It's a .....

It has been really hard for me to shift gears from my previous posts. This year, we have lost our friend Hoon, a dear family member- Ruth, and a former neighbor- Ken. You really never know what life has in store, for better or for worse. Please keep the No family, the Remington Brittles (Nancy and Betsy) and Tina (Ken’s wife) in your thoughts and prayers. It is surely such a sad time for them.

On a much more positive note, we found out a few weeks ago that we are having a girl! I originally didn’t want to know, but I absolutely couldn’t resist when the day came and Steve only just barely twisted my arm. Seems like with our first pregnancy all of our relatives and friends wanted a boy and with the second pregnancy, everyone wanted a girl. So it has worked out really well for all of those who let themselves hope for one or the other. I am personally excited to be having a girl and am imagining all of those mother/daughter things we will do together. Hopefully we will be good friends, like my mom and I are.

I don’t have access to a working scanner, but I can say that her profile is nearly identical to Ethan’s was at his 20 week ultrasound. She likes to hold her foot over her head and touch her face. And she either really likes/or hates Carmina Burana (a strong reaction, whichever way-she moved around more during a recent performance than she has ever moved), so she may have Ethan’s music-loving genes. Oh- and another thing- she looks beautiful already, even just from her ultrasound picture.

Ethan is doing well despite some serious teething troubles. He has been chewing on his fingers and various toys and having frequent night waking, so we think he is getting his 2 year molars. His vocabulary is expanding quite a bit. He understands much of what we say and can respond to yes or no questions, which makes figuring out what he wants a lot easier. He calls our cat (Wendy) “Nenny” and Elmo “Ma Mo”. Ethan is enjoying reading more and more, especially pop-up books and lift-the-flap books. He loves throwing balls, looking at birds and airplanes. He’s eating pretty well but likes us to feed him instead of feeding himself (which has become a problem in daycare). I still have to snuggle Ethan to sleep every night, which is a mixed bag- I love the closeness but dearly wish I had that time to get the apartment in order/play trumpet, etc. Plus, we will probably need to get him used to other arrangements well before the baby arrives to make the transition less traumatic for him.

Work is going well for me. I have had to make myself put a halt to the ever growing list of experiments on the HSV-1 vaccine so that I can devote more energy to the HSV-2 vaccine. Still playing trumpet as much as possible (almost always with a practice mute though) and have lined up a couple of performances at church. I am sad though that our little girl won’t get the exposure to the live orchestral and brass band music that Ethan did.

Steve’s grad school projects seem to be moving along nicely. Don’t ask him when he’ll be finished yet though. Speaking from experience, you just can’t tell when you’ll be finished until you are pretty much finished. That’s how science is. Experiments are working though, and that is the key! Steve’s flying is going well too- he’s got 800 hours now! I joked with him that I have 800 hours too. He’s also got some very good students, which helps keep flying interesting/educational.