April 13, 2008: Week 15 Evan's Going to be a Big Brother!

Well, it's week 15! Only 25 more weeks and 178 days to go! Hard to believe. It's going so fast!

We told Evan on Friday night after a "pizza picnic" that we had some exciting news for him-- that he's going to be a Big Brother! He had all sorts of questions for us-- when, how, where was the baby... We read him a book called "Special Something" about a little girl who's mommy had a special something in her tummy. Evan seemed to really enjoy it. We also watched a picture movie that Greg made from Evan's first moments and first days, which helped, too. I would imagine that we'll watch that quite a few times before the baby is born.

We asked Evan for some ideas of what to call the baby. His answers all depend upon what is going on in the moment. They included names like "Rainbow" right after we saw a rainbow, and "Peanut butter and jelly" at breakfast this morning as he was eating his toast and jelly. This was along with his latest phase of making up names and words. I couldn't even begin to tell or spell what those names were.

It's funny, too, how a four-year-old's mind works... We'd remind him to share his big news, he'd ask what it was-- we'd tell him, and then he'd say "OH YEAH!! And I have to tell them about bowling, too!!" I suppose the excitement will come in time. He did have to talk to the baby last night and tell him good night. It was very sweet.

We also made a calendar for him with every birthday, anniversary, visit between Dani's and our house, etc. It's called "Evan's Baby Count Down". Be sure to ask him about it when you see him. He makes X's on the date every day. It'll travel between the two houses so he has some continuity and it'll give him an idea of just how long it'll be and all of the birthdays that he needs to see before we get to the due date.

We do plan to bring him with us for the ultrasound in a few weeks. I think this'll be a great way to make the pregnancy more concrete, too.

In other news..... I'm loving my new career more and more every day! Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I started visiting clients. I drove 160 miles on Friday alone! BUT, I'm LOVING it. I get to drive all over NW Ohio and visit with clients, making sure that things are going well from them, and that our CAREGivers are doing a good job. It's fantastic, and I'm loving every single second of it-- even the paperwork part of it. I'm finding myself losing track of time at the end of the day-- The other day I looked up and the next thing I knew, it was almost 5pm! I'm supposed to leave at 4:30.

On another note, I found out that Brookeside, the place that let me go last month, is no longer in existance. The company was forced to close their doors on Thursday. I guess the owner finally got what was coming to him. The only people I feel sorry for are the drivers, who made minimum wage and really depended on that money.

Greg's been working a lot lately-- seems like he's either at Movie Gallery or a meeting every single night. It hasn't been fun. It's kindof sucked, really. I hope that he can cut down sometime soon at Movie Gallery.

In baby news, according to the website, the baby is now roughly the size of a navel orange-- 4 inches and weighing roughly 2.5 oz. Arm and leg joints are fully functioning and Baby should be squirming around like crazy. If I lay on my back very still, my tummy jiggles a little. Greg saw it last night-- if he or I put our hand on my stomach where its moving, it stills and you can't feel it move any more. It's rather amusing. I really can't feel it moving quite yet, though. Soon, I hope!

Anyhoo. That's about it for now! Life is great. We're having a baby, I've found a job that I love and adore and we're doing fantastic!