Emily had her "important" ultrasound on Valentine's Day and found out she will be having a boy - The pictures were very clear!! Although he did not want to cooperate and give us a good side profile view as he had at 14 weeks, he did cooperate with the gender shot!
We are very excited! She and Tommy were hoping for a boy, and he will be the first grandson on Tommy's side of the family. I am relieved to see everything is progressing normally and on schedule, and he looks wonderful! Her due date is still July 4th! I was really hoping to be able to post some ultrasound pics, but for some reason, they gave us a CD instead of the paper pics. I can't figure out how to put them in jpeg format so they will save to iPhoto. I'm afraid if I "save as", I will lose them completely!
Now the fun begins... planning! Now we get to go register her at Babies R Us and Target. There is even a cute little consignment store nearby that has a registry! I have already been asked to make him a Pooh blanket (or 2) which of course I can't wait to get started on!
We all know the father decides the gender and that there is no way to tell until the ultrasound (or birth if you want to wait), but it is always fun to "predict". There is some chinese gender chart that claims 93% accuracy that they said predicted a boy. They also said "If the Giants win the playoffs, it will be a boy", and then "if the Giants win the Super Bowl, it will be a boy". Well we know how the games turned out and... It's a BOY! No correlation of course!!
They have been thinking about names for a while now, and they have decided his name will be Eli Alexander Brown. They were joking about putting Eli in his name (for their favorite quarterback), and it stuck! I think it is a good strong name! Only 20 more weeks until we meet our grandson!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
It's official
So... By inadvertently posting a picture from Instagram of Emily and her boyfriend Tommy (I forgot I linked Instagram to my Facebook page), the news is out. After getting several private messages on FB, I realize I need to come clean and share... We are expecting our first grandchild, due July 4th!
The reason I have not said anything sooner is not due to denial - I have known since they found out at 2 weeks (yes they told me immediately) and have accepted it, even embraced it. I have kept relatively silent because of how others may react. Did I wish this for my 16 year old daughter - absolutely not! Do I support her and am I excited to be a Granna - Absolutely!! We all understand this will be a very hard road for everyone involved, however, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and that we are not given more than we can handle!
That being said - for those of you who give her unconditional love and support - thank you! She needs all of the support she can get. For those who will read this and think that she has ruined her life - please do not post your comments. Even though this was definitely not in our plans for this point in her life, she has not ruined her life - only redirected it. There is nothing to stop her from achieving everything that she has wanted to - it will just take longer and different planning. My mantra since day one is "It is what it is - and it is a baby"! She could have made other choices, and we many not have had the opportunity to have this blessing in our lives, but she didn't - and for that, I am so proud of her. She chose not to take the easy road that so many girls her age take. A baby is a blessing regardless of how or when it was conceived!
We are now in planning mode. It has been so long since I have looked at baby items (other than for showers), and everything has changed! Cribs no longer have drop sides (it's against the law) and babies should be wrapped in a swaddler as opposed to blankets. Bumper pads and wedges are no longer recommended - my girls had them and turned out just fine! There are however, so many cool things that would have been great to have when my girls were born - video monitors, Boppys, Bumbo seats, plug-in swings... We are enjoying window shopping and figuring out what are needs versus wants!
Emily is now 19 weeks along. The much anticipated ultrasound will be this Tuesday - Valentine's Day. She has had 2 other ultrasounds done - one at 10 weeks to determine due date, and the other at 14 weeks for the fetal development screening (to rule out downs or other abnormalities). They are hoping for a boy (first male grandchild on his side) and I wouldn't mind a boy since I had 2 girls. We also have friends with baby boy clothes that they would love to pass down. Regardless of whether it is a boy or a girl, our hope is for a healthy baby and a complication-free pregnancy and delivery! So far, everything is going along smoothly!
The reason I have not said anything sooner is not due to denial - I have known since they found out at 2 weeks (yes they told me immediately) and have accepted it, even embraced it. I have kept relatively silent because of how others may react. Did I wish this for my 16 year old daughter - absolutely not! Do I support her and am I excited to be a Granna - Absolutely!! We all understand this will be a very hard road for everyone involved, however, I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and that we are not given more than we can handle!
That being said - for those of you who give her unconditional love and support - thank you! She needs all of the support she can get. For those who will read this and think that she has ruined her life - please do not post your comments. Even though this was definitely not in our plans for this point in her life, she has not ruined her life - only redirected it. There is nothing to stop her from achieving everything that she has wanted to - it will just take longer and different planning. My mantra since day one is "It is what it is - and it is a baby"! She could have made other choices, and we many not have had the opportunity to have this blessing in our lives, but she didn't - and for that, I am so proud of her. She chose not to take the easy road that so many girls her age take. A baby is a blessing regardless of how or when it was conceived!
We are now in planning mode. It has been so long since I have looked at baby items (other than for showers), and everything has changed! Cribs no longer have drop sides (it's against the law) and babies should be wrapped in a swaddler as opposed to blankets. Bumper pads and wedges are no longer recommended - my girls had them and turned out just fine! There are however, so many cool things that would have been great to have when my girls were born - video monitors, Boppys, Bumbo seats, plug-in swings... We are enjoying window shopping and figuring out what are needs versus wants!
Emily is now 19 weeks along. The much anticipated ultrasound will be this Tuesday - Valentine's Day. She has had 2 other ultrasounds done - one at 10 weeks to determine due date, and the other at 14 weeks for the fetal development screening (to rule out downs or other abnormalities). They are hoping for a boy (first male grandchild on his side) and I wouldn't mind a boy since I had 2 girls. We also have friends with baby boy clothes that they would love to pass down. Regardless of whether it is a boy or a girl, our hope is for a healthy baby and a complication-free pregnancy and delivery! So far, everything is going along smoothly!
Baby at 14 weeks - Beautiful profile!
Taken last night - 19 weeks 2 days
For those who are interested, I will blog as things progress. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!
Also - this is my first attempt at blogging. Any advice would be welcome - I want to be able to link to pages I follow so others can see the great pages I have found. Also, I have no clue how to add recipes and directions for crafts. Help!!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Our childhood in black & white
Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)
You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE .. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option .. even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself..
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
I recall a neighborhood friend coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family.. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T. SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING.
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)
You could hardly see for all the snow,
Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set,
'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.
Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE .. and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option .. even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself..
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.
Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.
I recall a neighborhood friend coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family.. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T. SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING.
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