5 On Friday: February 27th, 2009

1. On Monday we went to see David Byrne at the Jack Singer Concert Hall (David Byrne was the lead singer of 'Talking Heads' - of 'Psycho Killer' fame - who has had an incredibly successful solo career). My whole family came, because the tickets were their Christmas present this year.

As we sat waiting for the concert to start, Warren & I had the following conversation...

Warren: I'm not going to have to stand and dance am I?

Amanda: No, Hon. You won't have to stand, or dance, or clap your hands, or have any fun at all. So don't worry.

Warren: Good.

Cut to an hour later, when the whole place is on their feet, dancing away, and there is Warren standing beside me, feeling the groove and clapping his hands. It was a KICK ASS concert! Loved the funky interpretive dancers, the band dressed in all white, and the white tutus they all put on for the 3rd encore. I don't own any David Byrne albums, only Talking Heads, and even though I only knew 3 or 4 of the songs they played, it was awesome. Definitely need more David Byrne on the 'ole iPod.

SIDE NOTE: I think Wellington may have been doing 'The Wave' during portions of the concert :-)

(editor's note: these are not my photos, they are stolen off the internet).

2. On Saturday we went to my Dad's for a huge steak dinner. Before leaving, we made sure to bore everyone with Wellington's latest ultrasound photos. One of my favorite photos was the one of his 'little man bits', but when presenting them to the crowd I referred to that region as 'His Junk'. My Step mom was horrified. I thought 'junk' was an endearing term, but apparently not. I guess it's up there with 'Nads'. Sorry little guy.

3. We will not be posting the 'junk' photos on the blog(s), because Warren insists that we maintain some sort of dignity/privacy for sweet Wellington. Personally, I don't think dignity/privacy and the INTERNET mesh well together (read: Shawna's Movie Monday this week), but we'll do our best.

4. I want to send out a big, public THANK-YOU to ERIN for her awesome-ness this week. We got not one, but TWO door to door drop-offs of stuff we bought at her online garage sale, PLUS she gave us the sweetest little bear rattle, blankie, hand puppet wash cloth and 1st size diapers. Thanks Erin - you kick ass.

5. Another THANK-YOU to KERI for the thoughtful Boy baby book, and to SHAWNA for the second hand (or 3rd hand?) bassinet and the cutest, softest Build-A-Bear. It's so fun to start getting little baby items to put in the nursery.

6. BONUS - Here are some photos from our farewell lunch with Gord, who is moving to Kamloops to pursue the next stage of his blossoming career. Damn I'm going to miss him!

5 On Friday: February 20th, 2009

Since we found out yesterday that we are going to be blessed with a SON, my 5 on Friday this week is about that.

1. For as long as I can remember, I always imagined myself with a son. Any names I would dream up were always boys names and any cute outfits I pictured were always boys outfits. Ever since I met Warren, I would always think how great it would be to have a mini 'him', because he's such a great guy. So yesterday's news seems to be destiny fulfilling itself. 

2. As soon as the technician said 'it's a boy', I felt a sudden surge of panic, for some odd reason. For a split second, all the associated challenges with boys flooded my brain. Will he be hard to potty train? Will he struggle in school? What about ADHD? How will we stop him from playing video games 24/7? Will we have to get up at 5am to take him to hockey practice, or will we be lucky and avoid all that?

3. As I grinned at the monitor, and up at Warren, I felt the warmest, softest tear trickle from my right eye.

4. I also wondered if any of us Calgary ladies would EVER have a girl??!!

5. Driving home, Warren & I were chatting about how odd it felt to know. It was so final, so certain. No more wondering and dreaming about one or the other, drifting through the options from day to day depending on our mood. This was it. We're having a son. A boy. And we couldn't stop giggling.

Slugs and snails...

...and puppy dog tails.

That's all I've got to say about that :-)

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday SHAWNA!

Why Wellington?

I guess Wellington does seem like an odd nickname for our baby in waiting. Why not peanut or bean or sweet pea? Well, just like 'Little Gas', this nickname came about out of nowhere...but the actual origin is a bit foggy.

I remember around Christmas time, President's Choice (Superstore Brand) was running a commercial staring their President 'Gaelan Weston', promoting their product 'Salmon Stuffed Mini Wellingtons'. This commercial ran a lot, and for some unknown reason, Warren & I just got a kick out of it. So maybe this is where it started, and the name got implanted in our subconscious.

Then one morning Warren woke up and told me about a dream he had. Again - the details are foggy (Damn my laziness! I should have written it down!). His dream was based around one character - a little homeless Boxer dog named Wellington. Wellington roamed the streets of London wearing a jaunty cap and worn-out ripped mitts on his paws. He also carried around one of those sticks with a sack attached - like a hobo. Along his travels he would make some friends - a cat named Cybil and a donkey named Gerard. He was very excited about this dream and started fantasizing about quitting the rat-race and turning this idea into a series of children's books - becoming a professional author of children's stories. I remember asking him "Well, children's books are supposed to teach kids something...like counting or colors or days of the week. What will this story teach kids?". He replied with "It will teach them to adopt homeless Boxers, of course!".

Anyways...I digress.

In his excitement, Warren decided he liked the name Wellington and that it was a great baby name. He thought is was nice and noble - Sir Wellington, Duke Wellington - but I disagreed. Unless of course it could be Wellington Warenko - which would be fantastic!

So, again, the details are foggy, but slowly Wellington went from the name list, to the nickname list.

5 On Friday: February 13th, 2009

1. I just finished my second Jodi Picoult book - 'Nineteen Minutes' - and really liked it - except for the ending, again. I wonder if this is a theme with this author? In this case, I probably saw the 'twist' coming for a good 20 pages or so, but I thought to myself "if this is where she's going with all this, then she'd better have a really good reason". But no such reason was given, that I could tell. I felt like it was a twist for twist sake, that didn't really fit with the character and I didn't understand the motive. Anyway...I've started my 3rd one now, 'Salem Falls', and I remember Keri saying she was so mad with the ending that she threw the book across the room...

2. I'm afraid I'm going to totally cop out on this weeks 5 On Friday (but I figure I'm entitled, since both K & E missed their 10 on Tuesday), by using up the last 3 spots with my remaining pregnancy posts. Now, we're officially up to date!

Stay tuned for exciting new weekly features like 'Wellington Watch' and...okay...just Wellington Watch, that's all I got.

3. Good Bye and Good Riddance

4. Telling

5. A Letter To Wellington (your new nickname)

2 On Tuesday

2 more...we're almost there....

A Letter To Little Gas

Exhale

A couple more on a Sunday...

2 more back-posts...

Always The First To Know

A Rant

5 On Friday: February 6th, 2009

1. Took my little brother & sister to Build-a-Bear on the weekend, and DAMN it was fun! I think part of what made the experience so great was that they are very sweet, grateful kids. Plus - my 27 year old brother came along and decided to make a bear too (they really suck you in with all the cute displays and the hundreds of choices). So he had to jump up and down and do the whole 'heart' ritual - hilarious (he even gave his bear a 'shower'). He made a Batman Beaver named Bruce Wayne.

2. This week marks the halfway point - 4 and a half months pregnant. I'm pretty sure the baby had a bit of a growth spurt this week. When I'm lying down in bed, I'm constantly feeling my little 'bump'. I keep grabbing Warren's hand and making him feel it, but he usually just gives me a courtesy 'ohhh...yaaa...neat'. This time I grabbed it and said 'feel this!' and I got a more sincere 'holy crap!' in response. There's definitely someone growing in there. Of course when I'm standing it's still hardly noticeable - but not for long I'm sure!

3. One thing on the to do list this weekend: REMOVE SECURITY BARS FROM BASEMENT WINDOWS. My heart breaks for the families of those 3 young people who died this week in a basement fire.

4. Out of NOWHERE, my workplace has banned 'blogs' at the office. I can no longer read my favorite blogs from work. This puts me in a very bad mood, but at the same makes me look forward to my mat leave even more (as if I needed another reason to look forward to it)!

5. Went to my first Flames game in at least 10 years last night (thanks again Tiff & Rob!). I quite enjoyed it and Warren & I both thought about what a fun experience it would be for a kid - ONLY if the Flames scored a lot. I kept wanting them to score - not to win - but just so that those huge flames would shoot out from the JumboTron and the buzzers would go and the stadium screens would flash red and the crowd would go nuts. So fun!

2 More...

A couple more of my pregnancy posts.

Dips and Spikes

Here We Go Again

The Sequel

The second installation:

A Letter From My Uterus