Isn't Liana just the most darling thing? Daelynn came into town early, and it's been great to be with her again, great to see her as a mommy. She came over last night and we watched a fire burn down the mountain near our house as we drank Almond Biscotti tea. It was a little bitter, she told me to let the water cool just a bit from boiling before pouring it over the tea. We talked a bit about husbands and marriage post baby, but then Ethan had to pee. I could have stayed up there on that patio in the dusk light forever. I love my sister.
These summer days have been long, slow. I am blessed to be at home. Every morning I get to drink my tea as slow as I want, refilling my cup two, three, four times. I have time to read and pray and write, and I am not having to get up at some awful hour to do it. Ethan is getting up early because of the light, but he goes in his room and plays with his trains. He goes potty on his own, gets his yogurt out of the fridge on his own, his spoon. He is becoming quite self sufficient. These little acts make my life a bizzilion trillion million times easier. Noah will come at the end of these long summer days. Craziness, sleep deprive-ness, round-the-clock care wrapped in a thin blanket. And I can't wait. Second babies are so different than firsts. If not a complete idiot, I was at least naive to the way Ethan would change everything, knock me on my back like a backhoe loader ramming me at full force, completely leveling my universe (he'd appreciate the metaphor). But I know Noah is going to do this. And I am already preparing to lay down so it won't hurt as bad. With this baby I am going to go slow. I am going to hold him as much as I want, thank you very much any book that tells me otherwise. I am not going to resent the time I spend in the back bedrooms of friend's houses nursing while everyone else continues to socialize at dinners and holidays. I am going to hold him as much as I want. I am going to revel in the cuteness of putting him in the tiniest little man clothes. I am going to have his picture taken, by a professional. I am going to take him out, show him off. And I am going to hold him as much as I want. The long summer days will be gone for a season, but I will have a little, teeny baby, for just a little, teeny while.
Today has been a great day except now it's 3:23 and I have lost all motivation to do anything, let alone wash my sleeping bags which still have pee on them from camping two weeks ago. I got up this morning and for the third day in a row and took my Bible, journal, and green tea up to the top patio and read and wrote and drank (tea). It was lovely, as usual. I entertain Ethan for this thirty minutes of peace with a movie or kid CD (the kind you can stand to listen to for about four and a half minutes before you want to rip your head off). Then we went to Kmart because I thought they were going out of business (the cashier said they weren't--no duh, nothing was more than 10% off) and I bought Ethan a fat red plastic bat and white ball and blue L.A. gel for his hair. Makes him look tough. He needs a little toughness to balance out that voice of his. Which holy smokes he would not stop talking the entire time we were in Costco. Talking, singing, whining, asking questions, talking. I honestly had to ask him to talk in a lower voice or mommy's head is going to explode, right into the white peaches. "How's this mommy?" (talks in a lower voice, but not really any significant change.) "That's great honey. That's great." And on we go. It's useless really, but you feel like you have to at least ask. At least try. We bought the most awesome pool, I can't wait to set it up for Andrew and him to play in together. I can't wait to sit in it too. He's up now. "Mama! I want some orange juice mama. And I want you to pull up my pants too." I am ignoring him. "Mom? Mom? MOOOOOOOOOM?" That means I better go. Tchau.
We went to Wild Waters today and instead of just peeing in the pool like the normal kids Ethan got out and pulled down his pants and peed outside the pool. On the lifeguard's sandals. And water jug. She was not a happy bean. A month ago as Ethan was peeing in Tahoe in this same way and I was just tickled at how cute it was, Joey said something about it eventually catching up to me. I guess today it did.
I decided this morning to write in my journal our top names for this little guy and then write their meanings to try and help the right name fall into place; for a name to feel right and natural and chosen. We have been so indecisive on choosing a name for this little guy, it was really starting to cause some anxiety, at least on my part. Joey--poor Joey--has had to suffer with me bringing up the name topic whenever there is a free and quiet moment. "So, have you thought of any names?" Like guys really spend their free time surfing the hundreds of "baby names" websites. This is what I wrote: Noah: peaceful, comforter, wanderer Patrick: noble Lucas/Luke: bringer of light, morning, physician Thomas: twin, doubter and zealous faith I liked Noah right after I wrote it. It's a new addition to our top three names, only added a couple of days ago after we saw it written on a sippy cup at Baby's R Us and both said, yeah, that's a good name. After seeing the meaning for the first time, I liked it even better. Peaceful. Comforter. Both words were like water to my soul. OK, so then get this--I looked away for like a second, and when I looked again there was a freaken rainbow on my journal. A rainbow!! And that made me remember God's promises, a theme that I have been praying over my life and my family's life and my friends' lives for a while now: to live and breath in God's promises, no matter what is going on. What joy and peace this has brought me very recently, and God literally flung a rainbow across my journal to remind me, and in my opinion, to gently confirm, his name is Noah. I mean, isn't that crazy? And wonderful? It's perfect. It suits his soul, as my friend put it. I literally can feel that it fits him. Now, to convince Daddy...
