Love and Empathy

Moose is extremely excited to have a baby sister on the way! He informed me that there is a baby growing in his belly, too, as evidenced in this picture. "The baby is kicking!"

There Are 10 Types...

This T-shirt cracks me up and makes me wish I were computer savvy enough to wear it. I love it especially because I am one of the people who immediately started to try and think what 10 types of people there could be only to be told that 1 0 means 2 in binary. I am most assuredly in the latter category of NOT understanding binary.

Olympics 2020?

Moose love, love, loves his swim lessons. He is constantly reviewing his weekly schedule to determine how close it is to a Monday or Wednesday when he will be able to once again do his bubbles and bobs.
It has been really fun to watch his joy and confidence. Moose is still of a different personality than BiggiE (who has attempted to drown proof himself on a number of occasions), but he enjoys his class and startled one of the ungoggled boys by announcing he could see a shark under water. (Sharks are all the rage in our house these days.)
When Moose was a baby we met an Olympic level backstroker while visiting a friend at Stanford. I hoped, at the time, that the swimming proweress might have rubbed off in mere contact with this amicable athlete. From the above photo and his genes (backstroke is both Tyler's and my worst stroke) I think he might want to pursue breast or fly.

Camping over the 4th

We joined a group of 25 friends up near Tahoe for a great July 4th weekend. It is amazing how tiring it can be just lounging in the sun in a beautiful place. Moose and BiggiE were beyond thrilled. So far, our brainwashing them to love camping seems to be a success. They were in their element climbing up rocks and playing in the dirt. Plus, their beloved friend Maggie was with us. Micah was the oldest of the kids (6 in all) and was a very benevolent ruler of the games.

There was delicious food (good thing about hanging out with winemakers), oh, and wine. One of our friends made homemade pizza to grill -- incredible.

The boys would want to highlight playing in the river/lake, roasting marshmallows and the snake they saw catch a fish. Can't tell you how glad I am that I wasn't there for that little National Geographic special.

It's A Girl!!

We found out on Tuesday that we are having girl. Tyler and I were secretly
(or not so secretly) hoping for a girl, but when we heard the news we were actually a bit stunned. We're excited, but this is definitely uncharted territory for us. We are glad that we have a whole new list of names to bang our heads against, at least.

Knowing the sex certainly makes it feel more real and that has given rise to concerns about having three kids. I keep hearing varying scenarios. Some moms tell me that after two kids the rest are no problem. Other moms tell me that three is the hardest and then it gets easier. I'm starting to suspect that, as with most things, it really depends on the family and the personality of the third child.

Moose and BiggiE were both mellow babies. With each mellow baby born I keep expecting the next one to be a screamer. Of course, I also thought I would for sure have another boy, so there you have the accuracy of my predictions.

We did get a call after my AFP test came back with a 1 in 130 chance that the baby could have Down's Syndrome. That is a very small chance and we had a detailed ultrasound done (the one on Tuesday) for more information. The doctor said the baby looked normal which reduced our risk to 1 in 260 which is out of the concerning risk range. We opted not to do amino because the risk is so, so tiny.

Since getting the abnormal AFP results I have heard that it is VERY common and that many women opt not to do AFP because false positives happen so often.

It was an interesting week before the ultrasound thinking about how our lives would change if our baby had Down's. A couple at church has a son, William, who has Down's and he is wonderful.

I read a number of women online who said they would feel obligated to have an abortion if their fetus was diagnosed with Down's. A few other people told me they would pray that the baby didn't have Down's. To me, these two sentiments seemed really similar. The baby inside either has Down's or it doesn't and it seems like praying the baby would be healed of Down's is putting forward our own idea of what a child should be like just as much as the women who feel an abortion in necessary.

I think if our child had Down's there would be beautiful things that would come to our family. If you read the experiences of families with a Down's child they have many examples of how the child enriched the lives of all the family members. I cried as I looked at these beautiful faces.

All of us are imperfect and a child with a disability can very visibly show the beauty in our imperfection.

Portland

We had a wonderful trip to Portland last week. Tyler had a conference and the whole family decided to come along to visit our dear friends the Williams-Hodgins. Ryan, Molly and Maggie are some of our closest friends and they abandoned us in April to move to Portland for Molly's new job. The kids started right back up where they left off and the boys having been singing "the Maggie song" since we came back home. "We love you Maggie, oh yes we do..."

Unfortunately, I was completely remiss in taking pictures, but I did get this gem of the three kids watching the sea lions at the zoo on our last day.


We camped on the way up and the way back at cool campsite right along the river. You can't tell from the pictures, but the boys were thrilled to camp and loved throwing rocks in the river.


Our take on urban camping...

On the drive back we decided we needed dinner before we reached the campsite, but we needed to buy some milk to make our mac-n-cheese. The original plan was to purchase the milk and then find a park where we could make dinner. Four hungry stomachs changed the plan and we decided to "camp out" in front of the grocery store.
Tyler had also bought two pints of Ben & Jerry's (Aww, he knows how to take care of me.) and we decided we needed to eat the ice cream before the mac'n'cheese. We quickly polished off one pint and put the other in the cooler.

Later that night, after we had set up camp, Moose and I were hanging out in the tent when Tyler came over to say he had bad news. He told us he didn't think the ice cream would last through the night so we would need to eat it now. The wheels in Moose's head were whirring so fast you could almost hear them and he piped up with, "That would be okay with me!"

Veggie Tales and Druids

Moose and BiggiE love the Veggie Tales. They will happily break into the theme song upon request. (On a side note, BiggiE was entertaining the secular guests at our friends' backyard party in Portland with rousing versions of this beloved Veggie Tales theme and "Jesus Loves Me".)

Recently we viewed Sumo at the Opera where there is a little skit about
St. Patrick's Day done as only Veggie Tales can do. The only part of the entire DVD the boys seemed to have retained is the yet-to-be-converted Druids chanting, "Ohhh Grrreeat Shamrock!" as not-yet-sainted Patrick tries to use the three leaved plant to explain the trinity.

Now at random points throughout the day, at the dinner table, outside, in a store, whenever a seemingly prearranged time arrives, Moose and BiggiE loudly chant, "Ohhh Grreeat Shamrock! Yoouu arree nice!"

It doesn't appear to be a fleeting foray into Druidism since they have been maintaining the practice for several weeks. Not exactly the message Veggies Tales and I were trying to get across.