Halloween Decorating

Little Bro gets his first sponge bath.
(Don't you love the smell of baby wash?)

There's no rest for the weary these days. All I have time for is feeding and pumping...every two hours, like clockwork. (And lactating is not my idea of a good time.)

A friend had planned to bring us a meal yesterday, so I finally got dressed and pulled my hair into a ponytail around 5 pm, (if you can call slipping into a jogging a suit and never changing out of the tank top I wore to bed "getting dressed.")

I've lowered my already loose standards of personal grooming. I'll try to do something about my hair before Wednesday. Wait, what day is it?

Maybe I'll be a witch for Halloween. That wouldn't take too much imagination or effort. My other option is to be a dairy cow.

I thought I'd share some pictures since we managed to get into a seasonal mood. Cute huh?

And the pièce de résistance...

That cute little onesie was a gift from Picky. It looked so big three weeks ago when we brought him home from the hospital. And now it fits. Did I mention he eats non-stop?

If you want to see what Little Bro's nursery looks like, check out Girly Stuff. She was kind enough to help pull it all together and then post pictures, too! (You can't see the detail on the curtains from the pictures, but they are the cutest...cream and khaki houndstooth print fabric.) We still have to hang something great over the crib and maybe bring in a rug, but we have time since he won't be sleeping in there for a few months.

I'll post again before Christmas!

House Beautiful and a Shining Star

Home Improvements:

OMG! This woman on HGTV just showed the up lighting in her house. (I don't know what you call it except up lighting where you have a ledge just below the ceiling in which you hide lights that shine up toward the ceiling.)

This brilliant woman took cheap gutters from the hardware store and painted them to match her walls. Then she had them hung just below the ceiling, threw in some lights where no one can see...heck, you could even use $3/strand Christmas lights and it would still look custom and expensive. Isn't that a great idea? (Someone out there with more initiative than I should really tackle this project and post pictures so I can brag and say you heard it here first.)

I want to put somethings out there so I can be held accountable. Ask me about my projects in exactly one month. Nesting instinct will kick in by then and I'll be moving forward on things that have to get done by September:

1. Finish my bedroom (paining, drapes, and pretty accessories.) I would love for it to turn out something like this. I also have to pick out light fixtures for the master bathroom and cabinet hardware, too.

2. Put together a nursery. The room is painted SW Blonde (which Girly Stuff says we will be changing.) All the furniture is white: crib, changing table, bookcase (5 ft tall with the cubes on top to put fabric baskets in and regular shelves on the bottom.) I'm thinking we'll buy a new upholstered club chair/glider. I have a chest in the garage from my parents' house that I wouldn't mind working in somehow. My ideas for this room are scattered and unfocused so GS taking me by the hand. Her first recommendation is that I should find white crib bedding.

More white? That's what I thought, and I wasn't seeing the all-white vision, but after I stumbled on to this pretty bit of inspiration, I'm going to trust her and go with it.

Entertainment:

In other unimportant news, does anyone else think Clint Eastwood makes the best "human suffering" movies on the planet? Hello, Million Dollar Baby? Mystic River. Unforgiven.

(You thought I was going to talk about MJ, didn't you? Hmmph!)

We just rented Gran Torino and I loved it! It had a strangely uplifting and sad ending; how is that even possible except for a genius like Clint Eastwood? Me thinks he was born to make movies.


I cried laughing every time Clint (playing a quick-tempered old racist) came out packing the heat against the neighborhood gangsters. The slurs were flying. Everyone knows an old bastard like that who has lived long enough that they just don't care anymore and "get off my lawn." Walt Kowalski was hilarious to me...the bigot with the heart of gold.

(I laugh when I'm supposed to be crying at movies...I've been told that's weird.)

I'm starting to feel like the last person on the planet who hasn't seen Hangover. The Micker saw it twice! Maybe I'll sneak out this weekend and see it by myself since MMA already saw it. Call me if you want to catch a movie!

Or not...I don't mind eating a whole bucket of popcorn by myself if necessary.

It's all about Big Brother (for now)

MMA took a day off work so we could all go together for the big ultrasound. We wanted Only Child to be really excited about learning the baby's gender. We talked up the "big day" for a week.

I secretly already knew.

I won't torture you with black and white blobs on the screen, insisting "see right there, that is a shoulder..." You already know what these things look like.

In the car on the way to the hospital Only Child was working it all out in his head...to himself, out loud.

"So, if the baby has a peeper, its a boy. And if it has a princess, then its a girl."

"You're so smart! That's right!"

"Yep, and its a boy...and I'm gonna call him Baby Mack. Or Baby Mater."

"Oh Really!?" (We might have to resort to Mack if we can't agree on a name...)

So, taking a rambunctious three year old to the hospital where we had to park, check in, register, wait with a light-up pager before we got called back to the real waiting room...so we could all do this together...sounds good on paper. (No, not even then?) Only Child was expecting to see a "baby" on the TV screen, so he was duly unimpressed.

I also had a regular ob/gyn appointment right after. My doctor got called to deliver a baby just as I was assuming the position. Did I mention what a long day that was?! The boys had to slip out to find the nearest fast-food-with-playground facility or dad was going to flip out.

The results confirmed that The Sequel is a boy. I pointed out a suspicious growth between his legs back at the ten week ultrasound. But my husband and the doctor both shushed me and said it was too early to tell. They did instill some doubt, but in my heart I knew.

So I let myself admit a couple of weeks ago that if I don't have a girl, I will miss picking out sweet dresses and decorating a fussy pink room. But then I thought about the potential heartache I also get to miss out on, like setting rules and boundaries about dating and makeup and, shiver me timbers, discussing sex with my sweet little girl. (Presumably, dads should have the man-to-man when that day comes.) So in about five minutes I was over it.

There is another specific reason I'm happy he is a boy. MMA has two lovely sisters that would do anything for us, but no brothers. So I thought he would enjoy seeing his sons grow up in relationship that he didn't have. I also think that two brothers together, or two sisters together have the potential to be really close friends; more so than a brother and a sister. I have no proof, just Superstar theory.

So anyway, Girly Stuff, (I would call her my designer friend, but she's so much more than that, really) has offered her services for The Sequel's nursery. The catch (for her) is that I never execute anything to completion, making me her worst client. And what gets done is done under pressure of deadline. Then again, we do have a September cutoff...so let me show you what I had in mind.


It was love at first sight when I saw this nursery at House of Turquiose. It is the handi-work of Megan at Me and Wee. (Check out her sweeeeet newborn baby.) I poured over all the details, thinking, "I can recreate this." But now I'm wondering how that color will do for a boy's room...what do you think? Too girly? I want the color to hold up for 5 years. Hmm. Sure is a pretty, that robins-egg-Tiffany blue.


So finally, on to baby names. We've had the perfect girl name on deck since a super long road trip that we took back in 2003. It's such a great name, that I try to keep it under wraps. Trust me when I say that people I know personally have been the victim of out and out baby-name-stealing! Shameless stuff! Anyway...

Mutually agreeable boy names are more elusive for us. Only Child was named after his dad after months of negotiations...and here we are again: pregnant with a boy, and we can't agree on nothin'! Since we're not of the George Foreman mindset, we have to come up another good name. Which to my husband sounds something like Vito Corleone, or Augustus Ceasar.

We are taking any and all reasonable suggestions for boy names. My husband says I only like white bread names. Translation: strong, classic, no funny business (and I am especially fond of biblical ones.) I don't want anything that sounds overly ethnic or super hero, because, (and I realize this is a new and modern world we live in but) being of my crazy lineage, isn't that enough without having a weird name too?

(Just send your good suggestions for the sake of the kid.)

I guess this post was all over the place. That's about right for me these days.

Let's recap the lessons we learned today:

• Don't take kids to the hospital unless they are sick.
• Keep your pantry well-stocked with cute genitalia euphemisms; its like keeping your gun on safety.
• Mom should always trust her instinct.
• Dads should take turns, and let the Moms name one.
  
• Mother's Day is coming...bring your A-game when you wife is pregnant. ( OK, that's a new point; just checking to see if you're listening.)