Man Down

We bought this super cheap blow up snow man for our deck. Harry loved the No Nam and would stare out the window raptly for the whole 45 minutes the thing survived. Its chintzy motor could not take the sucky ice storm we had a last weekend, and the snow man crumpled, never to rise again, which caused Harry to yell "Oh No!" And, with some prompting, "Man Down!"

Luckily for Harry, his great grandma made him a snowman he can wear on his head. Thanks, Bomma!

Who Couldn't Want Another One of These?

It's funny because most people we've told about our second baby boy have had similar responses. They've been happy, of course, but they all seemed to think we're disappointed in the baby's sex. In fact, almost everyone has made some mention of our third kid, which totally freaks us out because third kid? Yeah. Maybe in like 6 years. Helloooo, I'm still pregnant with #2!

I mean, sure. we've always talked about maybe someday having more than 2 kids, but right now, someday seems really far away. As graduation gets closer, in fact, someday is more distant. I mean shit. When Baby Boy #2 (Not his official name. Actually, we have a name picked out, but not sure if we're ready to share. Ever since we saw Superbad we've been calling him McLovin.) is 15-ish months old, I'll be starting my career-- working a REAL JOB that pays in REAL MONEY hopefully at a real college somewhere. Not the time to have yet another baby, you know? No more hanging out in my jammies till noon, teaching for like 6 hours a week, and spending the rest of my time writing in odd moments between renditions of the alphabet song and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See.

So yeah-- third kid? Not even a blip on the horizon of potentials until I am eligible for sabbatical or at least until McLovin is in kindergarten. All day kindergarten.

But actually, now that we know this one's a boy, we may not even have another. See, the thing is, we just don't think it's a good idea to try to conceive with a sex preference in mind. Aside from being totally jealous of little girl clothes and drooling every time I pass a smocked dress or a pair of teeny weeny skinny jeans, I had no preference-- just wanted a healthy baby and was too damn impatient to wait 9 months to find out what kind it was. With 2 boys, though, could we help ourselves from wanting a girl? We're not sure. So as weird as it may seem, if this were a girl, we may have been more eager to have a #3. Does that make sense?

Totally way excited about McLovin. Cannot wait to see him and dress him in all of our old favorite newborn clothes-- like the jeans with the stars on the knees and the matching sheriff's shirt, or the blue velour jogging suit, or the crazy striped number Harry wore home from the hospital. And all the teeny tiny socks! Oh my goodness, there's nothing cuter than newborn socks, unless it's newborn diapers-- seriously, they're the smallest little things-- a far cry from Harry's size 5's. Oh wait-- I am forgetting the mini Uggs and the Robeez with pristine white bottoms because no one ever walked in them

I saw the penis like 5 seconds into the ultrasound, but the tech was trying to save the sex for a final surprise. When she measured the femurs, though, I saw it sticking out and thought "Well, if those are the legs, that must be the penis!" Very exciting because when we had our 20 week ultrasound with Harry, the only thing we could identify was the spine. Although Ben had a moment where he thought the heart was McLovin's face, we did a way better job with our anatomy this time around. We're learning, see, and McLovin? He gets the benefit of all that knowledge!

Okay, so when you upload a picture to Blogger, there's a little spinny icon thing, and mine stopped spinning, so I assumed my pictures were not loading, but they WERE loading, so heres' the rest of the entry I wanted to write:


I made brownies, and we made Harry take off his shirt to eat them. He was puzzled at first, maybe a little insulted, but then he showed us his nipples (thanks, Jon) and finger painted his tummy

Harry was so good at dinner-- even though dinner was a super long event (2 hours). He ate some relishes and the Oreos we brought to bribe him with. Also some cheese curds. His own entree, however, he did not touch until lunch yesterday.

Seriously, is my face always that big?

Harry's grandpa cracks him up. Harry likes to grab his grandpa's head and say "Grandpa bump" because there is, in fact, some sort of weird bumpy growth on the back of my dad's head. Might want to get that checked out. I'm just saying.


Playing in the snow with grandma

oops.

Saying buh-bye

Hanukkah

My parents came in this weekend to celebrate Hanukkah, and we all had so much fun. Harry got new toys, clothes, and shoes, and we all went out to a yummy dinner. Oh! And we ate the latkes tonight for dinner, Mom, and they were great!

I can only post a few shots because Blogger won't let me upload any right now, and for some reason, I cannot paste any codes from photobucket, either. Hmmmm, I'll figure it out. But until then, here's a taste of or weekend.
Harry and his dad getting ready for Grandma and Grandpa M

Harry got right to work opening presents (in front of the Christmas tree ha!).

He made his grandpa assemble his shopping cart ASAP

Then he chose some more presents to open

Here he is contemplating his fake food-- he actually really seems to get the concept of pretend and real tha nks to the plastic food!


He's taking his baby shopping in the cart an, periodically, flinging her on the ground or sniffing her butt and saying "Ewwww"

Look at the frigging mess-- and it's probably gonna look lime that until the holidays are over and we begin the Great Room Makeover of 2008, AKA Harry and his Brother Are Sharing a Room, which will begin with a toy closet renovation.

BOY

It's a BOY!!!

Festivus

So the other day, I ran a software update, like I do every other Monday, and something magical happened! I now have spellcheck everywhere-- on the internet, on my desktop-- everywhere! Cool huh?

Sorry no updates lately. Have been very very busy. Which is not true, but whenever I am procrastinating or stuck or just generally frustrated with some aspect of my project, I freak out and stop doing anything because I feel so overwhelmed by the absolutely NOTHING I am doing. The thing is, my chapter is just not coming together like the previous ones have. I still have no argument, I am still puzzled by my primary documents. I have ingested a wealth of secondary literature, and I know what everybody else thinks about Judeo-Christian morality and Planned Parenthood (or, more precisely, birth control/ abortion in general), but I still don't know what I think.

So, yeah. Bummed about my chapter. Bummed about the snow. Joined a gym. Fell down on the ice and dropped Harry. Gained a bunch of weight since my last OB appointment (and don;t go back until January 17th, so plenty of time to gain even more).

Luckily for me and my Scrooge McDuck attitude, it's Hanukkah! Harry learned the word present really fast, and he says it all damn day, like mama, where's my present. Oh! He heard Ben say Jesus (and not in a "somebody has a birthday coming up really soon" kind of way), and he said that for a while. More like cheesus, but still really funny.

Here he is telling me how many candles to light on the first night

Watching the candle burn (and he tells me no fewer than 6 thousand times a day that the menorah is hot. Also hot? My coffee, the Yankee candle tart warmer in the powder room, our empty fireplace, and the fireplace from which Santa emerges in his The Night Before Christmas book, which we read at least 3 times a day. Also? In that book, Santa wears mittens on every single page, and Harry will show them to you. One "mimmen" on each hand for twenty pages. That's a whole freaking ton of mimmens.)

Opening his dustbuster

Just wanted you to see that he not only insists on wearing this swim vest all the damn time, he also likes it to be fastened properly.


Oh yeah! Today at 4:00, we have an ultrasound, and we are (hopefully) going to find out the sex of the baby!!!! So I'll keep you posted.

Harry The Builder: Can He Fix It? No. Absolutely Not. In Fact, He Probably Broke It.

Luckily, Harry does not watch Bob the Builder because I babysat for a little girl like 7 years ago, and she watched that show everyday (good work, babysitter-- just passing the buck to the TV babysitter), and the theme song is still jammed in my head, hence the title of this post.

Now Harry can buildeth towers and taketh them away! He still likes the takething awayeth part better, but he's pretty proud of his building, too.



Sorry about the unkempt bathroom in the background-- must have taken these on a Sunday.