Sugar and Spice

A lot has happened in the past couple of months that is certainly worthy of a blog-posting or two...or maybe even a dozen...or two, but as anyone who has been checking my blog can tell, I have been AWOL for some time now. So, if you miss reading my blog (Mom, I know you do), I'm going to see if I can get back into the swing of things. Having posted three whole times in all of 2009, I can easily match that pretty effortlessly. I'll start with the most important of all.

I am now 23 weeks into this pregnancy and all is going very well, and the official word is that we are having another girl! I am excited and happy that Ashley will have a sister somewhat close to her in age. I'm not sure if Zachary is still insisting that it's a boy, but he was for awhile. I think he's finally starting to understand a little better. Today he said, "Mommy's going to have a baby in FOUR MONTHS! But first, it's Ashley's birthday. Then it's going to be MY birthday, and then vacation." And he's right. I told him that after he didn't quite understand how long four months was going to be. He said, "I can count to 4! One...two...three...four!" And maybe he wondered why the baby didn't just magically appear? I think he knows better, but delayed gratification is not the gift of most 4 year-olds, now is it?

Aside from the fact that I'm in no hurry for this baby to show up before her time, I think I have just about everything ready so she can come home. On New Year's Day, Chris disassembled the crib in the kids' room and set it up again in our bedroom, alongside the rocking chair and other stuff I set up to make the sleepless nights to come as comfortable as possible. As I polished the crib, I couldn't help but feel so excited to be welcoming another baby. That's when it occurred to me that I hadn't even wondered if I would be able to love a third as much as my first or second. This baby was very much hoped for, as much as the others and I am thrilled that all is going so well.

As far as a name goes, I have told this story many times already, but I once promised Chris that he could name our second daughter. I came up with Ashley's name (Ashley Rebecca) sometime before I was even pregnant with her. I asked Chris how he liked that name, and my recollection was that he agreed that he also liked it. By the time that we found out that we were expecting our first little girl, he claimed he never said he liked the name I had my heart completely set upon at that point. Reluctantly, I tried to come up with other names, but his ideas and mine were about as different as night and day. There was one name that he really liked, but I just couldn't take my mind off of Ashley Rebecca. It wasn't until the day Ashley was born that Chris finally relented and said that we could give her the name that I loved. And in that moment, I promised him that if we ever had another daughter, we could give her the name that he loved. So, I am keeping my promise to him and we will name our baby Katherine Elizabeth. I know Chris plans to call her Katherine. I'm a little undecided, as I think it's a little too formal for our family, but at the same time, I can't really think of a nickname that I'd prefer. For the sake of family unity, I might just have to call her Katherine, too...

So, that's a little update on our baby girl! We are still due around July 26, but due to the fact that Chris is registered to start the Bar Exam on July 28, we're hoping to have her up to a week before. July 20th would probably be the earliest, but that sounds pretty good to me!