guesses

the tally so far ...
cat: sept 7
tayloe: sept 1, high noon
grandjane: aug. 31
cousin suzie: aug 31
kate: aug. 7
pierce posse: sept 7
ganny: sept 6
grandpolly: sept 4
aunt c: sept 9
276 main street: aug 31
linz: sept. 5

anyone else?

as a side note, if he is born in september and you're thinking of sending a little something, we'd much rather you watch this trailer (click on the blue link, silly) and consider making a donation to charity water. once he's here, we'll set up a birthday page for him and link to it from this site.

bwak bwak

i can't believe i haven't blogged about our chickens. here they are in all their glory, making their once daily venture into our kitchen.
generally chickens are pretty stupid. i expected these guys to make it all of a week or two. but we've had them about two months and they don't show any signs of going anywhere anytime soon. in fact, they're kinda smart.
maybe it's because they're bantams. they roost up in trees at night so they don't get eaten by critters like fox. and they all stick together - two hens flecked by four roosters. poor gals.
the guys, though, are terrible at crowing. maybe it's because they're small or they're still kind of young. i'm not sure. the noise is this horrid pre-pubescent squawk that might not be so awful if it was just one. but all four typically carry on for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. in truth i've gotten used to it and usually just tune it out like a 2 year old tantrum. it's our visitors who suffer.

countdown

people are having a lot of fun guessing baby no. 2's birthday, so let's make it public.
what's' your guess? the due date is sept. 5. i'll tell you my mother has already claimed the morning of aug. 31, partially because it's her birthday and partially because it's the day following a full moon in a blue moon month. but that doesn't mean you can't join her. (i'd say it's a pretty good guess as guesses go, except that'd put me a whole week early and i just can't imagine doing anything that ahead of time).
i'm guessing sept. 7 for no real reason except that's when i'd like it to happen. which means it won't. also, tayloe was due on a friday but was born 2 days late on a sunday, so it seems to me this birth should follow suit. it's funny how your brain falls back on what it knows when it doesn't have any other information to go on.
now that the house is finished (pictures soon) i really should get some things done this week, like get a bag packed and get some fall clothes & shoes for t2 and maybe buy a decent looking pair of pajamas since we'll have a few more visitors this time. maybe i should start a list.
we're pretty much ready though. his room is clean and his clothes are clean and i even have some diapers. tayloe and i have surrendered to being tired and exasperated and have promised to remind each other that it won't last forever.
it's anyone's guess whether little tayloe is ready for the storm that's about to rock his little world. he knows there's a baby in my belly, but when we tell him there'll be a baby in our house soon he says, 'no way.' and not like , 'NO WAY, GET OUT! HOW FUN' more like, 'no way am i going to tolerate that.' sometimes for kicks i ask him where the baby should sleep and he either says with wolly or outside with cheese, his fish.
anywho, waddya think. early, late or right on time? i'll keep a running tally and post it here. the winner gets to host t2 in his/her own home for an ENTIRE WEEK!!! NO WAY!!!! HOW FUN!!!!!!!

what a mom is

my mom and her best friend have been here the past two days cleaning and unpacking our house. i'd like to say helping me clean our house, but that would be a big fat lie because i haven't been doing anything. no one can tell you to sit down and shut up the way your mother can.
they've unpacked our kitchen, assembled cabinet doors, cleaned floors, dusted, washed windows, done laundry and moved and rearranged and moved again our furniture. my mom even talked the guy working on our bathroom into hauling away a bunch of trash that would have taken us years to get rid of.
our house looks absolutely amazing (i'm taking pictures soon, just gotta find that camera ...) and there is no way under heaven that i could have done it. i can barely bend over to look in the fridge.
throw away all the parenting books and take a lesson from my mother - the greatest gift you can give your child is love. and my mom gives it perfectly.
thanks, ma. a million times over, thanks. (you, too, brenda)

recap

we went to hershey park and had a great time, but i didn't have my camera with me so i have no visual documentation whatsoever. i can, however, offer you this excerpt of the moment i knew it was time to go home:
little tayloe wants to ride the ladybug saucers. we say ok! tayloe sees a bench and leaves us in line to go sit on it. that's ok because he'd ridden pretty much everything else and won t2 a stuffed animal at one of the games and bought us all lemonade and cheeseburgers. it's our turn and the only saucer left already has two little girls and their mother in it. tayloe climbs in and says, 'mama, sit!' i'm not sure i can, i say. he looks at me funny.
see, the saucer has a wheel in the middle for kids to hold on to. and the space between the seat and the wheel may have fit nicole richie or angelina jolie at 8 1/2 months pregnant but i was pretty sure it wasn't going to fit catherine emery 8 1/2 months pregnant. besides that, the whole apparatus is really low to the ground.
then the mother of the girls says she thinks i can get in. i ask her if she has any vaseline. then the ride operator weighs in and before you know it we have something of a scene over WHETHER OR NOT I CAN FIT IN A SEAT. ON A KIDDIE RIDE. horrid.
tayloe's on a bench, watching, remember.
i decide to just get in for no other reason but to make it all stop. so i do. my ass is hanging off the seat and i'm sideways in the ride and my knees are pretty much in my mouth and the baby has decided to roll over entirely to my right side, but i'm in. 'yay mama!' tayloe says. yay mama i say back.
we start moving. round and round and round in circles. tayloe's holding on and giggling and yelling, 'WHEE' and i'm about to vomit. and just then, i look over at his father - my husband, the person i adore more than anyone in the world - and i can make out through the whirls and the blurry vision and the extreme discomfort that he's laughing. really hard, actually. and so i start laughing because really, it's pretty funny.

some recent pictures

4 more weeks

i'm thinking about it and you know, i've always kind of thrived on deadlines. i think it's the reason i became a journalist in the first place - i knew it was the only profession that would allow me to actually accomplish something.
i pretty much need someone breathing down my neck.
in this case, it's a small baby. only he's not exactly breathing down my neck as much as he is needling me from the inside. which sometimes is just as annoying.
i'm pretty sure just my 8 months pregnant presence scares every workman who steps into this house. especially the young ones. they look especially frightened.
on thursday, the tile guys took the toilet out of the bathroom. on friday the contractor told me the 'thought' the plumber was coming to reinstall it.
you think? i said. i have no idea how i looked at him but before i could say anything else he was dialing the plumber's number on his cell phone. an hour later, they were here.
honestly, i've never been so effective.
we're getting there, though. we have new cabinets and a great new island, a new bathroom and new appliances. of course nothing's hooked up yet, but we're close. really, really close. if the floors are sealed this week and the electrician actually shows up on wednesday and the painter comes on thursday and the plumber and contractor make it on friday and they all do most of what they say they're going to do (which they all pretty much have so far), we'll be really really close.
i'm optimistic. no one wants a lecture from a pregnant lady. and they sure as shit don't want a phone call from tayloe.
anyway, it's one of our last chances to go on an adventure just the three of us so we're leaving to go to hershey park in pennsylvania tomorrow. i can't even believe how willing i am to go to an amusement park while 8 months pregnant in august, but i am. i'm super excited even. that should give you a little insight to what a wreck our house is.

news from lake wollygone

the day after little tayloe's birthday, we had to bail wolly out of the doggie clink which, it turns out, was a major pain in the ass.
the next night i let him outside before bed and though i was outside too he managed to sneak away only to return home at 2 in the morning. he stood at the front door and howled (not barked, not scratched, hhhoooowwwwllleed like we had done something to him) until we got up and let him in.
a few days later, he found his way out in the middle of the night and was gone when we woke up. he returned later in the day but had to be shut in our bedroom because the floor guys were here working. that afternoon, he decided our freshly painted walls were the perfect landing place the yellowish/greenish liquid that came rapid fire from his butt. i can only assume it was the bi-product of trash he'd been shifflett'ing around after the day before.
i feel like putting a sign around his neck that says 'if you feed or play with this dog, you keep him' because that's what he's going out looking for. and make no mistake, his first objective is to find a fetch sucker. if he gets a bologna sandwich too, well that's just makes the trip all the more worth the while.
he's managed to stay put the last few days, but that's not always good either. when he's here he either sticks to me like huge, panting, drooling magnet or he darts around the house trying to eat flies.
of course i love him. he's crazy, frantic, telephone book-eating, santa-loving wolly. but an 8 year old lab isn't supposed to act like a 2 year old lab. an 8 year old lab is supposed to lie around all day on the ac vent.
there's a nice one in the kitchen, by the way. give it a try?