Wait, She's WHAT?!!

If you were at the Ross Park Zoo Thursday evening, near the Bingturong house, you may have overheard a conversation between us and a coworker's family.
"Did you find out what you're having?" they asked.
"We just found out today," we said.
"Oh, congratulations!"
"Well, we knew she was pregnant. But we're having a girl!"

Later, I told Jess it was a hilarious joke and I couldn't understand why we didn't laugh more about it. She is nine months pregnant, after all : )

It's kind of funny how getting ready for this baby was so much different than when we had Hugh. I remember calling people when we heard Jess was with child the first time, some friends who I haven't talked to in a while. "I thought that's why you'd be calling," one said. Maybe I should call more often. Everyone knew we were getting ready to have our first!

This time though I didn't make too many extra calls. We didn't even officially announce it on Facebook, and you know nothing is official until it's on Facebook. People started catching on when some pictures of Jess made it online, nine months pregnant is hard to hide! The baby shower comments drew some attention too : )

I'm unsure what it is this time around, like we're such experts and know exactly what we're up against. If we thought one baby was a life changer, oh boy, get ready! I've heard it said you don't know how easy one is until you have two. We'll be finding out in about four weeks, and so will Hugh. . . and I guess the rest of Facebook will be finding out when she graduates from high school.

Bedtime Buddies

New this summer was Hugh’s first stuffed animal that joined him in bed. Ducks in books and pictures were always referred to as “quack quacks” (pronounced, “kak kak”) and it seemed obvious that the yellow stuffed duck became his first buddy. Quackquack even came to the beach this year! Only for bedtime though, it’s not one of those travel everywhere animals . . . yet.

In recent weeks, a few other animals have joined the bedtime crew. Following quackquack came “Meow”, a stuffed cat from the “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake” book, and usually the two went together. A pair that almost replaced them (but didn’t) was “Eee eee,” a Valentine’s day monkey holding a stuffed heart, and “Roar,” a cool tiger from Aunt Renee and family. I think my favorite is the orange and purple striped Dr. Seuss character, a wocket from “There’s a Wocket in my Pocket,” which Hugh has named, “Coat.” Coat’s a weird thing, but has an adorable name!

A few other stuffed animals are on deck, but don’t make the cut too often. “Bear,” who is named by what he is and not what he sounds like, is an Alpaca fur bear Uncle Curt got from his life outside the U.S. “Woof woof” is a foxhound that looks a little like Melvin the Foxhound and every now and again we meet “Moo”, the moose from “If You Give a Moose a Muffin.”

Not all these buddies make it into the crib at night, there wouldn’t be much room for Hugh! The ones who are not picked await their friends to join them again – typically right after Hugh wakes up and, first thing of the day, asks me to put the animals together on the chair. Hopefully I can get an E.T. photo with Hugh on the chair surrounded by his new bedtime buddies.

Some people call me . . . Clay!

When Hugh was around seven or eight months old he started babbling "da da da" which was awesome. I knew it was for me, but eventually he started saying "ma ma ma" to his mom and just about everything else. Including me. Simply being recognized by your own young child is a great moment, but being called "mom" doesn't feel masculine. It falls somewhere between being unable to open the pickle jar and staring at a car engine wondering if that's the way it's supposed to look.

A tip I learned from a veteran father of three is that parents need to call each other "mommy" and "daddy." That's some good advice, because Hugh picked up on mommy calling me "Clay" around the house. Yep, my son calls me by my first name. Sometimes he hears me as I'm leaving in the morning and I can hear from his room, "Clay? Claaaaaayyyyy" and that's how he greets me when I come home. It's sweet, and sure beats mom!

It probably shouldn't last forever though. Some things just won't sound as cute. Like, "Clay, I wrecked the car," or, "I ate all the food in the fridge again, Clay." We'll slowly work our way to dad or daddy, but for now, at least I know who he's talking to. Even gives me some incentive to learn what an engine should look like : )