Um, yes, this is really happening in 3 MONTHS OMG.

I don't know why, but up until this past weekend, TH and I have been in a kind of denial/procrastination/laziness/too-busy-to-think-about-it state of mind about our impending change of status from "We have a kid" to "We have children." The pregnancy has been (knock on wood) pretty much uneventful, complication free, and easy. We've talked about the baby a lot, argued over names, started explaining to J how we're going to be ruining his life soon, scheduled maternity leave....but other than that we have done nothing to prepare for this kid. NOTHING. This being the second time around, I think we've lulled ourselves into thinking that we have all the stuff we need, especially since we know it's another boy. But this weekend, fueled by a doctor appointment on Friday where they officially switched me to every 2 weeks visits instead of every month and oh my God we're at THAT stage already and holy crap there's only TWELVE WEEKS LEFT!!!!! we actually looked around and realized our newborn baby inventory is a bit...paltry.

Crib? Check.

Dresser/changing table? Check.

High chair, Exersaucer, rocking chair, cute little sage-green hamper? Check, check, check, and check (although the hamper's a little ratty since the cats use it as a scratching post. They love wicker.)

Pack N Play? Check. But...usable? I think there was a little mattress insert deal that we can't find now, like a lot of things it disappeared while we were moving. Or is it in the garage? Okay, check for now, but we'll see.

Newborn and 0-3 months baby clothes? Umm, check? No, wait. I gave away the majority of those to my friend who had twins when J was a year old. She lives in Georgia now. Oops.

Bottles? Nope. Threw them all away while dancing and drinking wine, during what we'll call the "So Happy to Be Done With Bottles and Pumping" party.

Speaking of pumping....Breast pump? Nope again. With J I rented a pump from the hospital because every month I thought I wasn't going to be able to keep pumping for another month, so I never bought one. Now that I know I can pump for a year, I guess I need to buy a breast pump.

Pacifiers, diapers, bouncy seat, basinette, baby tub? Nope, nope, broken, never had one, threw it away when we were moving.

Nursery decorated in any way? Nope. We know what colors we want, what bedding we want, even the lampshade we want. Now, we just have to get off our rear ends and put our grand decorating plans into action. As soon as I have some energy. Riiiiight.

And let's not even mention the random stuff we need to do, like going through all J's old toys and books that are "in storage" in the nursery closet, and reorganizing our bedroom so we can actually fit the basinette and rocking chair in there the first few weeks, and hunting down my old tattered copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" so I can remind myself of the signs of impending labor, and pre-registering at the hospital (again, already??), and getting together a hospital bag, and figuring out where said only child will be, exactly, while we're at the hospital...


Like I said, holy crap. We better get started.

Wordless Monday - "I'm a Big Kid Now!"

...and a gratuitous 6 months (!!!!) belly shot. Next time maybe I'll clean off the water spots on the mirror:)

The Drive-In

There are certain family activities that I always have nostalgia for, those activities that I couldn't wait to do with my own kids once I had some. Going to the drive-in is a big one. When we were growing up, there were still quite a few drive-in movie theaters in Denver (the one in Thornton, the Cinderella Twin, and let's not forget the Super Ghetto Drive-by Drive-in on Colfax...good times.) I still remember my first drive-in movie, my mom and her best friend took me and my twin sister -- at AGE FIVE -- to see a horror double feature: The Thing and Cat People. Waaaay too scary for kids our age, and other than being petrified for 4 hours straight the other big memory of that night is us spilling a giant orange soda all over the WHITE seats of our godfather's brand-new car. It was awesome. As the drive-in concept started to fade away and the theaters around town began closing, our family still managed to make it to the drive-in at least a couple of times every summer. Once I was in high school and college, TH and I continued the tradition and had regular drive-in dates. The drive-in is where we saw National Lampoon's European Vacation, and Beverly Hills Cop. It's also where as a teenager I watched the first Jurassic Park, and Apollo 13, and Twister (which features a great scene of a drive-in being torn apart by a tornado).

So imagine our surprise this weekend when TH and I found out after 5 years of living here that Vegas has a drive-in! Who woulda thought? It's usually so hot at night during the summer that the drive-in seems like a spectacularly bad idea - in July midnight temperatures are usually around 95 degrees, I kid you not. But we've been having weird weather lately, with downright balmy, breezy nights, so yesterday after J said he wanted to "have a pickanick outside" we spontaneously packed up and drove across town to find that drive-in. Not only has J never been to a drive-in, but he's never been to a movie at all, so he was super excited on the way there. "We're going to watch a movie in the car! We have our pillows and blankets in the car! We're going to eat in the car!" He had no idea what was going on but he knew it was going to be different. After running through KFC (classic drive-in food for our family) we found the place, and it was actually pretty nice, with 5 screens and ample parking. Our chosen features were Up followed by Night at the Museum 2, although we had no plans of trying to watch the second feature.

It was so. much. more. fun. than I thought it was going to be. Kind of like a slumber party, kind of like going camping. We were all wearing pajama bottoms, laying in the back of our SUV with the hatch up, eating fried chicken and drinking lemonade, and lounging on pillows and blankets from home. J was so well-behaved -- a whole night without whining, or crying, or complaining once. No potty accidents, either. J suprised me in a couple of ways, eating ALOT of chicken and "corm" on the cob (and tasting coleslaw), and staying up for the ENTIRE movie. (Quick movie review: Up is a great family film, J loved the balloons and dogs, and there is a nice message for the adults, too, that actually brought tears to my eyes. It's worth seeing.) He actually managed to stay awake until right before we got home at around 11pm...and still woke up at 6am this morning, the little bugger.

Anyway we're definitely going to do the drive-in again before it gets too hot. It was a great way to spend some time together and for TH and I to get to a movie without paying a sitter. For once, instead of having too-high expectations in an activity and being disappointed, the drive-in turned out to be just as great as I imagined it would be, one of those times when TH and I looked at each other and said, "This is what we hoped having kids would be like."

Stardate 0609.09 - Mom Confessions

• Putting "Stardate" in the title of a blog - quite possibly one of the dorkier things I've done yet.
• J has been stalling at bedtime by telling me there's a "ghost" in his room. Last night after his third trip out of his room I might have told him that "ghosts can grab you alot easier if you're walking around in your room instead of in your bed." I might have started a new, real night-time fear. But...he did stay in his bed after that.
• Thanks to our new after-church "tradition" of the past couple of months, J knows what McDonald's is, and can rattle off his preferred order by heart ("Pancakes, and sausage, and orange juice, and SYRUP!!") I absolutely swore my kid wouldn't know about fast food (you know, before I had a kid that is), and now he gets Mickey D's breakfast 2-3 times a month. Whatever.
• Last weekend J clotheslined himself on a table while riding his tricycle around the living room because he kept turning around telling me, "Watch me, Mommy!" instead of looking where he was going. I could see that he wasn't hurt, so I started laughing. Hysterically. Then he got mad at me for laughing (I tried to cover it up, I really did) and as he was dramatically stomping away he turned to me and said "It's not funny!" and while his head was turned he ran into the wall. Which made me laugh harder.
• The other day J told TH, "Daddy, you have a flat booty." TH told me about it later and was all, "Where does he get this stuff from?" I didn't tell him that earlier that day, J ran up to me and pounded his fists on my rear end and yelled, "Mommy has a BIG BIG BOOTY!!" to which I replied, "Yeah, well, it's better than having a flat butt like your dad."
• I realized this morning that I haven't taken a prenatal vitamin in almost 4 weeks. I just forgot. Oops.

There, I'm done.

Wordless Wednesday Night - You know you're pregnant when this is what you're doing at 2am...

Sadly this all started with an ice cream sandwich but I gobbled that up before picking up the camera.