Month: February 2012

at home

February 28, 2012

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
at home
out: storytime

February 28, 2012

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
out: storytime
found: asking for it

February 27, 2012
painting

February 27, 2012

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
painting
furniture swap

February 26, 2012

the nesting continues…

in the aftermath or Thing Two’s second X chromosome turning out to be a Y, the biggest shift has been in his room. No longer satisfied with peach walls, plum carpets and floral patterns, we’re in the process of repainting and redecorating.

(I’ve also set aside the “Madeline” wall sign — though, admittedly, I’m not throwing it out until “he” pops out and I get the official confirmation.)

Part of the bedroom reorg is that the white french provincial furniture we inherited from my grandparents is now going into sparklets room (above, top) and sparklet’s slightly more gender neutral furniture is sliding into Thing Two’s room in substitution (above, underneath).

We’re also painting both their rooms a light green — there by reducing the 137 things they’ll argue about some day to a more manageable 136.

This argument reduction effort was actually kicked off last week when I saw a “Thing Two” decal in Target that sparklet and I eventually put on his bedroom door. It was officially the first time I saw something in wanted for one child that made me say “oh, crap — what am I going to buy for the other.” Fortunately, there was a stack of Sesame Street decals (with sparklet favorite Abby Cadabby) on the next display over.

That might bring the list down to 135 1/2.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
nesting, part 2
found: mommy-van

February 25, 2012

driving down to Williamsburg in this monstrosity to pick up some french provincial furniture for ~~Thing Two~~ sparklet’s room. at least it’s a rental that I get to give back tomorrow — can’t imagine trying to street park this tank in Mount Pleasant.
muppets

February 25, 2012

we bought Thing Two some Muppet stuffed animals for his room, partly because we had realized that everything in there was a hand-me-down or toy sparklet had rejected, and partly because I figured it was to early to start brainwashing him about star wars.

sparklet quickly fell for kermit, and has helpfully volunteered to care and steward the Muppet until a time that Thing Two can care for him himself.

this quickly prompted a Saturday morning viewing of the original Muppet Movie, which sparklet loved. of course, wewatched the “Edited for Toddler” version, which involves daddy skipping from song to song to song (running time: 35 minutes).

at least we now have an alternative to hearing The Jungle Book over and over again.
227

February 23, 2012

sparklet’s obsession with the Madeline anthology has reached a fever pitch.

we read one of the six every night, and mommy usually does another when she wakes up in the morning. she know’s what page her favorite story starts (Madeline in London, the one about the horse for Pepito) and avidly yells the pagenumber (“227!”) if you’re not turning the pages fast enough.

actually, her favorite game right now is opening our Madeline anthology and flipping throught the pages herself to find the start of that story (“found it!”) which is her favorite because, as she says, “I rode horse, too.”
morning

February 23, 2012

not sure how this started, but sparklet and I greet each other under the door each morning now.

we rarely hear her get out of bed in the morning anymore, but occasionally we’ll here a great “thunk” as she hits the ground to check if I’m under the door. she’ll usually stay there until I reach underneath and grab her hands a few times (I actually mistakenly grabbed Tiger’s tail his morning) before she decides to come out.

I’ve decided that she actually is pretty cute.
it’s a boy?!?

February 21, 2012

turns out thing two isn’t exactly a girl.

mommy had a doctor’s appointment a couple weeks back, and while she and the doc were talking about the coming thing two, they noticed she was coming in pretty big and pretty fast.

so they scheduled up another sonogram for last Friday, just to see exactly how big (and whether we’d need to adjust the delivery date, etc.) a sonogram at this point is fairly unusual — you don’t get one after 20 weeks unless the doctor specifically recommends one — but we were pretty excited to see the baby one extra time.

so Friday morning, we walk into the exam room and met with our tall spindly (dude) sonographer who started chatting us up about what we were having (girl), whether we had picked out any names (we had) and other stuff that wasted time while he got everything dialed in.

and then he started giggling. it wasn’t a bubbly giggle, but more like a nervous “you’re going to rip my head off” sorta giggle.

“i’m afraid you’re not having a girl.” turns out thing two isn’t a she — she’s a he.

and, no, we’re not kidding.

for now, let’s just skip past 20 minutes of “are you sure?” and “no, really — are you sure?” and “well, she was pretty sure when she told us it was going to be a girl…” that followed.

funny thing, is we remember that other sonogram pretty clearly.

when she first told us it’d be a girl, the lady sparkler said something like “really? are you sure?” in the same way that any mommy-to-be would say after hearing pretty much anything — and she got all huffy.

“i’ve been doing this for 26 years,” she said. “and i’ve never been wrong once in all those years.”

well, there’s always a first.

fast forward to now — we’ve got a boy coming, he’s got a lovely peach bedroom, with a soft purple rug, with bright flowered sheets, lots of pink clothes waiting for him when he gets home, in a bedroom filled with (hand be down) white, French Provencal furniture.

now, mommy and me can see the future — when this all turns out great, and becomes the story that (much to thing two’s consternation) we will faithfully drag out at every holiday, graduation and meet-the-new-girlfriend occasion.

however, in the interim, we’ve got about six weeks left to redo about six months worth of mental planning. the good news, is that (shortly before all this happened) we had basically decided on a name.

i think he’ll make a great “madeline.”