Announcing

Jessie Elizabeth Greenlaw, born 4:26 p.m. Sunday May 17. 20" long and weighing in at 8 lbs. on the dot. Mom's labor and delivery nurse, was, in what seemed an apt coincidence, named Jessie.

Big Sister Stuff

20 days and counting til the arrival of Baby Jessie, and Big Sister Lily is gearing up.

She earned her "Super Sibling" certificate at a class last Saturday, going to the effort of digging her not-so-gently worn "Big Sister" shirt made by Grandma Marsha out of the laundry just so she could wear it to the class.

Then on Sunday, at a lovely baby brunch hosted by some work friends, the hostess asked Lily what she thought the big, narrow tall gift was. Without a second's hesitation, Lily asked excitedly, "A pogo stick?!" Needless to say, she was sorely disappointed to learn it was a stroller. But she still enjoyed tearing off the wrapping paper.

Then today she asked me, "Sometimes it's hard for mommies to breathe when they have babies, isn't it?"

"Yes honey, it is."

She paused. I'm thinking she's going to say something sweet and sympathetic. But I would be wrong.

Then she said, "Well, I hope you have a hard time breathing today so Baby Jessie will be born."

Alrighty then.

At both her Super Sibling class and in the books we've been reading to prepare for the baby's arrival, Lily's received a lot of advice to sing to the baby. I must say though, I hope she waits a while before she decides to sing the following diddy to the baby. She seems to be quite fond of it today.

Five little monkeys swinging from a tree
Teasing Mr. Crocodile, you can't catch me
Here comes Mr. Crocodile, quiet as can be
Snap!

Loud cackle from Lily

Four little monkeys....

Take my word for it, the cackle's kind of scary.

Look Ma, No Hands!

My 5-year old is becoming quite proficient at the hula hoop. It reminds me of when she first started to learn to swing. It seemed for the longest time she couldn't master the leg kick, and invariably would stop swinging as soon as the initial push from Mom or Papi wore off. Same with the hula hoop. For months, she could manage 1, 2, maybe 3 revolutions before the hoop would be at her ankles. Then boom, all of a sudden she can keep it waist bound for 45 seconds or a minute at a time.

I like the combination I see in her of perseverance and diligence. She's not one to hesitate at praticing something she wants to better herself at - whistling being another example. She can already outwhistle me. I hope these are traits that continue to stay with her through life, as they will undoubtedly serve her well.

I've got a pix of P. Daddy hula hooping as well, but since his arms are outstretched in a motion as if to strangle me for snapping the shot, I opted to leave it out. :)

Random Musings

Have very few cohesive thoughts to offer for this blog (OK, I have NONE), but I do have a non-cohesive assortment of Lily/mommy updates to offer.



1) My leetle artiste made this on the PBS Kids Web site recently. I thought it was a nice symbol of springtime.









2) My budding politically-aware daughter announced out of nowhere to me this morning that "Ava wrote a letter to Barack Obama, and Barack Obama wrote back to her." So Lily wants to write a letter to Barack Obama too. Anyone have any idea what White House lackey gets the job of responding to Barack's fan mail from kids? If so, I want his/her address.



3) Not feeling like a great Mom lately. House moving/general lack of energy owing to being 8 months pregnant has me falling on the short side when it comes to playing with Lily. Promising self to do a pretend tea party or something of similar nature tonight.


4) Poll to readers - I know there's a poll function somehwere in this tool, but I don't remember where it is, so I'll just embed it here. Last night P. Daddy and I went to childbirth refresher class. Nurse/teacher asks for questions. P. Daddy chimes in with "Does North Austin have a special ops lab?" I look at him quizzically. Nurse/teacher asks him to explain further. "In case of a post-partum bleed, I want to know if they can take care of her here or if she has to go to Brackenridge?" Me starting to think P. Daddy's being awfully morbid. Nurse/teacher replies: "They are well equipped to deal with that here." P. Daddy then says something along the lines of, "I will know what doctor's on call that night, and if I don't like that doctor, I will have my own doctor on call." Now methinks P. Daddy's being awfully sweet and all. So what say you, morbid or sweet?


5) Finally, a challenge to my mother. Try posting a comment to the blog, instead of reiterating to me on the phone what you did/did not like about it. :) It's sort of the point of the blogosphere - creating online conversations!

Lenten sacrifices, clowns and bunnies

Being the not-so-devout Catholic that I am, I decided to let Lent 2009 elapse without me sacrificing anything. I'm already sacrificing sleep as a result of my yet-to-be-born child inhabiting my body, so that's enough, right?

Well, I know it's a little late in the game being only 5 days away from Easter and all, but I've decided to give up something after all.

Bunnies. Yes, bunnies. As in rabbits. One of the ever-present symbols of Easter, if not Lent. Ironic, huh?

In my opinion, bunnies have vaulted right to #2 spot on the List of Things that Cathy Doesn't Like. The #1 position will eternally be held by clowns.

So I can avoid the bunnies, P. Daddy's been duly informed that he's now in charge of Easter.

I know at least one of my readers out there already knows the reason why, but for the rest of you, I'll explain.

So this past weekend I jaunted off to Las Vegas with some old college gal pals, and a great weekend it was. We decided to take in a show while we were there, and the one we landed on was Criss Angel's "Believe."

Now I may just be the only person in the world who'd never heard of Criss Angel, but apparently he's been the most famous magician out there for oh, the last decade or so. So this show is combined with Cirque de Soleil. A Cirque de Soleil magic show. Sounds magical, right?

Not so much.

I liked the magic part. Enough to want to make me check out past episodes of Angel's highly touted cable show "Mindfreak." But there wasn't nearly enough magic.

Now the Cirque de Soleil part. Picture some weird combination of Alice in Wonderland, Moulin Rouge, New Orleans Mardi Gras and decapitated bunny heads dancing upside down on their ears, and you'll have an idea of what I witnessed.

Hence my new aversion.

This might just be enough to make me return to being a more devout Catholic and go to church on Easter to celebrate Jesus' resurrection and all. As long as the church doesn't have a visiting Cirque de Soleil troupe appearing.

I Pledge a Lee Gents

I'm not the type of mother that easily shrugs away parental duties, at least not on purpose. But I suddenly became aware today that I had so far failed to impart any civics lessons whatsoever unto my child.

"I can say the Pledge of Allegiance," Lily announced out of nowhere earlier today.

"You can?" I responded, triply suprised, proud, and grateful to the school system for picking up my parental teaching slack. Or to be more precise, I thanked the pre-school system.

I then eagerly awaited what I fully expected would be a mangled recitation of the pledge, something along the lines of:

I pledge a Lee Gents
To the flag of the
Night and Skates of America
And to the Republican
For witches stand
One nation,
Under God, invisible,
With liver teeth and juices for
all.

Instead, my articulate daughter recited the pledge near perfectly. With one exception. She left out the words "under God."

I thought at first maybe she had just forgotten to say them, but when I attempted to insert them on her behalf, it didn't ring any of her bells.

Then I realized I'd just had an up-close-and-personal encounter with Church vs. State.

Do you realize if you Google the words "kids, pledge of allegiance, and controversy" you'll end up with a whopping 76,500 results? The key words "pledge of allegiance constitutionality" generate 319,000 results. A quick scan of the results leads me to believe that nearly every school district in every state in the country has grappled with this issue. And at least one federal circuit court in the US has ruled the mandatory recitation of the pledge in public schools is unconstitutional owing to the inclusion of the phrase "under God."

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not what you'd call an active religious practitioner. Neither am I an atheist, or a non-theist, or whatever the politically correct term is these days. I can read about and understand the mostly intellectual but sometimes emotionally charged arguments from people on both sides of the pledge issue.

What I have trouble understanding is what all the fuss is about. Kids will ultimately grow up and develop their own religious and spiritual beliefs, hopefully influenced more by their parents than by the schools they attend. Whether or not they say the words 'under God' while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance won't be the ultimate determining factor of their personal religious creed.

So I guess what I'm saying is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Say the pledge, with or without the two controversial words. But we shouldn't let two charged words, a mere three syllables in total, stop our schools from helping to instill a sense of national pride and patriotism in our children.

Gosh, it seemed a lot less complicated when I was a kid.

Is this a great dad or what?