I come to you today after my second lavender bath soak of the day.
It was “spring forward,” otherwise widely known as a day of wailing and gnashing of teeth for all ye parents of small children.
(I took lavender bath #2 and then purged photos on my hard drive and felt much better and regained my sense of control over life.)
Here’s what happened in February!
Well, first and most importantly…we are having another girl! February 14th shall be hereby and henceforth be celebrated as “Gal-entines Day” in the Alsbury home!
Not mad. Not mad at all.
Okay…quick story. It has to be blogged. It will cleanse my soul.
So we opted not to find out the gender of our first two before the birth for a bunch of different reasons, but this time I decided…no. I reallyreallyreally wanted to know the gender of this baby as early as scientifically possible. After two babies, I have learned that amongst all the practical and stressful moments of motherhood, shopping for baby clothes and decorating the nursery are just some of the simple, foolish things that bring me joy…and I wanted to make as much time for these activities as humanly possible.
This was all well and good until my husband adamantly voiced his opposition to an ultrasound. BUT WHAT? Why are you over here having opinions about your child, I’m trying to pin things.
Getting the impression that his pragmatic self thought a gender reveal ultrasound was a little silly and unnecessary, I got a brilliant idea that I could give us the best of both worlds by me going to the ultrasound by myself and surprising him on Valentine’s Day with the gender. I get my ultrasound, he gets his surprise.
So bright and early on Valentines morning, after a month of holding my code of silence, I wrapped up three tu-tu outfits for my girls (one with ultrasound pictures inside) and made a big pancake breakfast and prepared for THE BEST VALENTINES DAY EVER.
And then David opened my surprise bag. I don’t really know what happened here, but instead of picking me up and twirling me around the kitchen singing “it’s a girl, it’s a girl!” like my plan said, his eyebrows got all confused and he said something more like “Wait…you went without me?”
So my BEST EVER surprise ended up being burned pancakes and me crying in sack cloth and ashes for most of the day whilst my gracious and loving husband (who as it turns out did want to be a part of the ultrasound since we were having one and all) holding me and assuring me that there are worse things that I could have done, promising me that some day this will be really funny. (It’s some day now, but it still isn’t very funny yet, so far.)
We’ve never been that surprise-y or gift-y couple (we literally never get each other surprises or non disclosed gifts even for Christmas) and after this experience I think we’ve both come to peace with that being a really good thing for our relationship.
At any rate, we settled on a name already, which is the first time that’s ever happened! Her name is going to be Evelyn June, which is a middle name from each of David’s grandmothers. (We are going to call her Evy, short “e” sound.)
Fortunately, I am pregnant so ice cream and picking out vintage family names cover a multitude of sorrows.
Libby turned two on the 13th and since I wasn’t up for the birthday party scene this year we decided to keep it simple and take the girls out for ice cream and carousel rides on Valentines Day.
Licking the ice cream bowl. I live vicariously through my children. Thank you.
Our town has this little plaza called the Nut Tree (affectionally known as the “nut treat” at our house) which is a nostalgic little roadside stop David used to visit when he was a kid (now a shopping center). It has a little train and a carousel with lights and music and all the horses and zoo animals. Pretty magic when you’re two…or also thirty-two.
This is Libby’s excited super face. I wonder where she gets this? (Cough, her father….cough cough). But really…don’t we think it’s the cutest little two-year-old face we’ve all ever seen in our lives?
Every year I’ve lived here we’ve had spring weather start in February. I hear this isn’t normal, but I’m kind of having a hard time believing you guys after five February springs in a row.
Well folks, that wraps up February! I wanted to do another post this month, but it was ultra busy with pre-natal appointments, ISR lessons, in-town and out-of-town company, “ruining Valentines Day,” and these bizarre occurrences like people needing clean underwear and forks.
It’s Monday after spring forward and I’m going downstairs to make bacon and face my weekend pile o’ dishes…we can do this! Happy Spring!
