The Name Game

Oh dear, I am finding out very quickly that it can get a bit confusing when your father-in-law, husband, AND son all have the same name. We knew what we were getting into when we wanted to name our boy Donald William III, and I have been fully on-board with the idea of passing down Don's name, but in practice it continues to trip me up.

Don (my husband) is affectionately called Donny by his mom, my mom, and me, so calling our little boy Donny still isn't giving him much of his own name, at least within the immediate family. Before he was born we had talked about calling him by his middle name instead, but decided to just "see what flowed" after he was born.

Amy quickly took to calling him Baby Donny which has definitely stuck... for everyone but me. I think he is a William, and calling him such would make life SO much easier. And I would hate for the poor guy to remain "Little Donny" or "Baby Donny" once he is no longer little nor a baby. But Don, Amy and I are already in the habit of calling him Donny and I can't seem to get anyone besides my mom to go along with calling him anything else.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that my mother-in-law and I have the same name? That's right, there are two pairs of Don-and-Susan in this family.

Anyway, I know some of my regular readers have already heard me complain about this naming predicament I'm in. We will figure it out sooner rather or later. My apologies for any confusion that results. Or boredom from reading this tedious post. How about a really cute picture as thanks for putting up with me?

I'll be back here soon, I'm back-logged with stuff to write about and pictures to share. I'm also back-logged with pretty much everything else I'd like to be doing, but I will get caught up, I promise!

Under Construction

Finally making some changes to the "look" of this here blog. I think it's an improvement. I'm also trying to figure out how to get a picture behind the blog title but each time I try it turns out HUGE - not sure what I'm doing wrong. Anyway, more tweaking to come; bedtime for now.

Some Thoughts

Busy as ever with this little guy and his big sister, but as I've found myself thinking about the week's activities in terms of blog-ability, here are some snippets of what is On My Mind these days:

:: I thought myself so on top of things when I ordered birth announcements within a week of getting home from the hospital and planned to include them with thank-you notes, but shipment was delayed, and as result thank-yous have been delayed. For all of you kind people who have sent gifts, I am sorry I'm behind in my acknowledgements.

:: Day 2 of serious potty training. Two successful tinkles in the potty, many pairs of soggy underwear. Is this success?

:: Breastfeeding is SO much easier the second time around. Thank goodness.

:: We ate green beans from our garden with dinner tonight (pork tenderloin on the grill and little red potatoes). Fabulous.

:: When we unpacked groceries today we discovered a package of pita pockets in the bag with our lettuce. We did not buy pita pockets. Whoever was in line ahead of us must have, and is surely a little annoyed that he or she left a bag behind at the store. However, with nothing we could do to make the situation right, we used them for tuna salad sandwiches and toasted the person who inadvertently bought us lunch.

:: This list seemed like it was going to be much longer and far more witty when I was composing it in my head, far away from a keyboard, of course.

:: Don is the best. The days that he is home always make me wonder how we get by when he is at work. It's not like I put my feet up when he's around, but everything is happier and easier with an extra set of hands, someone else for Amy to play with, and my best friend to talk to.

:: Moments ago there was a cat hanging on to the back of my chair by his toenails. I think that means it's time for me to wrap this up and play with him for a bit so he doesn't spend all night chasing our toes under the covers. And meanwhile I'm sure I'll be thinking of all the other newsy bits I meant to add here. I'll be back!

In Pictures

To complement last night's post, here are some actual snapshots from the last two weeks:

Snapshots Without Pictures

We are more than two weeks into our life with Two and I must say so far it has been quite... peaceful. Don was on leave for two weeks and during that time we:

:: went to the zoo and made several trips to the beach

:: celebrated Don's 28th birthday (and I made a carrot cake from scratch)

:: crossed things off our "around the house" to-do list

:: had margaritas on the patio

:: spent every evening together on the couch with our little tree frog, catching up on TV

:: had family here to visit

Our little boy is quite easy-going and awfully cute. Our (not so little) girl is spunky as ever and very happy about her little brother. I have tons of pictures to share, but haven't gotten around to getting them from camera to computer, so for the briefest of updates I thought I'd describe two scenes from this evening that have left me feeling that this was a Good Day:

:: Little Donny hanging out on my lap while I stole a bit of computer time this evening. Amy was asleep so this was a rare opportunity for me to hang out and chat with my boy without big sister stealing the show.

:: Amy sound asleep with her arm around her baby doll. They are wearing matching cupcake pajamas, a gift from grandma and grandpa. Even better: Amy fell asleep without me in the room - some necessary and way overdue progress in the whole bedtime routine.

Two children might now mean twice as much work and half as much free time, but it is all worth it for twice as many happy moments like those tonight.

Welcome!

Donald William III made his arrival at 5:19 a.m. on Saturday, May 22, 2010. 8 lbs, 21", and perfect in every way!


Labor was VERY intense but very short. Though I had been having contractions throughout the day on Friday, it wasn't until waking up at 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning that I knew the time had come. We arrived at the hospital shortly after 3, and Donny was born only two hours later. I am also pleased to say that I had no pain killers or epidural - I did have an epidural with Amy and this was a COMPLETELY different (and better) experience.


We spent only Saturday and Saturday night in the hospital, and were home by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Little Donny has been a nursing like a pro from the beginning and at only a few days old is falling into something of a routine for his days. He is a complete delight. Amy is being a model big sister, and is sweet as can be toward him. With Don home on leave for two weeks, we are finding ourselves in the midst of a remarkably peaceful and enjoyable time for our family, with hardly any of the newborn-stress we experienced when Amy was born.


There is more to say, of course, but I needed to start somewhere. You can expect more pictures and much more on our family of four (!) in the weeks to come.

Quilt

Finally getting around to a post on the quilt I recently completed. This one might take the prize for length of time "in progress." The fabric was a set of 35 ten-inch squares in coordinating blues, yellows, whites, and greens. Blue and yellow has always been one of my favorite combinations. Anyway, I know I ordered the fabric with birthday money - probably 4 or 5 years ago. It took THE longest time to decide how to use it all, because as much as I like blue and yellow, in the decorating world none of my other stuff really leans in that whole French-country direction. So I knew if I made a quilt it would be a bit of a misfit for the time being.

But anyway, somewhere during the time I was expecting Amy I decided I'd cut all the squares into strips and re-piece them together... and then sometime later realized that because of seam allowances I would no longer have squares... and then sometime later had the brilliant idea to trim off the extra length (about 2.5") and sew all that together to use as binding.

Last summer/fall I decided to do a basket-weave layout and nixed any plans to add sashing. Within a few weeks I sewed all the blocks together, added the border, batting, and backing, and tried valiantly to machine quilt the top but just. could. not. finish. I blame a combo of cats, morning sickness (or rather, naps), and a sewing machine that jammed and/or broke my thread approximately every 3 minutes. I was so close and yet so far...

Anyway, fast forward a few more months to April when I acquired my lovely new machine and at long last, finished up the remaining free-motion quilting in one afternoon, then sewed on the binding, labeled it, washed it, and photographed it. Hurray!

Isn't that exciting?? I think so - I love completion. This makes the fourth quilt I've completed, with another one just waiting to be quilted (that one has been hanging around since last summer now, too - drat).

Now it just needs a home!