The Small Family     

Okay, don’t hate me, but I have yet another boring blog with no pictures! But I promise, the next blog post will include pictures--of our new house, of Theo, and all that good stuff! The move and work have just kept me so busy that I haven’t gotten our camera out.

BUT, a camera was out and pointed at us--just not mine! I think I may have mentioned sometime back that I’m editing a fiction book for Theo’s swim/float teacher’s son. Originally, the plan was to trade editing services for swim lessons next year. Well, now we won’t be here next summer for swim lessons--so instead, I’m trading editing services for photography services! Turns out Ryan’s wife is a professional maternity/family/newborn photographer, so I’m editing his book and she’s doing two sets of pictures for us. We did our first set this weekend, at the Folsom Powerhouse. (It’s a neat park on the river with a powerhouse built in 1895 and lots of pretty trees and paths. The powerhouse is no longer on operation, so it’s just been made into a regional park. Really neat place to visit.) Hopefully we got some good shots for this year’s Christmas cards. I’m sorry to say that the pugs did not join us, though. Quite frankly, I wasn’t feeling up to wrangling a  3 ½-year-old AND two pugs at a public location! Jen (the photographer) let Theo take some pictures with her fancy camera, so he was in seventh heaven. “Ooooh,” he kept saying, “I like dat camera!” Like mama, like son….

Anyway, our second shoot is planned to be a newborn shoot after Garbanzo makes his debut. Assuming I’m feeling up to coming to Roseville in the first couple weeks after I have him, Jen is going to do pictures of the boys together (and some of just Garbanzo, too). That’s not too long before Theo’s fourth birthday, so it’s sort of a combo newborn/four-year-old shoot, I suppose. And I hope to get some wonderful pix of my boys out of the deal! By the way, if you’re curious to see Jen’s work, go to http://photographybyjt.com. Click on the Enter Site link, and then you’ll see a menu at the top of the page that says Galleries. Check out her newborn gallery--beautiful pix! She offered to do maternity pictures of me, but frankly, my belly isn’t nearly impressive enough to photograph. It’s still quite small. I had dinner with friends two nights in a row (my normal girls’ night pals one night and then my friends from Sacramento State another night), and both times the immediate response was, “You don’t even look pregnant!” Indeed. I sort of do, but not really--I think you’d more just look at me and thinking, “Hmm…is she pregnant? I can’t really tell. Might just be a little chubby.” I certainly don’t look anything like I did at six months along with Theo!

Can’t remember if I already mentioned this, but I have a feeling I’m carrying this little guy vertically, and that’s why I don’t show much. I am short of breath all the time, and I don’t remember being this way so early with Theo. I think he’s pushing right up on my lungs/diaphragm or something. I spend a lot of time breathing like Darth Vader these days….

As long as we’re on the subject of Garbanzo, he continues to be very active, which is a great comfort to me. It sort of terrifies us (oh no--another live wire?!), but it’s also very comforting to me, because I feel like an active baby is probably a very healthy baby. The little guy should now weight about a pound and a half, and he’s about nine inches long. He’s supposedly starting to take practice breaths in the womb now. (So at least one of us can breathe these days!!) I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday, and because Chris is now off work for a week, we may bring Theo along and let him hear the baby’s heartbeat. I think that would be really neat for him.

In other neat things, I’m also considering having a 3D ultrasound, just for fun. I didn’t have one with Theo, but they really are cool, so I might do one. It’s amazing how clearly you can see the baby’s features in those, and I’m really tempted to “peek.”

In addition to my two nights out with my friends, we also visited my sister and her family (after pictures on Saturday). We don’t get to see them too often, as between the two of us (me and Lynnie), it’s hard to coordinate times when we’re both free, so it was nice to get to spend time with her family. And on Sunday, I visited with my friend Amber, who I hadn’t gotten to see in a couple of weeks. So now I feel as if I have mostly made the rounds and said goodbyes--although we’re not going to be living that far away, so I will still see everyone…just not as frequently as before.

I do have a couple of fun/sweet Theo stories from this week. First was a melt-my-heart moment. I was sitting on the bed, doing my Darth Vader breathing as I put on my socks (because apparently this is exhausting to me), and I told Theo to go downstairs and put on his shoes for preschool. He trotted off to do so, but then he stopped at the stair landing and said, out of the blue, “Mommy and Daddy, I love you!” He has never said that to us without prompting--and I, of course, started to tear up! I mean, I know he loves us because of his actions--he’s gotten to be a very affectionate little guy in the past year or so. But to hear him actually say it out loud, with no prompting, was pretty darn awesome! I tell him I love him every night when I put him to bed, but he has never even repeated it back to me--so now that he finally said it (and without warning), it was just really, really special!

The second bit is some fun, totally Theo old-man speak. We’ve noticed that in the past couple of months, his sentences and conversations have gotten a lot more complex. Here’s a good example. I was giving him a bath and noticed a couple of bug bites on his legs. “Hey,” I said, “What bit you? You’ve got some bug bites!” He looked at me seriously and said, “Yadybugs. There are green yadybugs, red yadybugs, and orange yadybugs. Some yadybugs have spots. One, two, three, four, five spots. Some don’t have spots. There are lots of kinds of yadybugs….” And so on. I really got quite a lesson on “yadybugs!” I think it’s so funny how he’s soaking all of this stuff up at preschool and then coming home and discussing it like some eccentric little old man! They’ve also been talking about feelings at preschool, and so lately he’ll say things like, “I’m sorry. I got a little bit frustrated!” He's just so polite/formal about it that it makes me laugh.

I can tell that they use more precise language at preschool than we do at home, because he comes home speaking much more formally than we do! Whereas we might say, “Theo, do you want some chicken?” if he wants something for lunch, he’ll say, “I think I would like some chicken.” The formal speech cracks me up--it’s like listening to a very small 40-year-old!

Speaking of preschool, we have just two days left--and I’m trying not to mourn too much. I’m trying to prepare Theo for his new preschool by telling him he’ll meet lots of new friends and he’ll get to help care for animals etc. etc. etc. Truth be told, I’m expecting a pretty smooth transition--he went so seamlessly into preschool in the first place that I’m not expecting him to have many bumps in the road switching. But I guess you never know….

And so here it is Sunday night, and our last moments of relative calm before the storm! Tomorrow morning, we drop Theo off at preschool and then go sign the papers for our house closing. (The escrow officer is still working out the paperwork snafu I mentioned last week, but she thinks they’ve got it handled.) Tuesday I have a doctor appointment and then I need to take Luna to the vet for a recheck. And we have to organize the house for the packers and would like to get it reasonably clean for the new owners. (Obviously vacuuming is kind of pointless, given the movers who will be tromping through our house, but I’d like to at least clean the bathrooms and the kitchen for them!) Bright and early Wednesday morning, the packers arrive. Theo has preschool, and after that I hope to get together with my Mom. I figure the more I can keep Theo out of the house while they’re working, the better. He’s rather agitated about the idea of “people taking our stuff!” We keep reassuring him that the movers just carry our stuff to the new house and then give it back to us, but he seems unconvinced. So I don’t think having him watch them box everything up is the best idea.

Thursday morning, the movers arrive. I think Theo and I will probably take the dogs and drive down to Clayton to pick up the keys to the new house (and drop the dogs at the kennel for an overnight stay), and Chris will probably stay with the movers while they load the truck. Then he’ll drive to Clayton and meet us later that afternoon. Again, trying to keep Theo (and the dogs!) out of the movers’ way…. Friday morning, the movers deliver our stuff to the new house and unpack it for us (isn’t that luxury?!)--and we begin the fun task of putting it all away. The owner of Theo’s new preschool said I could bring him by for a visit on Friday, just to get him acquainted with the school, so I may do that in the morning, while the movers are trying to work. Saturday and Sunday will be a haze of putting things away, I’m sure--and then Chris starts his new job bright and early Monday morning. (He may actually drive in Sunday night and stay at a hotel overnight--he’s terrified of being late on his first day, and he has to drive in the first day because he doesn’t yet have a badge to ride the Genentech shuttle.) Theo, too, starts his new school bright and early Monday morning. So, as you can see, this week will be CRAZY! If I don’t get the blog posted until sometime next Monday, don’t be surprised. :-)

Wish us luck, everyone--we need it!!