7 quick takes about getting ready for Christmas

1. Ever since finding out that we're going to have two little girls running around, I have been idly hitting the children's stores and thinking that I'd like to buy a frilly little pink something for this new baby, both to celebrate and to have something all her own that isn't a hand me down. But then I actually see what frilly little pink things cost and....no. I do not want to spend $35 on something she will wear once, spit up on and then outgrow by the time I do laundry.

Oh, how the second child suffers.

2. But the first child? I have no problem frittering away money on the first child in the same breath that I deny the second child. I mean, just think about how SLOWLY the first child is growing.  Far more economical to spend on her than the baby at this point. And this cupcake shirt? HOW CUTE IS THIS?

3. Chris and I have been paging through the baby name book. We have a little list going and, well, this is tough.

"Claire" was a name that we both loved from the start and when we found out she was a girl we already knew that her name would be Claire.  There was not a lot of discussion. It is simple and sounds nice, works well on a small child as well as a successful adult, is not very florid or trendy or silly (not necessarily bad things, just not names I gravitate towards for my own offspring). I think it's just a really pretty name.  I want a similar style of name for this baby and I have found one that I love, I really really love it, but...Chris is not so in love with it. I think his reaction was, "It's okay."

I'll let him sit with the name for a few weeks and hope he gets more fond of it.  He shouldn't have to SETTLE on a name, just like I shouldn't have to either, but duuuuude. I love this name and I feel like it's HER name already, which will make it all the more difficult to let go if I have to.

A lot of people have asked if we're going to keep her name a secret until she's born (we did with Claire) and I keep thinking HA HA, we might not have a name until days AFTER she's born so, yes, maybe by default that will happen.

4. Have you been following Emily and Elizabeth's Advent adventures?  (That sounds like the name of a really bad religious chick flick, amiright?) I pretty much think the idea of having a daily activity calendar during Advent and putting all of the ideas into envelopes and letting the kids open them every day is GENIUS. Waaay better than chocolate.  I am absolutely going to copy it next year.  For this year, I just copy the activities a few days later with Claire and that seems to work for us. I think next year, when she's 3, she will be more into the anticipation and activities and I will also have a whole year to plan it out because a formal Advent Calendar is so not happening at this point.

We made cinnamon-applesauce ornaments with Jennie and Kyle last Friday night and we're going to do a gingerbread house ($9 at Walmart, yo) on Saturday with another friend. I expect Claire will fairly well DIE when she sees that it has a Santa. (The kid is inexplicably in love with Santa.)

5. I said that we were going to have a simple Christmas and at first I had only bought 3 or 4 presents for Claire but then something happened and I went CRAZY and now Claire has like TEN presents from us, not including her Santa present or the little things for her stocking and...I fear that I have ruined the simple Christmas. What is worse is that I feel like going out and buying her "just a few more things." Really, I actually have this compulsion several times a day. 

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?  We don't even have places to store all the toys that we HAVE. I blame Amazon Prime free 2-day shipping.

6. I decided to wrap gifts in classy peppermint-striped paper this year (got it at Costco) and put a simple red satin ribbon on them with gift tags I got at Tiny Prints.  I am quite impressed with my handiwork. It also makes wrapping a simple job, which is nice.

7. I am 20 weeks pregnant today. Because this website is my baby book and my journal:

• I have gained ten pounds.

• I only started to feel like a normal person who did not want to vomit all the time after about 18 weeks.  For the first 18 weeks I felt really, really gross and I slept a lot.

• I have three pair of pants and three shirts. So far, I am able to mix and match these into something resembling a wardrobe.

• I started feeling the baby move a few weeks ago, but thought it was just me digesting lunch.  Turns out that my placenta is anterior and she's been kicking me through it, which muffles the force.  I can tell she's getting bigger and stronger though; the kicks have amped up over the past two weeks, which pleases me to no end. 

• Claire will tell anyone who will listen that "I be a big sister!"

• We asked Claire what the baby's name should be. She said that we should call her, "Sorry."  There's a joke in here, but I'm not sure what it is.

• This pregnancy still feels very different to me, even though it's another girl. It's unreal how fast the time has flown by and I credit it entirely to being so busy chasing around Claire every night. There's no time to sit and ponder or research or plan.  Life just keeps coming at me, a thousand miles per hour and the days click by without my even noticing how fast they're piling up behind me.  April will be here soon.

Comments

[lindsay]

Love the gift wrap and the tags. And I was looking at Kyle thinking why does that kid look familiar? It's always so mindbending to see people of blogs in the same pics.

[Grammie]

I love the gift wrap too, and especially the name tag to Grammie!

[Jennie]

How damn cute are our kids together? CUUUUUTE. Send me a link to the ridiculous $35 frilly thing. I'll buy it for baby #2 :)

[craftyashley]

Don't worry too much about the name. I had a name like that early on. I fell in love with it, hard. I was crushed when the husband didn't like it. So we went through lists upon lists of alternatives. Then, a week before he was born, my husband turned and said; you know! I think I like the name so-and-so. I then assaulted him with the pillow because THAT WAS THE NAME I WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. He just shrugged and said that now it seemed "right." Hold out the hope, sister!

[HereWeGoAJen]

We started working on that exact same gingerbread house this morning! Elizabeth is really excited about getting to the candy part (this afternoon, after nap), especially the green leave things.

[Grace {formerly gracie}]

So my package arrived? Hurray! I was worried it would take forever.