I also have a son.

Looking through this blog I realized I haven't posted any pictures of Porter in, like, forever. Seeking to remedy that, I have this to share with you:
It's like a whole bunch of pictures, shown in rapid succession to create the impression of motion! And with sound, even!

she's Fifty!

Anyone remember the Sally O'Malley character that Molly Shannon used to do on SNL? "I'm fifty!" All I could find on Youtube was imitations of it but you get the idea. Anyway, Little Miss Amy Lou is exactly fifty days old right now; I realized it when I was up at some unearthly hour this morning. No, I am not so obsessed that I've been counting the days but she was seven weeks yesterday, and 49 + 1 = 50. (And, truth be told I only know she's seven weeks because I went to the doctor last Friday.)


The point being, 50 is a nice round number, and Amy is a nice round baby.


***WARNING: GRATUITOUS THIGH SHOT***

I will say, Amy doesn't smile a whole lot for being almost 2 whole months old. And she's still not giving me that one blessed 4-hour shift at night. I suspect that she's just a teensy bit more high maintenance than my other babies but maybe my memory is skewed. I've definitely been lucky with the easy babies, no colic or reflux or weird allergies or the like (toddlers are another matter but let's not even go there).

On the other hand, I am becoming a lot more laissez-faire about the whole thing. Like, when I had Betsy (and even with Porter, to a lesser extent) I was all "no bottles! no pacis!" but with Amy, by the second 24 hours of her nursing every freaking forty-five minutes, I was practically begging the nurses to take her and give her an ounce or two or 45 of formula. I told them I don't care if they give her hot wings and beer, I just can't take constant feeding. I mean, not that I am any less dedicated to nursing Amy than I was with the others but a lot less paranoid about supply issues and the dreaded "confusion" (which I think is a myth anyway) and I also let her sleep in our bed probably one night out of three, not on purpose but because I fall asleep feeding her. It's kind of nice, this whole actually knowing what you are doing.

Betsy had her end-of-the-year school picnic and I finally got to meet some of the moms of her classmates. It's funny, I'm going to have to get used to being addressed as "Betsy's mom." Here is Betsy with her absolutely wonderful teacher Mrs. Kirkendall.
Can you see, from the photo, what a nice gorgeous sunny day it's been? Still not hot enough to go to the pool but just right for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner.

Where's Norm Abrams when you need him?

Some of our baseboard trim is pulling away from the wall. Any idea how to fix it? I tried pounding in some finish/trim nails but that didn't work; do I need to be using a nail gun? And is the world really safe if I have a nail gun in my hand? (starts humming 'Do It Again'... no, there is no situation where a Steely Dan song does not apply)

Anyway, we've started the big push to get our house presentable. I've been spackling and sanding and priming and I'm going to go down to Lowes tomorrow after Betsy's school picnic and get a whole lot of paint. I just got done cleaning the fronts of the kitchen cabinets. It's funny, you don't realize how dirty things can get in less than 2 years. Like the doors... holy cow, our doors were filthy. Of course, the downside to removing all of the Stealth Dirt is that you get absolutely zero sense of accomplishment, because who really cares if the doors are clean or not? But still, I think that if we are still in this house a year from now we will make washing all the baseboards and trim and stuff an annual chore.

And holy cow, you would not believe the amount of crayon on Porter's wall!

Aside from all the spackling (Isn't 'spackle' a fun word? Spackle spackle spackle) here is what else I have gotten done recently.





I've gotten faster at scrapbooking lately; I'm trying not to spend so much time agonizing over the placement of one tiny brad and the result is that I can actually get 2 or 3 layouts done in an evening if I really want to. 'Piggies' was a really hard one to finish; I agonized over it for a while and in the end I just decided to put everything on the page and call it a day. I still think it needs something more but if I figure out what that is, great, and if not it's still a completed scrapbook page. I'm sure not going to lie awake worrying about it. Mainly because I already have Amy to keep me up at night, and why mess with perfection?

oh P.S.

look what I made while Porter was taking his nap this afternoon.

I've never finished a whole project in one sitting, so I feel pretty good.

Nothing special

Matt is in Utah right now. He flew out yesterday for another interview with the same company that saw him back at the beginning of April. He actually gets to stay overnight this time, because I am not about to give birth, but rather have given birth. (In fact, my six week checkup is tomorrow. This is a big deal because I am the last one on COBRA and after the six week thing, I can switch to the much cheaper plan that the rest of the family is on.) Matt called me from his parents' house last night and told me that his brother was bringing some Wingers for dinner. Matt loves Wingers so regardless of how the interview goes, I think we can say the trip was a success.

Everyone in the family is sick right now. I have a killer sore throat, and Betsy is going to have to miss school (which means she has only three days left). It stinks.

We met with a couple of realtors this week - since we have been toying with the idea of relocation pretty much ever since Matt got laid off, we thought it would be a good idea to find out if we can at least break even. (We built this house less than two years ago, so there's not much in the way of equity... and we keep hearing how housing prices are down and it's a buyer's market and you'd be nuts to sell your house right now, bwahahaaa.) Anyway, it turns out that we are in better shape than we thought. Actually I got a call from one of the realtors while he was doing the market analysis.
Realtor: "I need to confirm some things with you, I have some conflicting information."
Joni: "Okay."
Realtor: "Your house doesn't have a basement, does it?"
Joni: "No, it has a basement." (Thinking: I sure hope it does because the kids are playing down there right now.)
Realtor: "But I'm also seeing that you only paid $XXX,000 for your house."
Joni: "Yes, that's right."
Realtor: "Oh." (pause) "You got a really good deal on your house, didn't you?"
So, learning that it might actually be possible to walk away with some money in hand slightly eases the sting if we do have to sell the house, and makes me glad once again that we built it when we did. Obviously we are still hoping to stay, though.

The neighborhood swimming pool opens this weekend. However, it was all of sixty degrees yesterday. I wonder who's going to go swimming if it doesn't get warmer - polar bears, maybe?

Oh yeah! I have a blog!

I taught the book of Malachi in seminary this morning, which means that we are done. DONE! with the Old Testament. I never thought I'd make it through. Of course, being vastly pregnant while teaching the book of Isaiah probably contributed to the sensation of interminability (that's a word, right?) but there's also the fact that it's one of the hugest undertakings I've, well, undertaken. Having a co-teacher to share it with (she's a lovely English woman with a wicked sense of humor) has made it much, much easier in terms of lesson preparation and such, even though I did still have to get up every morning. We'll have a few days of review and fun, and then a big breakfast for the students. (Another thing that surprised me was how attached I got to the kids, who are all in high school - I tend to be turned off by huge groups of teenagers. I don't know how Beth and Susan do it.) I'm looking forward to teaching the New Testament if we are still here in the fall.




Betsy's dance recital is coming up in just a couple of weeks, and they got the costumes on Tuesday.

Is she not basically the cutest thing ever? (Especially with her tights on the outside of the costume and her tap shoes on the wrong feet.) I have no idea how Betsy will actually perform when it comes down to it since her level of participation in class varies widely from week to week... but hey, if she stands on stage deer-in-the-headlights for the entire routine, at least she will look good while she's doing it.

Speaking of cute, here's this year's model.

Still not a real smile, but I can pretend. Amy's got the baby acne right now, poor thing, although it doesn't really show up on film. (And I love how the tongue makes her look like a little puppy.) I told you she's getting fatter! We switched out of Newborn diapers into Size 1's, and her homecoming outfit doesn't fit anymore. Also, her siblings' obsessive love for her shows no signs of waning. I bet that changes when she's old enough to steal their toys.

What little I actually accomplished

I swore I was going to scrap on Saturday - being National Scrapbook Day and all - and I did. Behold the one layout I actually completed.

The stamps - clock and quote - came in my box from Scrapbook Trends that I got Thursday - it was fun to have something new to play with on NSD. I also got the baby announcements done, which is impressive until you consider that I actually only made one and scanned it.

I probably would have gotten more done, except that I spent the better part of the afternoon holding Amy to my chest while she slept. In my defense, she was making those little sleeping-baby noises so what was I supposed to do? And I swear I can see her getting bigger. She's not visibly longer, but she's definitely fatter. The snaps on her newborn onesies (Note to Blogger spellchecker: No, I do not mean onuses. Although I suppose those are uncomfortable too) are actually getting a little hard to fasten. This afternoon I went through the 9,261 boxes of baby clothes and got out all of the 0-3 month clothes, and she has a lot. (And while I was at it, I put away all of my maternity clothes. Woo hoo! I am so done with elastic waist pants. For now.)

Amy turns one month on Friday. (And speaking of birthdays, jdhoosier - my dorky older brother and the father of the extremely adorable Miles - turns thirty tomorrow. Happy birthday and good luck with exams!) I think that the milestone I'm looking forward to the most - more so than non-liquid poops and sleeping through the night - is her first smile. It's got to be right around the corner. Newborns are so incredibly selfish and that first gummy grin is a great moment, a tiny acknowledgement of the huge amount of effort I've put myself to on her behalf. (But we're still not buying you a pony, Cutie Pie.)