Fashion

I have been getting random headaches almost every day with this pregnancy. The headaches encompass a small pinpoint in my head but they are so strong that all I want to do is close my eyes and sit very still.

So last week I laid down when a headache hit and asked Lily to get herself dressed. Jamison still needs a little help getting dressed so I didn't say anything to him.

After 20 minutes and one Tylenol I was feeling a bit better so I got up and headed down stairs only to see that Jamison got himself dressed! And I must say he has an exceptional taste in style.

He had on two shirts. The first was orange and inside out. The second was on properly (Lily says she didn't help him so I was very surprised by this) and then he had on a puffy vest that coincidentally (? maybe not?) matched with the orange and the blue.

The random article of clothing was a size 4 (he's a solid size 2) pair of shorts that he found in a drawer. They barely stayed up but he was determined to wear them.

And, of course, he didn't put any socks on. He is incredibly anti-socks...even in the dead of winter. I warn him that his toes will turn black and fall off and he just pretends he doesn't hear me.


Since his bedtime is 7:30 he completely missed the American Idol cultural phenomenon of Pants On the Ground. But I still called him Mr. Pants On the Ground. And then I had two kids asking me over and over what I meant. Never mind. Just pretend I didn't say it.

This clothing miracle happened on the day after we received 16 inches of snow and while it would have been a great day to stay inside I was scheduled to drop the kids off at the mall with my mom and then head to work. There is no way that boy could go outside with these shorts on. I said it was too cold. He didn't care. I said that people don't wear shorts in winter. Apathy. I said that the snow would make his legs turn black and fall off. My toes too mama? Remnants of the headache were still there and he wasn't making this any easier.

I had to break his heart and tell him that Grrrmam wouldn't let him go into the mall wearing those shorts. Within minutes I had him in a pair of pants and we were on our way. The boy loves the mall.

Electricity

We had the opportunity to experience the "family bed" last night from 2:54am-3:47am. I decided that our family bed needed to be upgraded from a queen to a king. Or a triple king, if they make those.

Our power mysteriously went out at 2:54am and at 2:54:13 the screams of terror started. Our kids not only have nightlights but also white noise machines (fans). Whenever we travel we always make sure to bring the nightlights and mini fans. We would never attempt to have our kids sleep without them. When both of those go off (or are forgotten on a trip by a scatterbrained mother) it's not a good thing.

Hearing the calls for help, I fell out of bed and for some, inexplicable reason, spent a good 6 seconds trying to find my glasses all the while hearing Jamison banging into everything in his room. I don't know what good my glasses would have done since it was pitch black. But I had them on in any case!

Lily was somehow able to actually make it out of her room (this is amazing since her room is a mess and there is JUNK all over the floor. I plan on taking a shop-vac into her room today and fixing her clutter issue) but Jamison was scared out of his mind and it took a good 10 minutes for him to stop shaking.

Brian took the initiative to light some candles since all our flashlights are broken. How do three flashlights get broken? You let two children play with them in the basement for hours - then, and only then, are they ok with playing in the dark. In the middle of the night? Not so much.

Brian and I bookended the kids in bed and prepared to be uncomfortable until 6am. In addition to the four humans there was also my "speed bump" as Brian calls it. When I am pregnant I sleep with a huge body pillow to eleviate pain in my back. Even with the crowded bed I wasn't going to give up that pillow.

The only sound we could hear was Jamison sucking his thumb. The minimal light we had (besides the candles) was the moonlight reflecting off the snow. It should have been peaceful and snuggly and the epitome of the family moment. I hope it was for the kids.

Brian and I were so incredibly relieved when the power came back on less than an hour later. Could National Grid actually have pulled through? For what our electric bill is every month they better! If anyone is ever planning on moving to NY (I always wonder how people do make it up here) research utility bills (ACK - and taxes!) before making any commitment. They're not pretty.

We turned off our alarm and wondered how late the kids would sleep in this morning. It is the most luxurious thing in the world when kids sleep in. And yet, THEY DIDN'T. Lily was up at 6:40 to inform me that her clock was blinking 12 and so she didn't know if it was 7:00 yet - could she get out of bed and tell Jamison to stop kicking the wall? And yes, Jamison was wide awake kicking the wall and singing a song about a donut and a nickel with a hole in it. Fantastic.

Brian and I decided that this is excellent preparation for nursing the upcoming baby in the middle of the night. I, for one, do not believe such early preparation is necessary.

Stay At Home Mom

For almost three weeks, through a series of odd events, I've been home with the kids instead of part-time at work. I attempted to get some work done when the kids were occupied but overall I couldn't spend more than an hour or so at a time on the computer. As soon as I logged on to our database it's as if a noise that only children can hear is emitted and they come running to me.



I've observed a lot while at home and have decided that there are many pros and cons. And, despite the number of cons, the pros will always win out. Somehow a bad day with the kids is always chalked up to "that's life" and while I may be exhausted and frustrated at the end of some days in the end, that's what having kids is about.


Pro: I'm able to concentrate on potty training Jamison and Lily (and her doll) is a great help to me.

Con: He continues to strip during training and will escape from me. Unfortunately, this time, he shared this with the neighborhood. Question: When is a child considered "potty trained"? A week of no accidents or a month? We don't count naptime or bedtime, just awake time.

Pro: I'm able to comfort my daughter when she is sick.

Con: She happened to not only catch strep once, but twice, and in between each occurrence was diagnosed as allergic to penicillin. This picture doesn't give justice to the allergic reaction she got from the penicillin and she wasn't exactly willing to take the picture.

Pro: Occasionally, I'm able to work when the kids are playing together.

Con: While I was on a conference call they both ran to me arguing over a doll/fire truck situation. Having to explain that one to the callers was awkward. After that I learned how to mute my cell phone.

Pro: I get an idea of what my cat does during the day when we're not here.

Con: The cat is boring. But apparently very good at balancing. And yes, our cat does not have a tail. He is very sensitive about it so please don't mention it to him.

Pro: I feel like I get so many little things done during the day. Things that I normally would push to a Saturday or a Sunday get done immediately.

Con: At the end of the day I look around and can't remember when I did with my time. Nothing looks accomplished. I have to tell myself that if I hadn't done those little things throughout the day the house would look a lot worse. Of course, it would have been helpful if I told my kids to pick up the purple T-Rex that was in the middle of the floor. If that little task had been accomplished it would have prevented me from sliding across the floor on the dinosaur and slamming my neck (near my hairline) into the corner of our kitchen wall. No, that's not a hickey, it's the bruise I got. Lovely.

Pro: Winter time=outdoor fun!

Con: We have had little to no snow and the temps have been well below what is safe for kids. Even if it did warm up what are they going to do out there? Play with frozen dirt? Swing on metal swings and get wind burn? Sounds like fun to me!

As a result we have been stuck in the house. When Lily wasn't contagious or breaking out in odd rashes, we ran errands but cabin fever set in pretty quickly. We did the mall. We did the museum. We did the doctor's office 4 times. We're running out of options.

My mom returns home tomorrow and next week should be a normal week again. Work from 10-3, kids from 3:30 to 9:15 the next morning. We are used to our own schedule and can't wait to get back to normalcy.

Spam

A few weeks ago (ok, I'll be honest. I just realized, by looking at the dates below, that it was actually last week. I could have sworn that this happened weeks ago, this just shows how little time is impacting my life) our spam filter at work died.

This doesn't happen very often but when it does we get flooded with all sorts of lovely emails. I had no idea there were so many prospective Russian brides! And they're all so friendly!

So I had obviously just deleted those except for the one below that I copied and pasted. It was from my sister and while the subject looked like spam I couldn't help but passing it along to her.

Usually when emails are forwarded the most recent email is at the top. When I copied this email I did the opposite. The original email is first then the replies below it are in response.

Original Message------From: Kristen Sullivan


To: Katie Whitt

Subject: Russian dating site


Sent: Feb 1, 2010 5:45 PM





I can do for you is - what can not no girl!

On Mon, 2/1/10, Katie Whitt wrote:
From: Katie Whitt Katie@.com

Subject: Not spam. But the forward is

To: "Kristen Sullivan" kristensullivan@.com

Date: Monday, February 1, 2010, 5:15 PM

Our spam filter is broken until tomorrow afternoon. Look what you sent me!------

From: Kristen Sullivan [mailto:kristensullivan@.com]


On Monday, February 01, 2010 6:27 PM


To: Katie Whitt

Subject: Re: Not spam. But the forward is





Oh. I thought you knew? This was the new blast I sent out to my customers. Thought you might like a sneak peak. Bad choice? I was just thinking with Valentine's Day and all, who doesn't need a Russian Bride? -Kristen---


Usually at work we're busy dealing with problems (that's the job) so we need to find every opportunity we can to laugh at something during the day. The email above was my laugh for the day. For Valentine's Day, everyone is getting a Russian bride. There are tons to go around for anyone who is interested.

West, Texas

I need to start off by saying thank you to everyone who voted on our baby names. Sad news - we're no where closer to a name. Happy news - I found out my next ultrasound is February 24 so we'll find out then if I'm right about having a boy.

In the meantime I have wanted to post about one of my favorite places in Texas for a while and it just kept getting pushed down on my "edit" list. Texas has some fun names for their towns/cities. There are the foreign names: Paris, London, Florence, and Moscow, for example. And then there are the hard to pronounce names: Nacogdoches, Waxahachie, Bexar county (the x is silent), and Pflugerville.

But my favorite is West, Texas. No, not west Texas. Don't be silly. I've only been there once and it's obvious that the people have to be overly-wonderful to make up for the landscape. (I think I worded that perfectly. How can anyone be offended by that?.....)

West, Texas is about 60 minutes south of Dallas and Brian and I used to pass it every time we were driving from Searcy to Temple. The reason it caught my attention? Those people are so cute and clever!

The heritage is purely Czech and you know it the minute you drive into it. (And, actually, that is the same minute that you drive out of it). They have a convenience store/gas station/Czech deli that is called the Czech Stop. I LOVE IT! And, recently, they opened the Czech Inn. Ha! And according to the website there is also a Czech Point Collectibles, but I've never seen that one.

I usually annoyed Brian enough on our road trips that by the time we made it to West he was very focused on making it to his parents house without throwing me out of the car. So we never stopped. And then the one time he offered we had a cranky toddler in the back who was about to crash since we forced her on a flight to Dallas very early in the morning.

Since I was driving by myself from Dallas-Temple last month I decided to give in and stop where they've been telling me to stop for over 10 years - the Czech Stop. When I walked in I did not expect all the signs to be in Czech. If it weren't for the Czech girl in national costume painted on the ladies restroom door I would not have known which door to enter. I would have met a very unhappy Czech man, probably.

Thanks to my in-laws I was introduced to kolaches very early in my dating relationship with Brian. Who would have guessed it but there is a lot of Czech heritage in Texas. If I were to describe a kolache I would have to put it in the same category as a donut but they're not as dense. More light and fluffy. The pastries are usually fruit filled but you can also get them with cheese or meat. I ordered a dozen of fruit variety. I only ate two. I was pretty proud of myself since I could have used the "I'm pregnant and will eat whatever I want" excuse.

But then I saw the sausage. I love sausage. And not really the breakfast kind. More like the Italian kind with peppers and onions that the sell at Yankee Stadium for $57 (or what feels like $57). Polish sausage will fit into this category as well as bratwurst. And the Czech stop had my kind of sausage. I controlled myself and only got one sausage and cheese filled kolache. As I was eating this gooey delicacy I felt my heart shudder (in a bad way) and I feared for the fetus but my body is stronger than cholesterol! I can't imagine eating more than one of those a year. Or maybe once every two years.

When I walked into the house with my Czech Stop bag Brian just shook his head. He knew that I now had one less item on my Bucket List.

www.czechstop.net

Name Our Baby!

We should find out if we are having a boy or girl the first week in March. Until then we have agonized over the boy name. Not only has it tortured us but we have tortured almost every one we know as well. Believe me, all of our friends, family, and acquaintances wish we would make a decision so we will stop talking about it. Or they have been very dedicated to nominating as many names as possible to the point where we are overwhelmed.




We have the girl name decided but I am 95% sure this baby is a boy. Why? Well, there is the very subjective reason of "it feels like a boy" and then the almost scientific test that I took at Walgreens.

The instructions that come with the test clearly state not to purchase boy/girl clothes based on the results and while it also says there is 87% accuracy, most of the customer feedback is "test was wrong". That could just mean that the people who were upset that the test was wrong posted, but whatever. So, based on my boy results on this test I am declaring that I will have a boy.

Brian refers to this test as the "voo doo gender test" and has decided to ignore the results. Let's talk about Brian's thinking process and how he likes to be right. He will ignore these test results because they are not scientific and will call me crazy for believing them. AS A RESULT, if the test is wrong and we are having a girl he can brag for the rest of our lives how I was gullible enough to believe the test. Now, if the test is right and we have a boy he can go on being apathetic about the test because, in the end, it isn't scientific and it was a 50/50 shot anyway. So in his mind he wins either way.

So let's talk names. I am a big believer in family names. Lily Karrine is named after our mothers, Lila and Karan. Jamison David is named after our fathers, Jim and David. In collecting the available male family names, while we admire and respect the people with those names, we don't think that they would fit our family. So then that opens up a huge world of possible name choices. I don't even know how to narrow it down because I feel almost the same way about all of them - BLAH. No names have won me over.

To make things more complicated, I love classic names where Brian tends to lean more towards widely known but unused names. Example? Atticus. Everyone knows Atticus because everyone has read To Kill A Mockingbird. (I would hope. If you have not read it stop reading this and go to Barnes & Noble and buy it. Then read it. Actually, you can read it a few times since once will never be enough.) But really people - should we do that to a little baby? Name it Atticus?? That's such a heavy name.

For the past few months we have kept a running list of possible names. We are sure that there are more names out there but we just haven't thought of them (or haven't been suggested). This is what I'd like to do - I'll list our baby names below. I'd like you to not only vote for one of the names, but offer another name as a suggestion (if you have one). Just post your vote in the comment section. It can even be anonymous (mom - you better not post your vote anonymously 20 times).

In choosing the names here are some things we've kept in mind:

1. Needs to be 2 syllables since our last name is 1 syllable

2. Would like to have a nice nickname (example: We like Nicholas but cannot have Nick Whitt. Poor kid, we'd be subjecting him to years of teasing. Although that could make him stronger, more resilient, and an over all better human being. But why risk it?)

3. Would prefer that it's not too trendy (example: I LOVE the name Ethan but there are a bigillion Ethan's running around now)

Here are our names with our reasoning for choosing them. Drum roll please.....

1. Theodore (pro:nickname Teddy - we love that! con: Chipmunks?)

2. Charles (pro: classic name con: Prince Charles? I am not a fan of his ever since Diana died. I understand that he didn't cause her death but INDIRECTLY he did. If he had just not married Diana and proposed to Camilla when Camilla was single then Diana would still be alive. But I probably have just shared too much with you about my thoughts on Charles and Diana.Yes, I have more to share on the subject but will refrain from showing that I have dwelled way to long on the topic. I have sufficiently embarrased myself already)

3. Henry (pro: classic name con: not a favorite of Brian's, reminds me of a dog now that Lily and I read the Magic Treehouse books)

4. Gabriel (pro: great nickname - Gabe con: too angelic?)

5. Patrick (pro: similar to Patricia, Brian's grandmother's name, classic name con: Pat reminds us of that Saturday Night Live sketch...)

6. Finnegan/Phinneas (pro: nickname - Finn con: doesn't mean anything to us, it's just a random name)

7. Brady (pro: combination of Brian and Katie, nice, solid name con: kinda common name, doesn't stand out. Also, name meaning is "descendant of Bradach". That's barely a name meaning)

8. Callum (pro: we like the nickname Cal con: same as Finn, doesn't mean anything to us; it's just a random name)

9. Joel (pro: we like it con: technically it is only one syllable but if you drag it out it sounds like two. Especially if you're from below the Mason-Dixon)

10. Christian (pro: good name to live up to con: too close to my sisters name, Kristen. Could lead to some very confusing conversations)

11. Dalton (pro: family name on Whitt side con: hard to get a nickname from Dalton-inevitably the kid will be called Dalt)

So, if you would be so kind, please vote on one of these and if you have a suggestion add that too. We won't promise that the one with the highest votes will win but it will definitely influence us. We'd love to hear any feedback you have on the names as well, if you want to share.

And, just because it's fun (and for posterity's sake) here are the names that we have discarded for one reason or another:

Sebastian - reminds us of a certain animated crab

William - while it's a family name on all sides, we can't have Will Whitt

George - for an hour about two weeks ago I was convinced this was the perfect name. I blame hormones on that reasoning.

Jackson - already have Jamison. Can't have two names ending in "son".

Jonas - Obviously the best thing is that the kid would have a theme song thanks to Weezer. But that ended up being the reason it was tossed out. We couldn't talk about it without singing the song.

Crockett - This name is all over the Whitt side of the family in the early 1800's. I honestly think I would consider this name if we lived in the south. I couldn't do that to a kid up here. It would be equivalent to putting our son in those adorable short-alls with white knee-high socks and white shoes up here. You can do it in the south until the boy is around 6 but dress a boy like that in New York when he's over 18 months and you're in for it. That's painful for me because I love those outfits. Jamison would look ADORABLE to short alls with white knee highs.

Alright! That's it! Cast your votes!