It's a girl!

The title has nothing to do with this picture. See below for more about that. I wanted a picture of Charlie's crazy hair when he woke up from his nap, but it took forever to get him to cooperate. The closest thing I could get to a smile is when he said "Cheese!"

Charlie wanted to know who did this to the wall outside the bread store. He kept saying "Do dat?! Do dat?!" which is his version of what I say (Did you do that?) when I ask him about something that got broken or written on with pencil, etc.

At a kids' fair at the rec center, this game was perfect for Charlie: moving things from one place to another, in this case balls from the bucket to the pool, and then moving them back again.

Adri and Charlie at a farm-themed birthday party

I don't know why, but for some reason typing that title made me think of this marquee in front of a gas grill/barbeque store in Boise that always said the same thing, for as long as I can remember: "Thank heaven for little grills" If I ever write a book with kind of a small-town America feel to it, think I'll try and work that in. So if anybody reading this decides to write a book like that before I do, dibs on that little tidbit of quirkiness.

Anyway, back to the business of keeping you all up to the minute on the juicy goings-on at the Daines house. Yes, we are having a girl. Rather, we will most likely be having a girl; ultrasound technicians don't like to be absolutely certain when all they've seen is the lack of something, as opposed to the thing itself, so we've been instructed to "save our receipts!" (That's actually what the doctor said.) I think we're all excited, but it hasn't really sunk in yet. Maybe I need to do more shopping for baby girl clothes...

And here are a few other things that happened this week. (It's only because I'm lazy that I'm using the same format as last week. I am not trying to set a precedent that all my posts will be done in this bulleted format, although it is easy to read that way...)

1. I finished "War and Peace," and it....was....looooonnng. Obviously I have a few more thoughts about it, but you can ask me about it if you're curious. The only other thing I'll say is that I think the story might have been better served if Tolstoy had gone with his original title, "War, What is it Good For?"

2. Charlie started calling me "babe," as in, "Here go, babe." And "Ok, babe?" (That's what he says when I cough.) He also likes to talk about musical instruments, and I think his favorite might be the sack-a-wone (can you guess what that is?)

3. On arriving home from somewhere, I pulled into the garage, closed the garage door behind me, gathered up my things, and then went in the house. And then realized that I hadn't turned the car off. This is actually the third time I have done this, and all three times were when I was pregnant. Is it possible that I could become more scatterbrained with pregnancy?

4. Of the last seven nights, Will only fell asleep still fully clothed six times! I consider this progress, since sometimes he'll fall asleep still in the clothes he wore all day, wake up and do some stuff, and then fall asleep again with his clothes on. Now that he's done with the stress of band festivals and concerts for a while, hopefully he'll have a little more energy at the end of the day, at least until the spring band trip to Disneyland gets closer...

5. On Saturday Will and his jazz band kids sold candy bars at Trader Joe's as a fundraiser for a trip to a Portland jazz festival, and we decided that selling regular Hershey bars at a store where people patronize for its unique, organic or international items is probably not the best way to target the market. Will thought if he could just figure out a way to sell the candy bars at the NCAA tournament at UNLV this weekend, they could really clean up.

Happy Purim to all, and to all a good night!