up to find it wasn't true. Always a bonus.

*** Updated to add one more great thing - Just now, I flipped on the TV to see if Oprah had anything good on, and Ewan, sitting on the couch coloring next to me, randomly said, "Yeah, Oprah's a fake." He swears he never heard anyone else say it, that he made it up himself.

Boring, I know, but that's all I had for now, without getting totally sappy. Which I don't like to do. So there you go.

Grievances

1.  I can't sleep at night due to pregnancy insomnia, an overly affectionate cat, and vigorous coughing up of my lungs.  Very tired.

2.  The two dogs I had previously taken to Mary Ann's had to come back due to serious over-crowding at her house.  I'm making them stay in the backyard.  But they keep escaping.  

3.  So very tired.

4.  Fynn threw up on me this morning.  All down inside my shirt. Yum.

5.  No energy to clean.  Much cleaning to be done. 

6.  A vase full of colored rocks fell off of the fridge and all over the floor.  Great fun.

7.  Ewan's fish disappeared.  Into thin air.  Cat not responsible.  Weird.

8.  Some animal pooped on Ewan's bed last night.  Complete mystery as to which creature or when.  Due to this and the fish incident, beginning to think a raccoon lives in there. Only partly joking.

9.  Sleepy.

10.  I'd pay someone $1,000,000 to bring me a Coke.  Not that I have a million dollars.  But still.

To make up for my horrible pessimism and negativity, I'll publish a list of good things later.  Much later.  After sleep.  

Quest for the Holy Grail

Ugh, it's late, and I want to be asleep.  But I remembered I needed to check Ashley's blog for Chloe's birthday pictures, so I popped up really quickly.  While I was looking, I was reminded of something that happened at the party that irritated me.  One of the people asked the sex of my baby, and when I told her, she said, completely dismayed, "OH YOUR POOR THING!"  And she didn't mean anything by it, and it's not like it's a lone incident.  It's just the cherry on top of lots of comments I've gotten, both from strangers and from acquaintances, who I know mean well, and it's not really offensive as much as "IHHH!"  (Ashley knows exactly how that should be pronounced.)

Anyway, it boils down to this:  when did giving birth to a girl become the Holy Grail of pregnancy?  I admit I wanted a girl, but it was more for naming purposes than anything.  I have the hardest time naming my boys, and I have the perfect girl's name all ready to go.  But I'm thrilled we're having another boy!  It's gonna be so fun (hard, but fun).  I always knew I would have tons of boys.  But people will ask me, "Do you know what it is?"  And when I tell them it's a boy, they always look so deflated and disappointed.  "Oh, well you'll get your girl next time."  Um, what?  This is a person who is coming to be a part of our family, and he belongs here!  That's totally awesome and exciting and just indescribable!  Boys are so cool.  One of my favorite sounds in the world is a little boy imitating a race car, or roaring like a tiger.  I love their cowlicks and skinny legs.  I love their dirt grimy hands when they cover mine.  And I love when Ewan, in perfect imitation of me and every member of the Anderson family, grabs my arm or hand, squeezes as hard as he can while gritting his teeth and says, "Squeeze you 'til you pop!"  They are just awesome, and in case there was ever a question, once I found out it was a boy for sure, it was like, "Oh, of course, I knew you were coming.  We've saved a place for you."  

Even if I have to call him "No-name Taylor."

Sonogram pictures

I've been planning on getting these scanned forever, but every time I got someone to help me do it, I'd completely forget to give them the pictures. So here they are now, and thank you, Missy and John for scanning it when I finally remembered to pass them on!

This one shows his face best, and the next one shows his little hand.
And this next one is how we know it's a boy!

And my heart stopped

My favorite magazine of all time is Lucky. Love it, love it, love it. I end up marking 75% of the pages and saving them for posterity. Things I love and want someday, or will buy something similar. As much as I love it, it's only occasionally that something on the page is so fabulous that it makes me stop in my place and stare for a long time. Usually I stare for a while, then stare even longer when the price is more than Bryce makes in six months, which happens quite often in that magazine. But then there was this ring:
I just LOVE IT. And seriously, I just stopped and stared. Then I grimaced as I looked for the price. And it was $20. And then I found it on the website. And I called Bryce right then and said, "Be prepared to whip out the debit card when you get home, because I am soooo buying this mother." And it came in the mail today. And I love it. And we are friends. And I'll wear it. And I'll stare at it. *Sigh*

I wonder if I can adopt all of them...?

Have you ever seen a red panda?  Seriously, and I do not say this lightly, one of the cutest things ever.  But not as cute as this story.

Help me name the baby!

Obviously, I love Irish/Gaelic names.  I love both of my boys' names so much.  Ewan Bryce and Fynn Christian.  Both Bryce and Christian are family names, and I kind of wanted to follow that same pattern, but I might have to break it this time.  I love the name Liam, but after a little research, I really feel like it's gotten too trendy for me.  My whole idea was to name him Liam Kelly.  That's just not going to work for me, now, even though here he is constantly referred to as Liam.  The other name I found that I like is Cael or Caelan.  But I need a middle name!!!  I can't think of anything.  And obviously I can't do Cael Kelly.  So, if you know of any good middle names for that, or if you know of any good Irish names I'm not thinking of (that aren't too popular), shoot me some ideas.  With both kids, when I finally "heard" their names in my head (thanks to Ashley for helping me put Ewan and Bryce together.  And I fell completely in love with the name Fynn after seeing the Ethan Hawke version of Great Expectations when it first came out.) I swear it was like angels singing, they were so perfect.  I want the same experience for this one.  It's part of the reason I wanted a girl; I knew I was going to have such a hard time finding another boy's name I love.  Mary Ann is on her way this morning to Ireland for a lovely trip.  She's also going to keep her eye out for me.  Maybe a baby name book right from Ireland...

Bargains for baby

I always cheat myself out of the big "purchasing" moments in my life.  I refused to go to prom.  I didn't buy a real wedding dress when we got married, but had someone make one that I really didn't like.  Then I didn't buy any kind of a nursery set for either of my two boys when they were born.  With Ewan we were strapped for money, and I just bought stuff here and there, super-cheap, not-good quality stuff.  Then with Fynn, I think since he was the second, the idea of a fabulous nursery theme wasn't on my radar.  But I decided that with this baby, I really did want him to have a nice, matching crib set, especially since he'll be in our room until we move someday.  We won't even put him in the crib until he's four or five months old, but Target had some of its cutest stuff on 50% off clearance, so I just *had* to get it.  Hopefully it will be around for a little longer so I can keep adding pieces.  You can see the things I did buy here and here on Target.com, although it's not on clearance on the website for some reason.  It's probably only exciting for me, and the baby couldn't care less, but I'm just excited I finally was able to indulge in the moment and have a matching set for him.  

Mean mommy

Yesterday, I fixed a nice dinner, one that was full of things Ewan normally loves to eat.  Pork chops, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese.  But Ewan has been in this odd habit lately of suddenly saying he "hates" his favorite foods, and refusing to eat.  Sometimes he'll have eaten at least 3/4 of a meal, then suddenly put his fork down and say, "This is gross!"  So last night at dinner, he pulled this little trick, and as he often claims to be hungry right before bed to get a piece of buttered toast, we told him there was no way he was getting anything.  We were also about to go visit my parents, so we told him no cookies or snacks there at all.  

Surprisingly, he didn't beg for any snacks there, even when it was discovered they had Oreos.  But he suddenly got it into his head that they were going to fix him a "nice dinner."  We kept telling him he couldn't eat anything there, but he could have some of our nice dinner when we got home.  He kept begging and pleading, "PLEASE!!  I want to eat a nice dinner HERE!!!"  I repeated my refusal several more times, and he finally stopped asking.  Toward the end of our visit, Fynn was getting quite hyper and destructive, Ewan was getting hyper, and at one moment at the end of my rope, I said, "Okay, we're leaving, you two are..."  I was planning on saying "driving me crazy" or something like that, when Ewan turned to me.  

"Starving?" he suggested.

Recharging batteries

Ever since this post, I've been very much a homebody and trying to just stay home and enjoy my boys. I think I wore myself out the entire month of May. The combination of me with the boys ended up in at least one doctor's appointment each week, sometimes more, and I was getting in the car every day and either running off to the store, or to a play date, or running errands. All this while suffering some serious pregnancy exhaustion. Then I had a little personal upset at the end of the month, and for about a week, I was just an emotional mess. So without real intention, I basically took the month of June off. I didn't really plan it, but I was just so emotionally and physically worn out, that I had no desire to go anywhere, do anything, have anyone over - nothing. And you know what, it was so nice. I'd gotten so wrapped up in "me," going to the store because I wanted to, running the boys around constantly, and I even think they were a little worn out and frustrated, too. So the past month, we've mostly stayed home and played together, organized some things, and just tried really hard to get on a real routine. I know I feel so much better and happier, and just rested up. I'm watching Ben again for the rest of the summer, and that has really helped me get us back on a routine, and the days are so much smoother - it's been a blessing. I'm sorry if I've put anyone off or seemed like I was being anti-social, but it really was what I needed to charge my batteries, and I'm feeling much better now. So maybe this 4th of July will kick off a little more social me. Although, I will say, I just simply cannot over-schedule myself anymore. I'm still going to be a bit of a homebody, only doing things outside the house a couple of times a week.

Anyway, just wanted to say all that, and now for a couple of cute pictures:

One day in their room, they'd gotten very quiet, which of course made me nervous. But I found them just sitting together, reading books. It was very sweet, and I'm so glad I got the picture.

Something very interesting was going on outside today, and I think it was a cat on our car. Ben and Fynn enjoyed it a lot. Fynn found good use for the Mr. Potato Head bucket.