Photo #2 and Clue #2

This photo was actually taken 2 weeks ago (23 weeks pregnant). I feel like I got a lot bigger in the last month. I gain 7 lbs. I'll take another picture soon.

Okay, so I know you're all waiting for clue #2, here it is: her name was NOT on the SSA's top 100 list for 2007. However, it is in the top 1000, unlike her middle name which has not made the top 1000 since the 1950s. (Note: you do not need to guess the middle name to win.)

Fun! Awesome!

That's a Dylan quote. He said it after singing and dancing with Mommy and Daddy today. Oh how we need to cherish these days when he thinks we're fun. I was cleaning today (try not to be too shocked...) and Martin was watching a Thomas video with Dylan. Dylan decided he wanted Mommy there too so he came and took my hand and led me to the couch and said "couch."

One reason I was cleaning was that Dylan looked into my closet and said "messy." So I take that back about me liking that Dylan understood that concept.

Other fun things that Dylan says: Ein-tine, Baby Ein-tine; baby sista; he names all the characters from the movie Cars and he is quickly learning all the Thomas trains. I can't even tell the difference between Percy and Henry but somehow he figured it out. And it's not like he's been watching these videos that much. We just started getting them from the library (along we lots of books too!) and he watches them twice, maybe three times a week for a half hour. Grandma and Grandpap come tomorrow so we're excited to show them all Dylan can do now.

We went for a short bike ride today. Dylan loved it the whole way. Before we left I told him he had to get his helmet on and he went and got it and actually wanted to wear it. Martin has been riding his bike to work a couple times a week. It's about 30 miles round trip. I'm so impressed. We're using the money he saves on not paying the tolls for a new bike for Martin.

Language

It's so fun and amazing watching Dylan's language skills develop. These days we get a one word running commentary on all that we are doing. Car, home, door, high chair, tray, milk, sit, etc. The funniest thing was Saturday when it was raining hard all day from Hurricane Hanna - Dylan looked out the window and said "bye-bye sunny." I've recently got into the habit of having him say "bye-bye" to things as a way to transition him from one activity to another when he doesn't want to. So when we go to look at the trucks at the construction site down the street and it's time to go eat lunch, I tell him to say "bye-bye" to the trucks. It actually helps! Although now I wonder if talking to inanimate objects has been raised to the same level as talking to people.

Dylan also learned a useful word on Saturday - messy. He spilled some milk on the floor and looked down and said messy. I got excited because I was so thrilled that he understood the concept. He must have picked up on that because he was so excited to learn that word too. He got this big smile on his face.

One "word" that we don't like that Dylan has picked up on is "gimmie." I wondered where he learned it until I started noticing how many times I use it when I talk to him. "Gimmie your milk so you can climb into your high chair....gimmie your foot so I can put your shoe on...." How do you explain to a two year old that it's okay for you, the parent, to give orders but not for him to give orders? (Feel free to take that as a rhetorical question or to give me advice if you have any insight.)

In other news, Dylan's regular day care provider made it home safely on Sunday and so he goes back to her place on Wednesday. I called on Sunday to make sure we were on the same page as to when Dylan was going to start going to her place again (making sure she had some time to settle back in after being away for 3 months). In talking with her and her husband on the phone, I tried to get right to the point because sometimes communication can be difficult since they don't speak perfect English. They both sort of ignored my directness and wanted to know how Dylan was. It was so sweet. I told her Dylan was talking a lot and she asked to talk to him on the phone. It's so comforting to know that his caregiver truly loves him and misses him.

More fun get-togethers

Melissa and I are friends from Treasury (we started on the same day but she left years before I did) and we are in a book club together now. We have a lot in common (from PA, in-laws in FL, working moms in similar fields, etc.) and we both seem to have very busy weekends (although the wedding blitz from a few years ago have tapered off for both of us). So it is a rare occasion that we see each other outside of getting together for lunch while we're at work. This occasion in July was also rare because it wasn't planned 2 months in advance. About a week before, we realized we both had a free Saturday morning! I would get to meet her then 2 month old and we would finally get to hang out together with our husbands and kids. We had a delightful brunch and walk around the neighborhood of their new house. Here's a pic of us gals with our little ones. Melissa's daughter Cassandra will be about 9 months older than our little girl. We're sure they will be friends.

Cara and I were roommates when I first moved to DC. She now lives in her home state of GA with her hubby and their little girl. Cara graciously brought Caroline to DC so all her friends could meet her. We met up with them at Tysons Mall at the beginning of August.

Exercise ball

We caught Dylan on video imitating Martin when he was sitting on the ball. He did it again when I was working out last week with the exercise ball.

The FUN air and space museum

Don't get me wrong, I like the air and space museum downtown. But when you've been there so many times, it does get old. The big air and space museum out by Dulles Airport is much better IMHO. We went there (me for the first time) the day after the 4th with my parents when they were visiting. Here are some photo highlights.

Fourth of July

A week or so before the 4th my parents and I realized that there wouldn't be a time for them to come to visit for a while so they rearranged some things to come down for the 4th. We probably wouldn't have done anything but since they were coming we decided to watch the DC fireworks from the Iwo Jima park. And we were curious to see how our nearly fearless and easy-going 20 month old would do seeing fireworks. You can see the results in the last picture below.

Dylan had a blast except for the 20 minutes of fireworks. He wouldn't let go of Daddy for a second. We didn't even think they were that loud from across the river. You never know how kids will react.

Dylan had fun playing with the other kids and Grandma and Grandpap before the fireworks. We brought bubbles to keep him occupied.

(Amy, yes we were wearing jackets in July but that was just because of the rain, it was still quite warm.)

Article about baby in abdomen

Why does it seem like you read a lot of stories of rare births like this one when you are pregnant? This is amazing though.

Grad school friends get-together

I'm way behind on posting pictures. These are from my birthday actually. Tom and Karen C. and their kids were in town and we had a get-together over at Laura H.'s. I hadn't seen Tom and Karen since Laura's wedding - they didn't change a bit but man did the kids grow up!

Laura pushing Jamie as Isabelle watches

Charlie and Alexander's balloon fight

Tom, Karen, and Isabelle

It's fitting that I post this today because I randomly ran into this other guy from grad school today (John H.!) It's so strange to me to run into people I know from elsewhere on the streets of a major city. I feel like this happens to me a lot too. Most of the people live here in the area but it's still so neat.

Some cute photos of Dylan

Clue #1 and Picture #1

Here I am at 21 weeks pregnant with baby #2. Check here for a comparison picture when I was 22 weeks pregnant with Dylan.

I think I'm showing more than I was with Dylan but I still get weird looks when I tell people I'm 5 months pregnant.

I tried scanning the ultrasound pics and that didn't work so I took a picture of the best one. It didn't turn out great but it's something. If you want to see the hard copies you'll just have to come over and visit! I think she looks a lot like Dylan.

Okay so since we're pretty set on the name but still want it to be somewhat of a surprise we've decided not to tell people for sure until the baby is born but we are going to give clues. Check back here on the first of the month for a new clue. This month's clue is: the name has 3 syllables. If you guess the name you can email me and I might tell you if you're right if you promise not to tell anyone else until she's born. I will announce on my blog who the first person was to guess correctly after she's born. And the first correct guesser will also get the first phone call from us on the baby's birthday (after our parents and siblings).

7

Seven years ago today I started working for the government. I've now been in DC longer than I was in college and grad school combined. Wow.

Updating things

I updated my baby registeries this week to help the family shoppers. I do want to get some new things in girl colors other than just clothes (like blankets and towels and such) but I don't want to overdo the pink which I think can happen easily. Maybe I just like blue more than pink and so the girl stuff seems a little overwhelming pink. But hopefully we can mix it up with some light purple.

And here's the update on some of Dylan's fun new words:

aape-pain - translation airplane; he is also now learning that his toy airplanes go in the air instead of on the ground like the other transportation vehicle toys - he even makes the "swwwwoooo" noise for the plane flying through the air.

dump (wait for it) truck; for some reason Dylan says this as two separate phrases instead of one

lots of verbs - come, clap, burp

new-new - fig newton

Even though he's not speaking in sentences, he can now string enough words together that we know what he's talking about more and more. We are also trying to teach him 'sister.' He can repeat it.

I think Dylan is going to be good at foreign languages. His dolphin sound is essentially a rolling r sound like in spanish and he says his friend Richie's name with a very spanish r (very appropriate since Richie's mom is from Peru). He also says his Ks like he's speaking Hebrew. Milkkkaa. And Truckkkaa with that deep throat sound. Maybe that's more German.

I like pink.

It's a GIRL!!! We're very excited! So are the fams. She will be the first baby grandaughter on both sides. (The shoppers, our moms, have been released!)

We already have a name but we're not telling....but I might give some clues on the blog so stay tuned.

(The title of this post is a very rare Simpsons reference that *I* came up with, not my hubby.)

It was a date

For the first time since Dylan was born we paid a babysitter and went out on a date on Friday. It wasn't a special occasion or anything. Except maybe that we wanted to use the movie gift card that we got for Christmas. We saw Dark Knight (excellent movie, btw) and went out to eat afterwards. Not sure our pocket books want to stand doing that more frequently but Martin and do want to spend some alone time together before the new baby comes. Not that we feel like we need a break from Dylan - on the contrary, in fact, about 2 hours after he went to bed last night we missed him and wanted to wake him up to play with him. But we feel we should spend some alone time together. We're looking forward a "baby moon" this fall probably to the Shendandoah.

Hiking again!

Today we went on our first hike in what seemed like forever. We did probably the shortest hike in our 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of DC book - Winkler Botanical Preserve. We had actually tried to do this hike twice before, but the gate to the preserve was closed the other two times. We took Dylan in the backpack, but he started crying after about half way. We took him out of the backpack and let him walk for a while. That didn't seem to appease him until we came to this really cool creek that was just deep enough for him to walk in and get his feet wet but not too deep that he would get too wet. Luckily he had his fake crocs on, so we just let him walk in the creek in them. He loved it and stopped crying. I think we'll definitely go back to this place, even if only to play in the creek. Unfortunately I didn't take the camera to get any pictures. The place was really pretty too with a lake and a manmade waterfall and many flowers in bloom.

Chincoteague - Day 2 (at the Beach)

We only spent about an hour on the beach - just to eat lunch and get our feet wet. But the beach is one reason I want to go back to Chincoteague. It's a natural wildlife refuge so there are no hotels on the beach - it's so nice. The sand was really really hot but apparently it didn't bother Dylan. After the beach we went on a hike in the more wooded area. The paths are paved so I think it would have been cooler to do on a bike. So that's what I want to do next time.

Chincoteague - Day 2 (on the Boat)

We were probably crazy for taking a 20 month old on this small of boat for an hour and a half but "Dylan did great!" We were quite tired of holding him afterward but it was worth it.

Chincoteague - Day 2 (Mun-GHEES)

Mun-ghees is how Dylan says ponies. We saw lots of ponies at Chincoteague, well technically the ponies live on Assateague Island, just east of Chincoteague. Most of the photos taken below were taken from the boat we were on. You can see how far away we were in the first picture. Then I used the zoom on our camera to get the others. The one with the white pony was taken from the side of the road, also zoomed. The last one was at a petting zoo.

My sleep-loving child

I think Dylan might be going through a growth spurt because he's been sleeping a lot lately. He's also been sick so maybe its just that. But it's been pretty funny how he actually wants to sleep. There were a few days this week where Dylan would wake up and then go and try to climb back into his crib (unsuccessfully). Then last night he tried to climb into his crib without eating hardly any dinner. Martin put him in the crib and he went to sleep. This has been a real blessing for me especially as the good naps help me out so I can work from home on Tues and Fri. Hopefully this will last even after the new baby comes.

Oh, one other thing about Dylan that has been cool lately. He has learned verbs - sit, jump, walk are the favorites. Sometimes he even tells *me* to sit. Like when I'm running around in the kitchen and he's eating in his high chair. He tells me to sit in my chair and keep him company while he eats. (Sometimes I need to listen to him as opposed to the other way around.) He has been telling us more what he wants us to do lately and even guiding us to what he wants. (Like taking our hands and taking us to our closet to put on our shoes when we mention going outside.) While I'm hoping he's not becoming too bossy, I'm glad he is communicating more. It's fun.