Counting Down 65 Days

or: Yes!  I'm Pregnant Again!

All swanky at a Work Event.

Hey, remember how last time I was all, "turns out I'm really terrible about not mentioning the pregnancy while I blog,"?  Well that remains a true statement, hence the extremely extended silence.  But I let the fetal cat out of the social media bag this past Sunday, so here I am doing a write-up on the blog.  And it's important to me that I start blogging with regularity again, since it's so fun to look back at TLG's first year of life through my in-the-moment lens.  I'm trying not to shortchange this new one, whom we are calling Little Brother amongst our little family, but whom I'll call LBB (aka Little Baby Boy) on the blog (for now- the TLG -formerly-known-as-Neeps taught me the folly of expecting pre-birth nicknames to stick).

Now with that out of the way, let's hit the other Typical Questions

-My due date is August 30th (aka 65 days from now) but based on past experience, I'm laying money on August 24th or sooner.
-As you may have surmised, it's another boy!  We are freaking stoked, because (as I exclaimed during the anatomy scan) this means we don't have to learn a new set of genitals!  Winning.  Actually I have a funny story about this- TLG was dead set on having a little sister (he wanted to name her Rosie, of all things) so when we broke the news that Little Brother was, in fact, a little brother, he wailed, "Nooooo!"  I got it all on video- priceless.  But we talked him around by pointing out that I have a little brother (Uncle David, whom he adores) and Daddy is not just a little brother but the littlest brother, so now he's on board with the idea that little brothers can be cool, and more importantly, little brothers look up to big brothers, who get to teach them All The Things.  We'll see how long this enthusiasm lasts once the squirming larva is actually here, but for now I'll take it!
-Just like with TLG, we have no clue what LBB's Real Life name will be.  We have a list of names that we'll choose from once we actually meet him, but for now... LBB it is.
-Yes, this is the Last One.  Steps Will Be Taken to ensure it, I assure you.

There, that ought to cover it, for now.  Here's to our future adventures as a Family of Four!

Father's Day 2019

(How's that for a distinctive title?)

It's been somewhat of an Emotionally Weird Father's Day.

Let me explain.

It's been five years since I've had a truly Terrible Father's Day- that being the one that occurred right after the second miscarriage, and Nathan and Katie and I got lunch at Red Lobster and the clueless waitress said brightly to us (a trio of extremely quiet, mid-thirties people eating lunch at 2pm with no children in our midst), "Are you here celebrating Father's Day?"

(Read the room, lady.  Read the room.)

The 19 years preceding that, they'd run the gamut from "Crying most of the day," to "Hey who wants the day off because I will definitely take your shift and get some extra money out of this stupid made up holiday!"

But then TLG came along, and the game changed.  Suddenly it was a Happy Day again, with an actual reason to celebrate, and warm, tender feelings for my Lifemate in his role as Lifegiver.  It gives me great pleasure to be able to anticipate the made up holiday with joy and expectation, to be able to make it into a Special Day (or at least a day with Special Moments) for my mate.  The Specialness I had planned for today was helping TLG make a card for Nathan, taking him to the second service of church so he could see Daddy play, and then going out to eat wherever Nathan wanted (not Red Lobster...)  Nathan obviously left the house at his usual way-too-early time (since he plays for both services, and gets there early to run through things), so I was alone as TLG scarfed his breakfast downstairs and I ruminated my Costume Choices.

In the end I felt a very powerful call to wear an old shirt of my dad's leftover from his early Air Force days (Yep, a ~40 year old t-shirt.  It has exactly one tiny hole in it, the result of a too-enthusiastic cat.  They do not make things like they used to, that's for damn sure.)  I didn't put much thought into it, just "Yes, this is a good shirt to wear today, to remember my father in a non-painful way."

But then... someone actually asked me about the shirt.

"Okay, I have to know," says the kind substitute pastor gesturing to my back.  "Who is JP 13?"

"Oh," I blink, taken off guard by the question, and suddenly realizing it wasn't perhaps totally appropriate to wear a shirt that says, "The Hell We Can't" into my husband's church.  "JP was my dad.  And 13 was his..." I fumble for a way to translate into Civilian Terms.  "...class... thing."

"Class of 2013?"  The pastor eyes my obviously late-thirties-self with a smile.  "I don't think so,"

"No no,"  I wave my hands helplessly.  "Not the year.  Their class number.  Like a squadron.  It was from some training he did after he graduated from the Air Force Academy.  They... they got to design their own patches and..."  I stretch the front of the shirt out, as though somehow he hasn't already noticed, "They chose squeezing blood from a turnip.  Obviously.  And I, uh... I decided to wear it in remembrance of him today."  Sorry about the 'hell' thing, I add mentally.

"It's a wonderful remembrance," he says, and I like him that much more.

The conversation wrapped up pretty quickly thereafter, but the shock of it- of someone who doesn't know me asking, and me actually talking about my father- shifted my brain a bit.  So that rather than "Okay thought about Daddy for 30 seconds this morning now I can put all my focus onto Nathan," it became more of a balance between the two.  The bitter and the sweet.  And I'm not saying it's bad, or that I'm upset it happened.  But it added an emotional nuance to the day I wasn't expecting.  And I may or may not have teared up a bit at the end of service when Nathan was talking to the congregation about what it means to be a good father.

Anyway.

Overall it was an extremely good day.  We had (a very late) lunch at Thai Orchid, and then Nathan went to the guitar store for a few hours (because I firmly believe that Mother's and Father's Days ought to be about the parental figure in question doing something for themselves) while TLG and I hung out at home.  And now I'm going to bed, because I am of an age where Good Days include Early Bedtimes.

::sigh::