Rhubarb

Due date

The "due date" has come to feel like an accomplishment I have to work toward. Not because it's work to finish baking this baby, but because it's work to be this pregnant (as of tomorrow, officially full-term) while staying patient and upbeat for Ethan. He is really looking forward to being a big brother, but also nervous and definitely experiencing conflicting emotions. He is also three, which means all of the mood swings, adorableness, and assertiveness that age entails.

He loves to poke and kiss and bonk my belly, talk to the baby, and talk about things the baby can't do (walk, crawl, talk, eat, climb, etc.). He insists that the baby will be a little brother, who we will name Holden (at least it's not W anymore). He is also very interested in whether the baby will need any shots, for which Ethan will gladly volunteer.

This pregnancy has been so different from Ethan's, in many ways. One of which is that we have no belly shots this time around, except for incidental shots of my belly with Ethan. We'll have to take a few this weekend or risk having none to show the little one when he/she grows up. (I guess it starts early, having fewer pictures of the second one!)

It feels bittersweet to imagine Ethan with his new sibling. He has had so much mommy time these past few weeks, it's sad to imagine that these are our last few weeks together without a second one tagging along. I wish I could savor these upcoming weeks more, but chasing after a 3-year-old at this point is pretty exhausting, and part of me thinks that the first few weeks after the birth will be a relief - grandma will be here, Phil will be home, and I can just lay in bed and take care of the baby all day, right?

Ethan listening for the baby's heartbeat outside the Monterey Aquarium (May 2009)

Hotel

I would say that Ethan's favorite part of our vacation was staying in a hotel. Aside from our trip to Newport Beach over two years ago, his only experience with hotels was picking up and dropping off other people, so his first question was whether we would be dropping him off at the hotel by himself (which he didn't seem too worried about...).

Our hotel was perfect for him - a small room, with a DVD player so we could watch Down from the Mountain whenever Phil and I got too worn out (which was often), a gas fireplace that he insisted on managing, and a pool right outside our room. He and Phil hung out in the hottub, because Monterey's fogginess made the main pool chiiiiiilly.

We probably could have filled an entire vacation just hanging out at the hotel. The other night, I was talking about an upcoming visit from my friend Becky, asking him what he wanted to do with her. Without skipping a beat, he said "I want to stay in a hotel with her."

Watching the Tigers lose to the A's

(But the Red Sox won in extra innings, so we came out even.)

Music lover

Ethan has been enjoying music a lot lately. We got a copy of the concert video of "Down from the Mountain," with musicians performing songs from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. It's great bluegrass, and Ethan watched it about 20 times on our vacation (thank g-d for hotel rooms with DVD players).

Since then, he loves to act out playing concerts with the performers, trying out banjo and fiddle with his flea-market pseudo-Asian stringed instrument, making up songs, introducing himself and calling out for applause. Last week I found him a kid-size guitar for $6 at the best craft-thrift store in town, so he and Phil can play guitar duets. There's a bit of duct tape on it, and lots of scratches, but it has real guitar strings and sounds beautiful. He has asked that the baby bring him a trumpet, so I have 5 weeks, give or take, to find one.

Ethan playing bass at a musical pizza joint from Sara on Vimeo.

Happy father's day

Ethan decided to celebrate father's day by waking up at 6:45, instead of 8, interrupting Phil's only hour of peace and privacy in our house. But he remembered that it was happy daddy day, so that made up for it. We're off for pancakes and gardening, and with luck a very long nap this afternoon!

Sleepover

Ethan had his first sleepover Saturday night, at his friend Benjamin's house. This means it was my and Phil's first night alone together in more than three years! Pretty amazing, maybe even pathetic.

It was uneventful, Ethan enjoyed being around George the dog (who is greatly reducing E's phobia of dogs), slept all night long in a sleeping bag (despite Benjamin getting up a few times), and wasn't too eager to leave when we arrived Sunday to pick him up. He brought along his own little pillow and his glowworm, and practically hustled me out the door when I took him over there.

The sleepover opens up a whole new possibility for us, except that we only have 6-8 more weeks to take full advantage of it!

Broken window

SNC00095.jpg, originally uploaded by seasara.

Ethan and I had a lot of excitement this morning, when Ethan looked out the window at the bottom of our stairs he said "our outside window is broken." I saw him pressing his face against what I thought was a shattered window and slowly got him to move away...

Turns out it's the outside of a double-paned window, which must have been hit by a ball from the courtyard, but it's in about 5,000,000 pieces and you could hear it creaking and cracking under its own pressure...

Someone came by to assess the situation, and left to consult with some people about how to remove the broken window without causing too much damage to anyone or anything. We had to leave before they came back, and I'm still at school, so I don't know what's happened since then.

Ethan wanted to stick around to see what they would do, but unfortunately he only has 9 days of daycare left and I need every one of them! He was also a bit scared, and kept asking me how it would break, and who would get hurt, and saying that we needed to be very quiet.

Nursery, take two

We have been busily rearranging our apartment over the past few weeks, trying to manage our space more efficiently so Ethan and his little brother/sister can have more room to move around. Remember the nursery we made last time?

http://rhubarb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/02/baby-stash.html

Not so impressive. This time around we have a little nook (well, more of an indentation) in our bedroom for a changing area, which is where I've been devoting my nursery-laced decorating fantasies. Ethan's room still needs some work, but we have a couch in there that we can't get rid of until late July (long story) so we're having to work around that.

Ethan at the new Berkeley Bowl

Ethan at the new Berkeley Bowl, originally uploaded by seasara.

Ethan and I went to see the new Berkeley Bowl grocery store near us. Ever since our trip to Santa Barbara, he likes to carry his own "cart bag" (basket) around while we shop, after seeing grandpa walk around with one. He even manages to pick out a few things and carry them to the register!

He is more and more helpful every day, it's exciting to see him getting ready to be a "great helper and teacher" for his little brother [no, we didn't find out, but he's convinced the baby is a boy].

Vacation

We got back from our last pre-baby vacation, a trip down to Monterey and Santa Barbara. A lot of stories about the trip, and especially the aquarium and playing tennis at grandpa's, but we also visited the best playground I have ever seen or even imagined: Dennis the Menace park in Monterey. Here's a little movie of Ethan enjoying it:

Ethan at Dennis the Menace Park from Sara on Vimeo.