Happy Independence Day!

Danny in the Windy City

While I was at a conference in June for work, Su and Danny had a great time exploring Chicago. What a fun city! Especially since my niece and her husband and 9 month old live there and were wonderful hosts. We'll definitely be going back. Danny was mesmerized and so were we. -Monica

Getting to "glowy"

Since announcing the news that we are expecting our second child at Christmastime, I haven’t written much about it. Why? Well let’s see? Danny keeps us going 100 mph, we are both extremely busy at work and, maybe after going through the miscarriage last year we are both a bit nervous. I’ve heard this described at “one foot in, one foot out”. You want to be happy and celebrate and be all “glowy” but then a tiny part of your brain keeps telling you to watch out.

On the brighter side, Su is entering her 16th week and we’ll actually start to see more definitive proof soon that baby number two is really planning to join us. We do periodically look at books and other info regarding how the baby is developing as these weeks roll along and, just like when Su was pregnant with Danny, once in a while I’ll see something that really gets me excited. Like today I read that at 15 weeks even though a baby’s eyes are still fused shut they can react to light—if you shined a flashlight on Su’s belly the baby would most likely turn from the light. That seems pretty real right?

I know that little ear buds are already formed so I’m sure he or she is turning away quite often from Danny squawking and other fun sounds ;-) By the way, we’ve decided that while “en utero” to call this baby our Crumpet. It comes from the fact that babies are measured “Crown to Rump” at this stage which always cracks me up.

Don’t worry. I looked up Crumpet to make sure there wasn’t some awful other meaning (besides delicious pancake like treats) and in fact, in Britain it’s said that it’s a nickname for someone who is intelligent and good looking. Whew. The proverbial "smart cookie".

Yup. We are getting a little more excited each day. Today our Crumpet should be about 4 inches long. Here is a pic that shows the development of a baby at 15 weeks. Cool huh?

True story

So this morning at breakfast Danny was acting both cranky and devilish. At one point he was sitting at the table screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason whatsoever.

"AH!"

"AH!"

"AH!"

We tried ignoring him. but we do have a row house and thought it pretty unfair to the neighbors to keep ignoring, so we then tried cajoling and distracting him...you know, everything in the book.

Finally I looked at him and said (perhaps a bit crankily)

"Danny, are we going to have to start paying Jenni double what we pay her to put up with this kind of behavior????"

His face transformed into utter sadness and despair.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he sobbed and sobbed until I scooped him up and held him tight.

So Jenni, sorry to let you know that Danny seems to not favor this suggestion.

Or maybe he thinks we should pay you TEN TIMES what we pay you now.

God love him.

Sigh. I shouldn't be so hard on our little lamb. He was awakened in the night by loud thunder which really shakes him up. Unfortunately I haven't yet figured out how to stop the thunder. No wonder he woke up on the wrong side of the crib today. Any suggestions on how to help with this fear gentle readers? -Monica

'Nuf Said

Could I feel more tired this morning?

A word of advice to those dedicated to designing good public restrooms.

Supersonic hand dryers like this Dys*n's machine sound pretty much like Beoing 747s taking off, so maybe you could consider installing them as far away from the baby changing stations as possible?

Just a thought. -Monica

P.S. For those of you not familiar with these amazing hand dryers, you'll know what I'm talking about the first time you encounter one. Effective? Absolutely. Loud? Unbelievably!

-M

So sad

Yesterday I worked from home, but decided I needed to run down to my office to get some important papers I wanted to hand deliver to someone at another agency. Once I was done, I got on the Metro and headed home but for some reason I was curious to see some construction that was going on behind our house so I stayed on the Red Line for one extra stop to get a better view. Once I got to Fort Totten I simply got off my outbound train and crossed the platform to catch the inbound train back home.

About an hour or so later I got a CNN alert on my blackberry that there had been a train crash in DC on the Metro. What I saw on TV horrified me. A terrible accident between Fort Totten and Takoma Station. 70+ injuries and at least 9 dead. A train struck an idling train at full speed and the striking train basically ended up on top of the last car of the struck train.

You know, I remember that I was in the first car of the train I was riding yesterday and was thinking about how cool it was that there was a window behind the driver so you could see the driver and the track ahead. I thought how Danny would love it and silently filed away that next time we rode the Metro we'd sit in the first car so he could see everything.

Please keep all of the victims in your thoughts and prayers. Just regular people doing regular stuff. Just like all of us every day. -Monica

P.S. Danny keeps saying "choo choo uh oh" whenever he sees the TV or radio. He's so right.