Ugh and Cheerio

If any lucky soul out there is wondering, is it possible to still have daily morning sickness at 18 weeks, the password is...YES.  Ughhhh....  On a happier pregnancy note, I can feel the baby move now.  It started on Wed at Liam's piano lesson.  With Aidan I swear to you I could feel him moving at something like 13 or 14 weeks.    This kid, 17 weeks.  Maybe he won't be the contortionist that Aidan is. 

We have two weeks to decide if we want to know the sex of the bambino.  I'm mostly leaning toward no, and honestly feel very, very sure he is a boy.  The only reason I'd want to know now is just for practical getting rid of clothes reasons.  But who knows how it'll play out when the time comes. 

I just watched the first season of Downton Abbey.  Loved it.  Obsessed.  So happy I have another full season to watch, wish I could pace myself better. 

Must go, morning sickness, ever the bane of my existence. 

But Just So You Know....

On the other hand, Aidan was standing in the back room repeatedly saying "hi guys, hi guys!" real excitedly, but no one was responding because they were playing their own games.  I called out, "Boys, Aidan's saying hi to you, please respond."  Brendan's response?  "Hi Aidan... can you talk to Liam?"

This Is Just Cute

Yesterday I heard Brendan on the couch talking with Aidan.  He was saying, "Aidan, you are so cute.  You know what, I think you are the best of all of us."  :o)

Ok, I'll Admit It...

I've grown to like it here.  My little Mayberry neighborhood.  Don't get me wrong - I'm still scouring Craigslist and Zillow for houses out by Mountain View and occasionally Boulder and even once in a while Ireland, but now that the boys have started school it's getting harder to think of leaving here.  I mean, logistically it's amazing.  I am 4 blocks from work, the school is literally half a block down the street and visible from the front window, the Metra is 3 blocks away when we need a quick downtown fix.  Heck I just read the public high school here is actually ranked a couple slots above my own high school, and the park district facilities rock.  It's looking more likely that if we don't move out of the area we'll either move within a few block radius of our current house, or just add on to where we live right now.  I definitely want more room, especially considering we'll be a family of SIX this Summer, but the main problem with adding on is that I really don't want to encroach too much on our existing yard.  Also we're super close to having completed every major upgrade to this house that we wanted, and now it's really not half bad.  We'll get a new roof this Spring, and I think the only major things left to do are replace the hideous siding on the addition and garage and get a back patio (we seriously don't have one, at all.)  Oh wait, I did forget to mention most of the food options here are still sub par suck.  There's a specialty grocery store that's awesome, and owned by our local celebrity chef, and a little Mexican restaurant opened up just two blocks away and it is quite good.  But really though there are many restaurants within walking distance, none are too great.  It's what I would consider the biggest drawback of where we live.  I really love being able to walk to everything, and I would hate to live someplace that required a lot of driving to get around.  I'm sort of a homebody, and I think without exception every place Eric and I have lived has been super walkable.  I think our apartment in Park Ridge was the furthest removed from the main drag. 
The other thing is we've made a lot of friends and I really love it.  I mean LT and BP (and even AMJ) have so many friends and Eric and I have become close with a number of parents, and these are people and families we'll be able to not only hang out with but go on vacations with and that means a lot to me.  Even knowing that we could make new friends someplace, it's getting much harder to imagine doing that.  So, for now at least, we're (probably) staying.  And expanding (our family.)  And re-roofing.
Maybe next time I'll write about how horrible my morning sickness STILL is!  See, and you were just wishing I blogged more.
We're going to Don Juans now.  Brendan didn't nap and Aidan only took a short nap.  Wish us luck.

Braggard

So, I'm going to write this post for posterity.  I don't know if I wrote down the answer to Liam's preschool "What is your child like" essay question, but I believe I at least made a copy of it and have it somewhere.  I hope so anyway because that sweet boy should have some record of himself at age 3/4.  I just had to write an essay for Brendan's preschool class, and I'm going to record it here.  While I'm on the subject of bragging I have to point out that Liam requested I get from the library Brian Greene's DVD The Fabric of the Cosmos.  He's been watching online it since it re-aired on television.  I had to put it on hold since it was out but I was able to get a DVD of The Elegant Universe, which is good because he wanted Eric to read that to him.  I'm not saying he's a 6 year old astrophysicist, but I just think it is so cool that he finds that interesting, especially because it is sooooo far removed from what I found interesting as a child.  Sooooo far. 

Ok, so now I'll commence with the Brendan bragging.  This really is just for me to record somewhere what I wrote, in the very likely event I can't find the sheet for his memory box after I copy it.  I hope I can find what I wrote about Liam because I'd love to compare them.  That thing about not comparing your kids is just hooey.  I mean of course you don't compare in negatives ways, "Oh Joey is so much better than you in this way" or whatever, but the fact that kids from the same parents can be such different people is so interesting.  And as different as they are there are so many ways in which they are the same too.  And they're all awesome in their own ways.

What is your child like?
Brendan is very mature for his age.  He is exuberant, happy, loving, optimistic, inquisitive.  He is strong-willed about things that are important to him, but wants to get along with others, be involved and noticed, and have a fun time.  He is thoughtful and sincere, with a loving heart.  He does not suffer perceived injustices easily.  He is a strong extrovert, but may hang back in situations if he is unsure of his place.  He will stand up for himself.  If he is tired or not feeling well he has little patience for situations that don't go his way.  He is a consummate people person and he has a joyful soul. 

Aidanisms

Aidan's first phrase, repeated many many times throughout the day and basically used like "smurf" was, "Jude bye bye."  It meant a whole host of things, sometimes even that our neighbor Jude was going bye bye.  That's still in his lexicon, but then, for a lovely while, a new phrase, my favorite, overtook "Jude bye bye."  That phrase was "I love Momma" which over time morphed into "I love Mommy."  This was also used like smurf, but certainly mostly to tell me and everyone else how much he loved me.  However, now the phrase that has taken the number one position is "Ew.  Gwoek."  That can refer to many things, most of which really seem to be gwoek to Aidan, including fur balls, lots of things the meows do, drool, a drop of spilled milk, a diaper, a piece of lettuce after happily eating that same piece of lettuce for quite some time, and then resuming eating that piece of lettuce after the "ew gwoek" proclamation, etc.  It's super adorable, but I still prompt him to say I Love Mommy whenever possible.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

Tomorrow Eric comes home!  Yes!  I am so happy and so are the boys.  Yet this week went by quickly, and it was very fun.  The kids were so well behaved and thoughtful and sweet.  Sure, there was some yelling, but that would have been true even with Eric home, because when you have three little boys sometimes you have to be a drill sargent.  But other times you get to swim around a big pool in Lake Geneva or play spies or read books about da Bears.  (Did you know Sid Luckman took a job coaching the Columbia University football team and refused to be paid for it, insisting the money go to deserving students who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend Columbia.  What an incredible guy!  And can you even imagine a college football coach doing something like that today?)  The cutest and saddest part of the week was when we were video chatting with Eric and Aidan reached his arms up to the computer so Eric could pick him up, and then he started crying because Eric didn't pick him up.  If he would start to miss Eric it usually seemed to help if I told him "Daddy's on a big plane up in the sky." And Aidan would reply happily, "Oh wow!"  So in Aidan's mind Eric's been flying since he left.  I guess he sort of thinks of Eric as an astronaut.
Happy trails.