Spring and Other Things

We went to UW campus to take the obligatory family pictures with the newly blossomed cherry trees. We thought a Sunday afternoon would be the perfect time without too many students in the way. Wrong! Everyone and their Asian mother was there! Oh well, we took pictures anyway. We had just taken off our coats, so don't think this is real spring. It just looks like it.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant this week. Word!

This is where Adam spends his days, in Paccar Hall.

Snack break.

In other news, Sienna seems to have been reborn in the last few months. This time, she was delivered by a stork from the Planet of Sweetness, Good Sleep and Obedience. I don't know where the sweetness came from. She's one month away from being 2 and I've been gearing up for horribleness. Instead, she has graced our home with the sweetest, silliest, cutest little temperament. Sure, she can cry and whine with the best of them, but overall, you can get plenty of hugs and kisses and giggling from this girl. We can't get enough. We also decided to try crying it out again about 3 weeks ago for the first time since she was about 1. Miracles occurred, my friends. Miracles. She cried three nights for 1 hour each. The next two nights were 15 minutes of crying each. And the 2 weeks since then have been, for the most part, lots of uninterrupted sleep. Here's what happened to change things for all of us: she finally understands some things! We were able to explain that she doesn't get warm milk, and when she wakes up at night, she doesn't need to cry - just find bunny and duck (dunny and guck) and the blanket and go night night again. It's also helped that she is finally showing a slight attachment to something (dunny and guck). Now, she tells us what she's going to do every time she goes down for a nap or bedtime, "No cwying." Smart girl! Which leads me to her obedience. I can see that she really wants to please us. She knows what timeout means and if I'm getting short of patience with her, she'll say it herself, "Timeout? Timeout?" Maybe she's starting to like it! She is also a little peach when it comes to putting away her toys before bedtime and kneeling for family prayer (although she thinks nothing of getting up to take a lap around the kitchen or jump on the couch). But she tries. And it's soooooo cute to see her trying to be like us. Ahhh, I feel so good having another child at this point because I can see light at the end of the tunnel that is nearly 2 years of a little human who can't do or get much out of life. I mean, babies are cute, so cute, and I can't wait to snuggle a newborn again. But I am truly relishing the experience of watching Sienna emerge from babyhood into the complicated world of adults.

Well, with cherry trees blossoming and a perfect child among us, things are looking up around here. We've also got new carpet coming to replace our ghetto stuff and our landlord has agreed to cut down the tree out front (yay, more chances for sunshine inside). Adam has more time this quarter to get out on his bike and watch cycling regularly. I'm doing yoga a couple times a week and learning to enjoy walking on a treadmill (you can read!). It even feels warm outside from time to time! Come on real Spring. You are so close!

Visitors & Outings

This blog post is in backwards chronological order. I hate the old Blogger.

We've had a nice break recently with Adam being out of school for 2 weeks between school quarters. The sun came out a few times, we did a small road trip and we also had some visits from the grandparents.

Here's a recap:

Last weekend we went to Wenatchee to see Carrie and Nick and join in Ruby's third birthday festivities as well as new baby Lucy's blessing. Sienna attended her first birthday party! Princess time!

Singing songs and shaking maracas.

Loving the costume jewelry!
Check out that phenomenal cake!

Baby Lucy.
Carrie and baby Lucy during those "witching hours." Remember those? Seeing a newborn again made me chant inside my head, "ICAN'TDOTHISICAN'TDOTHISICAN'TDOTHIS." I just can't do this again. But it's too late! I'll be doing it again in 2 months! Help!

The last few days of Adam's break, it was so sunny and clear we took our coats off! GASP! We went to my favorite park in the area and enjoyed bubbles from The Bubble Man (a bearded dude in overalls who drives a purple van and brings out all his bubble gear for kids at the park to scream about), bubbles from our own little bottle (weak sauce compared to The Bubble Man), swinging, the view of the Puget Sound and Birdie's favorite fish slide.

And looking at "pwanes."




We spent a couple hours at the zoo one day. The zoo is still completely uninteresting to Sienna. Unless of course you throw in some "ice cweam" and some more "pwanes."

Adam's parents came for a visit! I was shocked at how fast Sienna took to them. Grandparents are magical. They feed the child.
They babysit while you go to the ballet.
They let you honk their noses ... over and over and over. Because it's just so funny every single time!
They take pictures. This is on an excursion over to Bainbridge Island.
They take the child on a walk and do that fun swinging thing ... over and over and over. Because it's just so fun every single time!
And they read stories! The best!
My mom also came into town several weeks earlier. As long as you've got a book to read, Sienna is all yours.

Thanks for visiting, visitors! Thanks for coming out, sun!

29, 27, 22

Birthday = 29 years

It was my birthday this week. I turned 29. It was a lovely day. Especially considering the previous two days I spent in the hospital. I was having some chest pain so they kept me overnight and ran a bunch of tests which all came out fine and normal. The pain is gone, so all is well. But, I tell you, there is nothing like lying around in a stupid hospital bed for a couple days to remind you that everyday life, no matter what happens in it, is THE BEST! The whole world could have forgotten my birthday and it still would have been THE BEST. Every mundane task has become a beautiful, treasured thing. I do not want to go back to that dumb hospital until I can take home a baby when I'm done.

Anyway. The birthday. It was spent as follows: going to the gym, a French bakery meetup with friends Valerie and Jihan, nap during Birdie's nap, dinner with Adam to a sushi place while Jihan watched Birdie, and finally, the baking of the chocolate cake ... by me. Adam was going to do it, but his school teammate delegated a huge chunk of a project to him to finish before their deadline at midnight. Like I said, zero good things could have happened on this day, and I still would have been thrilled to just not be stuck as a lab rat in a hospital. Oh, one more thing: Adam got me flowers and tickets to the ballet. SMART MAN!

Jihan spoiled me with an orange brioche, hot chocolate and a giant yellow balloon.

Belly = 27 weeks

This shot is from 25 weeks and I dare say I'm waaaay bigger than that just two weeks later. I am getting so freaking excited for this baby. I remember my first days with tiny, tiny, raisin-like Birdie, and they were pure magic. I can't wait for more magic in my life!

Bird = 22 months

The other day Adam said, "You and The Bird? You're buddies. Me and The Bird? We're in love." It made me laugh so hard. But he's so right. Birdie looooooves her dad and he is smitten by her.

It's impossible to put into words how much we love our little Birdie. She gets more adorable, sweet, charming and silly by the minute, I swear.

On My Mind

*Why do married couples have to sleep in the same bed once they get married? Why is the couple's relationship suddenly in question if someone finds out they are sleeping in separate beds? Adam would sleep better in a separate bed. I probably would, too. Let's get back to 2 twin beds circa 1950 (??). Or we just need a king. Someday.

*Bloggers I've given up on:

-CJane Enjoy It - Frankly, I've seen enough enjoying it to last me for a good while. The cleverness is worn out but most of all, she's just everywhere now (3 blogs, column in DesNews, speaking, writing) and it's too much for me. She done gone commercialized and that's usually a good time for me to peace out.

- Pioneer Woman - Same here. Too much of PW is not a good thing. How on earth is she keeping up with five blogs that all have extremely long posts? Long posts with perfect grammar and spelling (which CJane could never claim) and each with 40 edited/perfected photos. Also, her humor just got repetitive. There are only so many times I'll find her "hiney, punks, calf nuts, whatever" references funny. And those days were over a long time ago.

- NieNie Dialogues - Also too much of a good thing. Her life full of color? Inspiring. Her comeback from a horrifying plane crash? Inspiring. The minute by minute details of her daily life (which her blog has become since the crash)? Boring. I mean, her minute by minute life is actually much more interesting and cool than mine, by far. But I guess I just wish she was keeping things simpler like she used to when she painted her kitchen cabinets green and showed pictures of her backyard composter and made an insanely awesome display on her daughter's wall using just colorful paper fans.

*Bloggers I'm still or recently into:

-Oh Happy Day - I still can't explain my obsession with this blog. It's one of my longest running favorites. More surprising is that when I met Jordan, I was completely underwhelmed and mostly disappointed by her. She's a party planner and I found her to be socially backward and awkward. Mystifies me everyday. And I think that's why I keep coming back. She was a mysterious wonder before I met her and she continues to be... She just keeps surprising me I guess.

- Stephmodo - She just moved to Seattle and I'm one degree of separation from her. My friend knows her personally and I just know we'll be meeting soon! This excites me. I just think she has a beautifully clean, unpretentious and minimalistic style and I really appreciate it after looking at a sea of blogs that seem over the top.

- Little Green Notebook - The girl can DIY! She's that genius who takes a piece of crap off Craigslist and gussies it up to high design. She continually amazes me.

*Adam told me the other day that I am starting to get my pregnant look. I said, "I know, I just saw it in the mirror yesterday." He means: swollen face. Wah, wah, wah. I'm also waddling now. And sighing heavily a lot. Because most of life is just too taxing when you're caring for one tiny toddling waddler while being the foodline and legs for another.

*Motherhood. I can't figure out if it's mostly insanity or mostly joyous and wonderful. I feel like I walk a fine line every day. Probably because my kid walks a fine line everyday. It's uncanny how we can be giggling and having a good snuggle one minute and the next she is putting up a huge crying fight while I try to put her socks on. Huh? Does that make sense at all? She's crazy. That's all I can surmise. And in turn, she has made me crazy. Some minutes that's crazy in love and some minutes that's loony tunes crazy town.

*Today I had the thought: I officially have nothing to live for. And then my mom sent me an email saying she would like to come for an impromptu visit next week. I called her and gave the go-ahead. She said that she, too, had nothing to live for. We are the same! Durn winter doldrums.

Some Bird Words

This morning The Bird woke up pointing to herself saying, "cute, cute cute, cute" so I could tell she was in a chatty mood. Sorry this video is kind of quiet and she's stuffing her face the whole time, but the girl's gotta eat right when she wakes up or she gets mad (like mother, like daughter). Here are some of The Bird's latest words (she learned "cute" just yesterday).

Here is The Bird saying a prayer complete with some hearty AMEMS!

This video is from a couple months ago (probably November?) when she was obsessed with saying "meow" and we were obsessed with making her say "mommy" and "daddy" (why else do we have children except to have them worship us?) Unfortunately I turn off the video before she says "bye bye" but you can see her mouthing it. It's really hard to get her on video saying anything because she's more interested in fiddling with the video camera, but when she wakes up she's out of it just enough to make it work.

Slave to the Schedule

Hey, moms, I'd like your thoughts on this, even though it might be a boring subject. It is actually a subject that endlessly fascinates me, so indulge me here as you snore through this post. And then answer my questions at the end.

Since becoming a mom, I have become a schedule slave. For me, I see no other choice but to wake up and be armed with my calendar and to-do list as I navigate each day. It has become frightening to me just how sensitive I am to this life of schedulery, as was manifest over the Christmas holiday when I felt ornery and discombobulated, only to breathe a sigh of relief upon returning to Seattle where I could once again be in total control over Sienna's and my world. It always makes me wonder: is every mom this psychotic about a schedule?

Here is a sample of our schedule from day to day. Now, I know this doesn't look like a slave's schedule, because, no, not every minute of every hour is marked in stone. I would actually call it a schedule with built-in flexibility. But there are a few things that must happen on certain days and at certain times (or I get in a funk) which are: laundry on Monday, food shopping on Tuesday, getting Sienna out of the house before and after her nap, and, most vital, allowing Sienna a 2 hour afternoon nap. Also, on a typical, ideal day, we're up at 7 am, Sienna goes down at 7 or 8 pm, and Adam and I go to bed at 10 pm (since school started Adam goes to bed later). Sienna always throws her own special middle of the night kink into this perfect schedule by waking up once or twice. It is, indeed, special.

Our typical schedule:

Monday: All laundry washed and folded today. Morning: gym for me and errands. Home around noon. Bird naps 1 - 3 pm. Afternoon: more errands or walk.

Tuesday: Morning: Indoor toddler gym at community center. Home around noon. Bird naps 1 - 3 pm. Afternoon: grocery store trip for the week.

Wednesday: Morning: gym for me. Home around noon. Bird naps 1 - 3 pm. Afternoon: errands or walk.

Thursday: Morning: Indoor toddler gym at community center. Home around noon. Bird naps 1 - 3 pm. Afternoon: open.

Friday: Morning: open, but lately Woodland Park Zoo indoor play time. Home around noon. Bird naps 1 - 3 pm. Afternoon: open, hopefully see Adam a bit earlier than usual and go to dinner.

Saturday: Try to get The Bird out of the house before and after her nap.

Sunday: Church at 10:20 am - 1:20 pm (I know, weird time), Bird naps 2 - 3 or 4 pm.

I am pretty positive that I will have to learn a whole new type of schedule making and flexibility when baby #2 comes; I know there will be many days when naps will not coincide or happen for one or both children. But right now, if there is one thing that dictates this schedule, it is naps and bedtime for the little one.

So, moms, I'd love to know:

- Are you a schedule slave? Do you do certain things on certain days? Certain things at a certain time every day? Are your kids schedule slaves, too? Is their sleep very scheduled? Tell me, what is your schedule?

- Or do you wing it? Do you do everything as it comes up? Do your kids seem to follow your lead in flexibility? Are your kids at ease with flexibility? Do they sleep whenever and wherever? The "wing it" style completely baffles and fascinates me, so please elaborate on your non-schedule as much as possible.

Hidden Talent

A short history on the place of the penny whistle in my life. It got me through a rough couple of days last July. Mom The Saint Hullinger came along on the car-ride-that-could-have-been-from-hell when we moved from Irvine to Seattle. Sienna The Screamer was in the back seat. Adam was a day ahead, driving the U Haul truck. Anyway, when Sienna The Screaming Squaker would start making her unpleasant pleas, my mom would bust out her trusty penny whistle and Birdie would chill her voice box for awhile. It was a true lifesaver at times.

Fast forward a few months. My mom gave us a penny whistle of our very own, seeing as how Sienna was a big fan. And guess who learned to play it? ADAM! So here he is playing Praise to the Man on his penny whistle.

Zany Christmas

We had another great Christmas. Here's a slideshow. Some highlights:

*Birdie turned into her alter ego "Bird Turd" this trip. Sleep was TERRIBLE, she was super clingy, did not warm up to one relative and didn't care about her cousins. It stressed me out and made me somewhat crabby. Maybe my alter ego is "Mad Crab Mom." Or something. I was not the pleasantest of holiday elves.

*Christmas Eve in our family is for giving homemade gifts. I won't go into all the details of each because some are inside jokes, but some epic ones this year included:

- Tyler gave Dad a "Hands Free Hygienator." Ty's almost done with dental school and just wants to ensure easy access to the clean teeth lifestyle.

- KarieAnn draped an Indian blanket on her shoulders and read Mark an Indian story. It started, "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the teepee..." We laughed so hard ... especially because KarieAnn has that Ute voice down perfectly.

- Heather made Owen a die to help him decide his major, a cassette tape wallet and homemade cologne to remind him of his mission called, "Streets of India." Main ingredient: curry.

- Mark gave Roger a picture from our youth with his Grinch face superimposed over the kids which said, "You been Grinching long?" (The saying was, "You been farming long?")

* About 2.5 feet of snow fell right before we got to Roosevelt so BOY did we have a white Christmas. Dad put all the boys to work right away shoveling and plowing. Adam spent 3 hours on the tractor plow one morning. Woo wee, we city folk aren't used to all that manual labor! (Notice: I didn't do any manual labor, but I'm just guessing that's what Adam was thinking.)

*We went sledding. It was super fun! It made Birdie laugh a lot (and also cry a bit).

*With Owen in the mix you know there's going to be volleyball! We played several rousing games at the church with his posse and we all decided we weren't half bad for old fogies (Owen would give you a different synopsis, but don't listen to him).

*With Owen in the mix you know ping pong tournaments are in full swing as well. I won't go into it, but just know the women were excluded. And I was bitter.

*Heather and I went to the fitness center for a couple classes. OUCHIE. Oh the pain of being out of shape. It hurts me inside and out.

*I read William Stegner's Crossing to Safety over the holidays. It was lovely.

About A Boy

Well, we are having a boy. Although I have four brothers and a dad and a husband, I still find the prospect of raising a boy and loving a boy perplexing. WILL I even love him? Are boys as lovable as girls? Do they do as many cute things? And the big question that haunts me: will he even be cute? I know some pretty nondescript looking boys. They don't look like anything. I know some pretty cute little boys, too. But on the whole, little girls are cuter. Sorry, boys. However, check out these insanely adorable pictures of Adam as a chubby little cherub.

Is he not a brown haired, brown eyed version of Sienna? YES HE IS!

And he had an older sister who shared things like her suckers. Maybe Sienna will be nice like that, too.

But probably not. I think she'll just be mad and jealous and stomp her foot a lot like she does now when other kids come around.

Then there's the question of what to name him? Here's the list I've got so far:

Luca/Lucca

Roman

Ronan

Jude/Judas

Jack

Lucas

Jonah

Jonas

Noah

Asher

Gavin

Grayson/Greyson

Adam only okayed Luca/Lucca, Jack, Jonah, Jonas and Noah so far. My top favorite is Jude. But anyone who follows People.com knows why Sienna and Jude cannot be brother and sister. (The rest of you Google Jude Law and Sienna Miller.) Durned celebrities.

What are you favorite boy names? Is it just me or are there so few options for good, cool, somewhat different/unique boy names?