Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Sissy

When I was pregnant with Jimi, we called him Junior until he was born and named. Now that I am pregnant with a girl, we have been calling her Sissy. Jimi began to do the cutest thing about a month or two ago. He has noticed my stomach growing larger and larger. He started to rub it. When he would rub it, I would say, "that's Sissy in there!" I know he's too young to get it, but at least he'll be familiar with the word Sissy.

Nowadays, he comes up to me, rubs my stomach and says, "sissy". He also rubs his own stomach and says "sissy". Hehe. He has new words like car, tree, shoe, bubble, balloon, more, hi and bottle.

He has recently taken up the art of digging through the garbage and pulling out miscellaneous items. It is usually a water bottle, plastic is his favorite to play with. However, sometimes he likes to throw things in the garbage. This all started on Christmas, with him helping pick up the wrapping paper and throw it away. He got so many "good boy"s that I think he decided to start throwing everything away. To date we have found a remote, a shirt, a shoe, and various assorted toys.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Waffling on Waffles

Mmm...I woke up to the smell of waffles this morning. Or, so I thought. That is, until I actually woke up and realized that there were no waffles, and there were no pleasant maple aromas. I dreamed that I was invited over to a member of our church's house (Amy Sanderson). Amy is the sister of Dana, who is pregnant with her third child and has been informed that they couldn't capture the sex of the baby on u/s because the baby was moving too much (I found that out on Wednesday at church).

So it was Amy who was throwing a party/women's ministry at her house. I was an hour and forty minutes late. In fact, it started at 7 and it was 8:35 when I checked the time. I felt bad that I was late, and knew the food would be gone, so I had brought my own. I knew they had made waffles (yes, for a 7pm party) and so I brought my Kashi strawberry waffles from home (as an aside, I'm sure the reason they made it into the dream was that I tried to look for them at Costco on Wed and they were out).

When I arrived, I pulled out the half-eaten plastic waffle bag and said, "I hope you don't mind, I brought my own". The downside, though, was that they weren't finished making waffles, and even though I had changed my mind and wanted to eat theirs, I had to eat my own because I had said I brought them. I watched in envy as they painstakingly poured the waffle batter onto the iron, and as the irons steamed. I shuffled my feet over to the toaster, and plopped mine in. It smelled SO good.

If you can believe it, I didn't really want waffles when I woke up. I guess I had had enough. Oh, I also dreamed I was laying in a big, open field and was trying to sleep under the moon and stars without a blanket. Turns out, I was actually sleeping in a king bed with a cover hog.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Name Game

I know it's lame, but I need some help with girl names. Anyone got any good ones? Oh, please make all of your submissions be of the Yoruba origin. Thanks.

I am serious. Dapo is convinced we're having a girl. With Jimi, he was convinced it was a boy. We still didn't start thinking of names until after the news-breaking ultrasound that proved our suspicions. We knew it would be easy. Well, not that a girl name will be hard, except that I want to keep a family namesake going. Not Dapo's. Mine.

Enter the complicated equation: My grandma's name is Jane. My mother's name is Janette (notice the unique spelling vs. the more common Jeanette). And my middle name is Jane. So, it stands to reason I'd like to include some form of Jane in my daughter's name. Jane, by the way, means Gracious. And I've never known a more gracious, giving woman than my mother. If it meant "fern plant", "moon" or "mother of Hamlet" I wouldn't be so keen on keeping it around. But it speaks of the nature of God and the nature of good, giving women I know.

Dapo informs me there is no form of anything even remotely close to "Jan" or "Jane" in Yoruba. So, it looks like we'd have to do a two Yoruba, one English name. We thought about doing that with Jimi and then I said "Olujimi Ayomide Daniel" just sounds like we lost our train of thought, or gave up at the end. Hence, Olujimi Ayomide Toluwani was born. Besides, the third (and fourth!) name in Yoruba tradition is usually the name the grandparents give to the child. My parents chose to pass up their side of that opportunity. That was good since his full name already didn't fit on his Social Security Card.

I guess we could opt for the all English one first name one middle name more traditional in the US route, but then people might wonder if Jimi was adopted. Oh, Olujimi Ayomide Toluwani and Elizabeth Jane? Okay... Actually, I could just not give her a middle name, since here in the south everyone has two first names. Laura Beth, Betty Sue, Mary Beth, John Boy etc.

So, if anyone has any ideas on what we could do, please speak up.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Cheerio, Cheerios

I have been finding myself feeling more pregnant of late. You know, you're talking at a normal pace when suddenly a fog of nothing blankets your recollection. Questions like "what am I doing here?", "what am I talking about?" and "what year is it?" flood your mind.

Sometimes you go to get juice out of the fridge and you find a box of Cheerios. Okay, maybe you don't, but I do. I am just glad that I didn't find the milk in the pantry. Do you know the Far Side cartoon where the waitress goes to write down an order and says, "hmm...if my tampon is behind my ear, then where is my pen?" I know how she must have felt. Well, not literally!

I remember with Jimi the forgetfulness was much worse and it started much earlier on. Or maybe there is just less of my brain this time around and so the % is the same, but the bottom line is less. Perhaps now I'm accustomed to it, and it's still as bad, I am just accepting it better.

Last night I was talking to Dapo and I think he may have sat there for five minutes before gingerly asking, "Honey? You were saying?" First of all, I told him, don't wait so long to bring me back from the abyss next time! Second of all, I have learned that most "I forget" moments can be recovered from nicely with a request for ice cream.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Dreams are Back

It is funny how a word or a situation in real life can shimmy it's way into a dream. I have had a few of late that are odd enough to share. During church on Sunday, the person taking up the offering said the word, "tornado". I thought nothing of it until I went to sleep that night.

I dreamt that we were living in a two-story house that you envisage if you think of Midwestern towns in movies like Twister. Yellow, made of wood, with a chain link fence along a long, dusty road with two dogs out front. Our good friends the Dodges were paying us a visit and we got news that a tornado was on its way. At first they were like, no, it's not. Then when we could see it, I sent them all into the basement, and ran outside to get the dogs. It was really close and time was short, so I grabbed one of the dogs, the younger of the two. My rationale was that the other dog was actually quite old and going to die any day, anyhow.

If you can believe it, I realized after I got the dog that Jimi was still in his crib. Yeah, I got the dog before the baby...sheesh! I went and got him and all was well.

Speaking of Jimi in a crib, I had a dream that Jimi was in a crib with his little brother. Although, I don't give that much credit since I had dreams that Jimi was a boy and dreams that he was a girl.

Another dream I had was my family was going to a fancy gala in Longview, WA. Once we arrived I realized I had left Jimi in the car. Again with my memory! So, I hurriedly went back for him and my friend Heather had him and her little girl, Victoria. They were each in they're own stroller and she was walking them towards the event. ps, I have no idea why we left Heather behind, either! I asked her if she wanted help and she said this was not her first time pushing two children in strollers (she has 4 kids).

So we went back to the gala together and I somehow wanted to get to the other side of the rotunda, but there were too many people, so I decided to jump onto the chandelier and swing across to the other side. I grabbed a pie from someone, and hurled it down to the floor below while shouting, "Jesus loves you!"

Hmm...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Heartbeat

Today was my OB/GYN appointment. Dapo met me there and helped me with Jimi. He likes to support me and enjoys being a part of the tests and measurements and hearing the dialog.

I know this is not in chronological order, but my friend Nicole who's daughter is 8 days older than Jimi was in the waiting room of my Dr. when we got done. I knew she had an appointment today, but I didn't know it was at the same office. I asked who her doctor was, and it is the same as mine. We've known each other for over a year, and the conversation never turned to who is your OB? So, chalk up another crazy "we have too much in common" moment for us.

Back to the appointment, my blood pressure was 128/70 and I did not gain any weight. Probably because I was too busy sleeping to eat. When the nurse went to listen to the baby's heartbeat she couldn't find it, and told me not to be alarmed, because I am still early. We went into ultrasound, and Dr. Rushing came in to turn on the ultrasound. The baby's heart was healthy and beating...hooray! Always good news. I was amazed at how much the baby has grown in such a short amount of time. We call the baby she, and she was laying on her back and I know it is ultrasound, but I couldn't help but think that the baby just looked like me.

As we waited for our turn in the ultrasound, we remembered the same thing happened with Jimi on his 2nd visit. Not that it doesn't make you think crazy thoughts, but luckily we had Jimi's fridge DJ to distract us.

I read (I think in one of my pregnancy mags) that when your baby's eardrums develop, the three main sounds s/he hears is the amniotic fluid swooshing, the mother's stomach and the mother's heartbeat. It struck me as awesome that one of the first things the baby hears is my heart. Fitting, isn't it, since the first sound of theirs that I hear is their heartbeat?

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Almost There

I am almost out of my first Trimester, and I am really looking forward to it. I have had zero energy and haven't felt well for most of it. Tomorrow I am 13 weeks, and am hopeful that all these miserable symptoms go away in the next week or so!

This child is definitely different than his/her big brother Jimi! With Jimi I felt so pretty and had that pregnancy glow. I also wrote in his baby book that the period of time I was pregnant with him was one of the best times of my life. And I MEANT it! Well, there's none of that this time. And I don't even like to kiss my roommate, I mean husband. Keep your hands off!!

I also tend to be really grouchy and have suddenly forgotten that I am a 33 year old Christian woman, wife and mother of a toddler and baby on the way. I seem to be picking fights with people (i.e. at softball games, drive thrus, telemarketers, etc.). I have not acted this way in probably 15 years or so. Hormones everywhere. Help me, Lord!

I do remember with Jimi I had the most energy in my second trimester, and so I am counting on a repeat performance!