Naming the Player to be Named Later

We’ve got a little more than six and a half weeks to figure out exactly what this baby boy is called, and quite frankly, I’m stumped.

It pains me, because I have a list of girls’ names as long as my arm, but I’m simply running out of good choices for boys. Not to say that we don’t have at least a few contenders: I like Lucas, and Henry, and Myles, and Jack. I think my first choice might have been Jasper, but both Beloved and my mother laughed out loud when I suggested it. I love the name Justin, but it sounds way too much like Tristan. Papa Lou is lobbying hard for Max. I’m fond of Benjamin, but that happens to be the name of the mean-as-a-snake cat we had who died last summer. I’ve taken a recent liking to Charlie as well, and Quinn has a quiet strength that fits in nicely with Tristan and Simon.

There’s no lack of tools out there on the Interwebs to help you narrow down the choices. The US Social Security Administration releases a list of the top American baby names each year. For those who like a straight database, there’s Baby Names World. Want something with its finger on the pulse of the moment? Baby Names Buzz rolls up the most popular names by blog and Internet news references every week. For interactivity, I’ve not yet seen something as cool as Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager, although I spent the best part of a Sunday morning playing around with the Baby Name Map. (I found myself scanning through the database of UK names and finding a lot of good choices.)

Since we’ve been contemplating the name game, there have been plenty of articles in the media on the subject. The Globe and Mail had a good one about baby naming trends in general, and the NYC department of Health and Mental Hygeine (!) issued a press release on the top NYC names of 2006.

As if that’s not enough to overwhelm you with choices, think of the damage you can do to your child with the wrong name. According to Science Daily, you could be dooming your child academically with the wrong initial:

Students whose names began with ‘C’ or ‘D’ earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with ‘A’ or ‘B.’ Students with the initial ‘C’ or ‘D,’ presumably because of an unconscious fondness for these letters, were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals.

(Hmmmm, I’ve always been fond of Danielle, but I doubt if I’ve ever gotten a D in my life…) And once you narrow down your choices, you can always disaster-check your favourites against a bit of snark on baby-names gone wrong there’s Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing.

And after all that, the final verdict? I still have no idea. What do you think, bloggy peeps? What are your favourite boy names?

Stocking solutions?

A quick question for the bloggy peeps: with my brother and his family visiting this Christmas, we have ten stockings to hang. In previous years, we’ve hung the stockings from the curtain rod – but, this past summer, the boys pulled it out of the wall and it’s simply not all that strong. We’ve also used those stick-and-remove hooks before, but I balked at the price tag; at $3.99 each, it will cost over $40 just to HANG the stockings, let alone fill them!

What do you use to hang your stockings?

Canadian Blog Awards now open for nominees!

It’s that time of year again – nominate your favourite blogger for the Canadian Blog Awards!

This year, I was asked to help judge eligibility in a category or two (you know, cuz I’ve got nothing else going on right now to keep me busy) and I was pleased to lend a hand. The Canadian Blog Awards have been good to me over the years (my series on Taking Down Rick Mercer from 2005 was a lot of fun to write) and this year they are being operated by a new and diverse group of bloggers including Saskboy and Northern BC Dipper and Stephen Taylor and Jason Cherniak and a handful of others.

I know a lot of people are critical of this type of thing, saying it’s nothing more than a popularity contest, and there is always at least a bit of controversy. But I’ve found some of my favourite blogs through the CBAs over the years, including Ali from Cheaper than Therapy and the now-defunct Debaucherous and Dishevelled. It’s great exposure just to be nominated, and a lovely compliment to the blogger as well.

With 26 categories to choose from, there’s no reason not to nominate your favourite bloggers today. I particularly like the addition of a new category called “Best Blogosphere Citizen”. Nominations are open through January 11. Feel free to spread the word, too, as the more nominees there are the better the awards will be.

Seven things that suck about the third trimester

What, you thought I was going to go all this time and not whine at some point about the myriad woes of late pregnancy did you? This has been an easy pregnancy, and the second half has been generally much more pleasant than the first (nothing like getting rid of all-day nausea and abject terror to improve your demeanor) so I don’t have a lot to complain about — but I’m not going to let that stop me.

Really, it was my fault. Even though I didn’t say it out loud, just last week I was thinking about how much less stressful this 8-months-pregnant-in-December-while-working-and-mothering-full-time has been as compared to my experience when pregnant with Simon… and then my body started getting just a wee bit fed up with the 5 lbs interloper.

So, as promised, the only seven things I really have to complain about with just over seven weeks to go:

7. Restless legs. Only when I’m tired, but it’s like 1000 ants crawling through my knee joints. Ugh.

6. Winter coats. I can only get my coat done up if I take all the stuff out of my pockets, and even then I feel like I’ve been corsetted. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach the zipper on my boots by next month.

5. Peeing. I look forward to the day when I can just sit down and empty my bladder instead of peeing a bit, shifting the baby off my bladder, peeing a bit more, shifting the baby again, peeing a bit more – and then getting 10 steps away from the bathroom and realizing I still have to go.

4. Patello-femoral syndrome. I went to five weeks of physio in the fall to address this, and thought it was completely resolved, but my knee has started to ache again in the last couple of weeks. Trying to decide if it’s bad enough to resume the physio.

3. Reflux. It’s more annoying that troublesome, but if I happen to lie down within 30 minutes of drinking anything, it tends to spill back up my esophagus – which is about one inch long right now, because my stomach is pushed up somewhere just south of my voice box. Especially annoying when getting a midnight drink of water.

2. The baby’s head on my pelvic bone. I don’t know if he’s “engaged” but there are times when I’m walking that his head grinds so abruptly against my pelvic bone that it makes me gasp and stop dead in my tracks. I can’t imagine it feels good on his head, either.

1. Hemorrhoids. ‘Nuff said.

And one thing that makes up for all of it and then some: lying in bed this morning sandwiched between Tristan and Simon as they jockey to position their hands on my belly just so, listening to them giggling madly as they feel the Player to be Named Later hiccupping through my abdominal wall.

Bonus conversation!

Tristan: “I know what keeps the baby safe in Mummy’s belly. He’s frozen in carbonite.”

Tick tick tick – send Christmas ideas, quick!

There’s an old song by Nancy White called, “It’s Chic to be Pregnant at Christmas.” A few of the best verses:

It’s so chic to be pregnant at Christmas
I feel like the “round yon virgin” of yore
‘Cause though I have a warm bed to sleep in
There’s no room for me when I go to the store

‘Cause the aisles are so narrow and crowded
Christmas shopping has never been such a pain
(gasp) Here comes another Braxton-Hicks contraction
And I’m knockin’ over knick-knacks again

Oh, the salesclerks are so friendly this Christmas
One said, “Oh God, lady, don’t have it here”
Their discretion and manners go right out the door
When I and my stomach appear

It’s so Biblical to be pregnant at Christmas
No matter what stories you believe
And I may suffer from gravid senilis…and heartburn and nausea and charlie horses and overwhelming fatigue…and frequent micturation and varicose veins and…swollen ankles and shortness…of breath…and that…tired, achy feeling in the grooooooin…
But I won’t be alone on New Year’s Eve
Fa-La-La-La-La La-La La La

Yeah. What she said.

I’ve got about half my Christmas shopping done. The good half. The “oh, what a great idea, it’s the absolute perfect gift for so-and-so, I can hardly wait to see his/her face!” Now comes the agonizing, clock-ticking, “I’ve got no friggin’ clue what to get for so-and-so and so I’ll just keep throwing money at it until I feel better about my choices” part of the shopping.

I know I make it hard on myself. I take my Christmas gift-giving very seriously. Each gift is carefully chosen based on an offhand remark from some time in the past 360 days, or a known favourite theme, or by divination, ESP and intuition. Gifts are balanced so that everybody gets a more or less proportionally appropriate gift value. I rarely give a gift I wouldn’t like to receive. In short, I drive myself CRAZY every year over Christmas shopping.

This is almost entirely my mother’s fault. (Sorry, Mom.) She has a knack for the perfect gift, and I have learned a lot from her. Mostly about excess, but also about how gift giving really is a covenant between two people. It’s an acknowledgement of how that person has touched your life, made a difference, been a friend.

No pressure or anything. Ugh.

I like personalized gifts. We make a photo calendar each year, and have given photo mouse pads, coffee mugs and jigsaw puzzles. The boys are *almost* at an age where we can start substituting my handcrafted gifts for theirs (just in the nick of time, too – what’s cute from a six year old is a little odd from a thirty-something woman, and I’m running out of macaroni and glitter.)

I’m past the Christmas shipping deadline for online shopping and I still need ideas. Don’t make me go out there and aimlessly wander the malls – I need some inspiration! What is the best gift you ever got? What is your favourite gift to give?

Free music and free rice for a good cause

I may well be one of the last people to know about this, but I thought it was pretty cool and thought I’d share it with you.

I’ve long been a huge Queen fan. I remember writing out the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody by hand, copying them carefully from the album liner of my mother’s copy of A Night at the Opera, when I was about eight years old. They’ve always been one of my favourite bands, and I think the loss of Freddie Mercury is on par with John Lennon’s death.

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical when I heard that band members Brian May and Roger Taylor had reformed the group with new lead singer Paul Rodgers. Who could ever fill Freddie Mercury’s shoes?

But then I heard that they released a free single called “Say It’s Not True” and I had to check it out. The single was originally written back in 2003 to support Nelson Mandela’s 46664 World AIDS Day fundraising concert. It was recorded as a single this year and released for free download on December 1st, World AIDS Day. From the official QueenOnline site, Roger Taylor said:

“By making the song available for free we hope to help Madiba [Nelson Mandela] with his campaign to get across the message that no-one is safe from infection. We have to be aware, we have to protect ourselves and those we love. The song follows the line of his personal message: it’s in our own hands to bring a stop to this.”

I think it’s a great new song, and a lovely tribute to both Nelson Mandela and Freddie Mercury. You can download it for free from QueenOnline.

***

Free music not your thing? How about Free Rice? I first saw this nifty little vocabulary game that lets you donate grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program while demonstrating your wordy prowess at Bub and Pie’s place, but it’s been all over since then. (Warning: it’s very addictive! Don’t click through unless you have some time to play!! And don’t be lulled into a false sense of security – they get harder as you go along.)

The one where she buys the minivan

I like shopping for cars. I like thinking about the features, the colour, the style, the shape. I like comparison shopping, and I don’t mind haggling a little bit over price. I bought my first car back in December of 1990. It was a 1990 Mazda 323 hatchback, and I drove the snot out of that little car. In 1998, Beloved and I leased a Cayenne Red two-door Sunfire with a sunroof, and that was my sexy car. Completely impractical for kids, but a fun car to drive. That lease expired in June of 2001, and we signed the lease for our first Ford Focus station wagon that month. In fact, we signed on the dotted line during a fit of optimism during the two-week wait of our in vitro fertilization, and I remember thinking at the time that I would be some bloody pissed if the treatment didn’t work out and I ended up childless and driving a station wagon around town. Lucky for us, it turned out to be the perfect family car for our brand-new family. Simon was about four months old when we bought our next Focus wagon in 2004, and I would have been content with another wagon if we could have crammed a third car seat into the back seat, but they simply won’t fit.

Shopping for the minivan has not been the same. Oh, I’ve done my comparison shopping, and I have a pretty good idea which one has the highest safety rating (the Kia Sedona) and which one I’d love but can’t afford to splurge on (the Honda Odyssey.) And of course, I have the expert opinions of the bloggy peeps to guide my way.

(Oy, this is going to be long… I’m tucking the rest of this epic below the fold!)

Continue reading “The one where she buys the minivan”

Five pounds and counting

I had an ultrasound on Friday morning, and the baby is looking chubby, healthy and altogether lovely.

It was the first chance this pregnancy that Beloved has had to come to an ultrasound with me. (You think we’re getting a little bit jaded about this whole pregnancy thing? I would have been scandalized had he missed one of Tristan’s ultrasounds!)

The Player to be Named Later – we really do have to get on with that naming thing – is looking, according to the locquacious ultraound technician, “lovely” and “gorgeous” and “perfect” and even “helpful” in turning just the right way so she could get her measurements.

Since she was in there poking around anyway, I asked her if she could confirm the gender for me. It’s not like I didn’t see it myself the last time, but I just couldn’t quite shake off those “girly” type thoughts. Sure enough, magnified on the screen that couldn’t be more obvious, she showed us his penis and scrotum and said, “Well, unless these bits fall off sometime between now and when he makes his way out, it’s definitely a boy!”

He’s a big boy, too. On Friday I was exactly 32 weeks along, and he should be about 4 lbs, but he’s measuring 5 lbs. I’m hardly surprised, of course. She said he has (and this made me laugh) a “perfectly reasonable” sized head, but a big torso and very long legs. Another string bean like Tristan, from the sounds of it, who was long and lanky at 9 lbs but nearly 24 inches at birth and has been over the 90th percentile for height ever since.

Beloved had a much clearer view of the screen than I did, and he said he thought the baby had a distinct resemblance to Simon in that his head was round and cheeky, rather than Tristan’s more elongated face. The tech commented “Somebody is hungry” and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my growling stomach or what, but at that point Beloved said he could see the baby clearly smacking his lips, just before he popped his thumb in his mouth. This, of course, gave me my first bad-mommy guilt moment. “The baby is hungry? And I barely had anything for breakfast. Oh my god, he’s not even born yet and I’m already starving my child!” And we promptly made our way to the nearest drive-thru Tim’s to feed that poor starving child some doughnuts.

I was giddy with relief by the time we were done, knowing that he seems to be doing so well. I love that he’s now big enough to be healthy even if he were to be born today. He’s crossed the threshold from abstract concept to a real little person – that’s my baby boy in there, and he’s almost ready to come out!

And with that thought in mind, Beloved and I spent the rest of the day together shopping for minivans… which I will tell you about tomorrow.

Highs and lows in customer service

I may have mentioned (*grins gleefully*) that I got Beloved a Wii for his birthday this year. I started thinking about looking for one way back in August, and even then was having trouble locating one. When I finally found one online at theSource.ca at the end of September, I jumped on the opportunity, ordered it online and had it delivered to my parents’ house.

At the beginning of November, I happened to be flipping through a Source/Circuit City flyer, and saw that they had (as had most retailers) dropped the price of the Wii console by $20. Great, I thought, and went to the store in the Rideau Centre to ask how I could get the $20 credited to my account. First, they said they couldn’t do it at all. Then they said the Wii I ordered was of a different caliber (??) and the price on those units had not dropped. Then a second person said regardless, you bought it online you have to talk to the online people.

Okay, fair enough. I bought it online, I will continue to deal with them that way. So I called the customer service number, and argued my way through an employee and two supervisors, all of whom declined to credit my account for the measly $20 difference. “Our price guarantee is only good for 30 days,” they insisted.

“But, it was a Christmas gift!” I countered.

“Well, you didn’t indicate that when you ordered it in September,” they said.

“I ordered it online,” I replied. “There was nowhere for me to indicate any such thing, or I would have.”

“Well, no,” they said. “You would have had to place your order by phone. And anyway, the 30 day price guarantee is firm. We’re sorry, but no.”

“But!” I sputtered. “I’ll just take the whole unit, still in it’s shipping packaging, and return it to one of your stores and then rebuy it. Why are you making me go through all this? It’s terrible customer service!”

“You can’t return it,” was the blunt reply. “The 30 day rule also applies to refunds, returns and exchanges.”

“But!” I sputtered again, by now appalled in addition to frustrated and annoyed. “What if there’s a problem with it?”

“We’re sorry, ma’am, but those are the rules.” was the helpful reply.

In contrast:

The same week, I found $30 worth of unused but long-since expired gift certificates from the Rideau Centre in an old purse. I had received them in May of 2006 and the expiry date on them was clearly marked as May of 2007.

Disappointed but hopeful, I brought my expired gift certificates to the customer service desk, thinking of all the times I’d heard that expired gift certificates were invalidated and not honoured and prepared to argue at least a little bit over their validity.

“Oh, that’s absolutely no problem,” said the friendly woman behind the counter. “Heck, we get them a lot older than this – sometimes ten years old or more. Hang on, let me convert those to a gift card for you so it won’t expire and you can use them any old time you please.” And I went happily on my way, fresh gift card clutched in my grateful fingers.

Now that’s customer service.

***

Just a quick question: on my laptop, my banner is not displaying. It’s fine on any other computers I’ve been on recently, including our desktop. Very weird. No photos I host on my own site are displaying on the laptop, whether I view through IE or Firefox. I was just wondering if any of you are having the same problem?

I have the bestest bloggy friends

This was going to be a rather drawn out recap of my little jaunt to Toronto over the past couple of days, but I have exactly no time to write it up as it deserves. Okay, so the majority of it wasn’t incredibly exciting, except I got to meet some really cool people doing really interesting things with social media, and you’re probably lucky to be spared the excruciating details.

But I have to tell you about this. I was supposed to meet up with a bunch of my bestest bloggy friends, most of whom I haven’t seen since last year’s Motherlode conference presentation — but because it was a Tuesday night, and because they’re all busy mommies, many of them couldn’t make it.

In the end, it was Marla and Lee and I who got together for a lazy, chatty and very yummy dinner at Fran’s Diner. (I had pix, but forgot to take them off the camera. Sigh.) I’m so so happy to have had the chance to meet up with Marla and Lee, who may just be two of the sweetest and most interesting people I know – and now Toronto seems even further away from Ottawa than it ever did.

You’d think just spending a couple of hours with great friends would be enough, but did I mention there were presents, too? Marla, whose creativity knows no boundaries, made up a card with instructions that informed me there were three gifts: one for now, one for later, and one for now and later.

The gift for ‘now’ was eensy, beensy baby sockies embellished with “I love mommy” (pause for you to say, “awwwwww”.) The gift for ‘later’ was a package of comparatively ginormous men’s sweat socks. (pause for you to giggle appreciatively.) And the ‘now and later’ gift was a set of gorgeous scented candles, to help cover up the stinky boy-feet smell.

But the very bestest part? Way down at the bottom of the bag was a printout of this:

quilt

It’s a handmade baby quilt and pillow they ordered from Etsy.com for me baby. With moons and stars! And no crib bumpers! Do I not have the most wonderful, sweet, thoughtful bloggy friends ever?

Thank you to Marla and Lee, and to my friends who couldn’t make it but contributed to the gift: Ann and Jen and Nadine and Kate and Andrea. I can’t tell you how touched I am, and how lucky I am to count you all as friends.