omg that is so 1993

i recently started taking french. it's every saturday and i love it! it is through the french alliance of dallas (or more properly Alliance Française de Dallas), which i would highly recommend over any community college course you will find out there. i pulled out my french class notebook the other day to study and zach noticed and started teasing me about how i was just like a jr high girl, decorating my notebooks. i will admit, it has some band stickers, and some random sticker i got from some online store i bought something from ages ago - but it's there to cover up the boring "EMC" logo (the company i work for) - it serves a purpose.

if i had to be honest, i'd say it was closer to a high schooler notebook than a junior higher's - there are no "BFF's" scrawled anywhere within its pages, nor is there any sign of me practice writing my name with my crush of the day's last name appended to it.

after 5 years of marriage, i have come to realize that zach teasing me is one of his ways of flirting. and i have also come to realize that he can tease me about just about anything and as long as he ends it with 'but i think it's cute', i am totally okay with it. sometimes he forgets that part and sometimes my feelings get a little hurt, but all in all it's part of our rhythm and i'm cool with that.

even if it is 'cute' - am i the only 31 year old who still decorates her notebooks?

the problem with pregnancy

is, the more pregnant you are, the more clumsy you become. which in turn causes more things to fall to the ground, which of course, you can no longer reach.

10 more weeks...

the taste of blue

some days i get so wrapped up in my work that i forget that i have a toddler running around and he is left to his own devices for entertainment. earlier this week after reading that he *should* be able to draw a straight line at this age, i introduced him to crayons. which he then introduced to my white couch. apparently they also looked good enough to eat. and being his mother's son, he immediately brushed his teeth to either a. cover it up or b. get the blue taste out of his mouth. (yes the toothbrush most likely came off the floor).

in other news - the purple is still missing.

fish & boobies

zach took little man out for a bit this morning so that i could knock out some work unhindered. we are trying to get dutch to use his words so we ask a lot of questions. the post-adventure line of questioning went a little something like this -

me - where did you go?
zach - dutch say 'store'
dutch - sto
me - and what else?
zach - tell mommy what you saw...
dutch - boobies!
zach - NO! you didn't see boobies, you saw fish
dutch - bish!

apparently, they ate some blueberries at the store, and dutch calls them "boobies"... he LOVES blueberries, so I guess that won out over telling me about the fish he saw.

"i can't remember all the times i tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass"

- counting crows

somewhere in between finishing powerpoint slides for the big meeting, pulling marketing reports, and trying to keep dutch from pulling over the fish bowl in an attempt to give the 'bish' his snacks, it hits me - what the heck am i doing?

i read about my mommy friends, through their status updates on facebook, on their way to take their kids to the zoo at the very moment i am about to tell Dutch "no, i can't read you a book right now, mommy has to work." and i pretty much just break down into tears and hug my little man, determining to read him 2 books when i finish my next slide.

being a mom is hard.

lowrie boys

that's right, i said 'boys'. plural. i am so excited!!! i always thought i wanted all boys for more than one reason (logical or not, i could justify all of them). but i know my God and sometimes he likes to throw me a curveball and remind me that no matter how much planning i do (which is A LOT; i am very big on 'plans'), He knows what's best for me. i'm okay with that, really i am. so the rare times i see that my thoughts on what i can handle and His thoughts on what i can handle match up - it's just, well, delicious!

i am not the most girly of girls and the thought of dealing with pastel pink, bows, long hair and what to do with it, barbies, pms, shaving (okay puberty in it's entirety)-scares me to no end. it's akin to public speaking on my list of scary things i'd rather not ever do, but will have to and have had to do in my lifetime.

i guess i first got the idea that #2 was a girl when i was reminded of a prophetic word we got in ukraine back before we ever even started trying for little ones: we would have two children; the first would be a teacher and the second an evangelist. not to label my children, or force them into a box, but this word has stuck with me and i am reminded of it each and every time i pray over their sweet little destinies.

in my mind, an evangelist is a man and i was positive God was going to throw my logic on that out the door and gift me with a spitfire little girl bent on evangelizing the hell out of this world (literally).

in light of this i decided that i needed to familiarize myself with all things girly and see if there was anything out there besides pink and bows. to my pleasant surprise, etsy turned out to be the mecca of all things indie and NOT girly. i "hearted" at least 15 sellers and purposefully left my wallet out in the car so that i wouldn't buy anything until we had confirmation on what i already thought i knew for sure. (okay moreso out of fear that zach would very much disapprove and possibly even make me send my purchases back, but still, i DID hold off). encouraged by my discovery, i had the whole 'look' my baby girl would sport, and honestly, i was a tad bit excited. i even bought stuff to make my own baby shoes (which will now be made and given to all my friends who are pregnant with little girls. yay!) there is way cuter stuff for girls than for boys out there. but on the same token, i spent a lot of time and effort choosing clothes for dutch, and i am so happy i get another chance to use them.

dutch, my first, is SUCH an amazing little person already and i can't wait to meet his little brother (name tbd). i like the sound of saying 'my boys' - though i fear there will be times when i can't stand to hear myself say one more time 'boys! stop it!' it's inevitable, right?

all in all, my heart is happy and my boys will be the light of my life.

speaking of, here are a few pictures of my sweet boy.

a rare moment of being still, watching "Me. Mo. Bish! DD!" (Finding Nemo, the fish DVD) in his fav pj's.

horrible resolution, but sometimes the camera phone is all you have. i AM saving up for a Nikon D80. the cybershot isn't cutting it; especially for an ex-photographer.

Hippie or just plain gross?

my dear friend Girish, who has a penchant for sending me the most random and unsolicited links to some of the weirdest articles written in our day, has succeeded in yet again grossing me out. as a pregnant woman who has indulged many of my 'hippie tendencies' (there are so many more that are not yet in practice, but i digress), i found myself reading about a not-so-new practice of the 'granola type' new mother and decidedly choosing here and now that i would not, could not and shant EVER choose to do what this article talks about. i will walk around barefoot, wear long skirts, try the crystal deodorant (doesn't work), eat all sorts of weird plants and seeds and green drinks, but NEVER will i EVER eat the placenta post-birth. to be quite honest, it had never occurred to me (even though the health benefits are purported to be A-MAZING.)

as a vegan, my food guideline is simply - if it had a face i don't eat it. as my dad likes to point out, i do eat potatoes, and they may not have a face, but they DO have eyes... oh dad, you slay me! i would have to say that since 'it' came from me, and i have a face, logic tells me that based strictly on my veganess - placenta is out of the question. not to mention the real issue - the sheer grossness of it all. oh yeah, and the fact that zach would probably die or worse, stay married and throw up in his mouth a little every time he saw me. nope, i can't do it... i just can't.

thanks Girish, for forcing some perspective and keep those odd articles coming my way...