Sometimes I write poetry

I used to write a lot. I had various nicknames in high school that referenced my affinity for poetry (and Edgar Allan Poe) and that's perhaps why one of Sissy's nicknames is Poe (although I'm the only one that calls her that... I'm the only one that calls her a lot of things and now that I think about it, the poor child has a ridiculous number of nicknames.)

Anyway, I wrote a poem about Griffin and you can find a link to it here as it's on my 'author' blog and not my 'mommy' blog. Since the poem is about the wee babe (say that with a Scottish accent) I figured it belonged on both blogs.

Briefly speaking of the novel, I haven't written anything since mid-November in spite of my personal pledge to write over break. While I could probably use the gallbladder surgery as an excuse as to why I didn't write a word, it's actually because I had forgotten I'd started a novel in the first place. Oops.

It will be finished one day. Just not any day soon. This now gives me the opportunity to say "Oh yes, I'm in the process of writing a novel" at parties, which is something I've always wanted to say. Not really. But now I CAN say it, so I will. Apparently one of my New Years Resolutions was to become a pretentious bit *ahem* person.

Poetry has been on my mind recently because Monday begins my student's poetry project (woot!) and this year I've titled it "Rodgers' Ridiculous Rhyming Requirement" although only one poem requires rhyme. I like alliteration.

The students have to write a free verse, ode, and a poem using a rhyme scheme (of their choice). Each poem has secondary requirements like alliteration, allusion, assonance, symbol, metaphor, etc. It basically gives them the opportunity to create/work with the lit devices I've been teaching them since the beginning of the school year. Sounds fun, right? It all culminates in a 9th grade-wide poetry SLAM which is actually (hopefully) going to take place between all 9th grade English classes. Fun?? Yes!

And for more fun, here's a short list of all the names I have for Penelope:
Pen, Poe, Miss, Miss Moo, Sissy, Squishy, Squisherella (think Cinderella), Delpi, Sweets, Lovey, Squisher-oo, Baby Girl, Girl Child, Robot Pen, and Princess Pea.

There are probably more.

Here are Griffin's: G, G-Funk, Dude, Bubs, Sir Bubs-a-Lot, Bubby, Bubba, Boy Child, Griffideon, Baby Bubs (used around my brother, since my brother is Big Bubs), Duders.

Here's Bryan's: B

Poor Bryan. I need more names for him.

Names

So, Tina Fey named her new baby girl Penelope.

I am of two minds about this news.

1. I love that name! Great minds think alike!

2. *&%$@#$%^! Now everyone and their sister will name their daughters Penelope. I purposefully chose names for my children that were uncommon. Names that I loved and we're not on the top 100 list of baby names the FIVE years prior to their birth. I am one of 1,000,000,000,000 Jessica's and while the name itself is fine, I hated being one of the 2 or 3 Jessica's in my class. I was always Jessica B. It sucked. The upside was no one every misspelled or mispronounced my name, but it wasn't until adulthood that I can to appreciate this small upside.

Penelope is a wonderful name. It's beautiful, it has a great literary history, it's historical. It was also #946 on the list of 1,000 in 2001, #359 in 2008 (when Poe was born), and #200 last year. &$#!#$^%#@.

At least, if she's one of a dozen Penelope's at her school, she'll probably be the only Penny Lane.

The List (and other things)

First off, thank you to everyone who gave us baby boy name suggestions. We considered them all (well, except for some of the ones my Dad suggested - like Vahl, really Dad??) and found a few on our own.

So here is the Official LIST. Names are in alphabetical order.
Dexter
Griffin
Kian (Key-An)
Lucas
Milo
Pierce
Ronan

I feel much better now that we have a list. I have a couple of favorites, but there's currently no front-runner. If "&" is a boy we'll just wait to meet him and see which name fits him the best.

And now "other things"

Yesterday Penelope started kissing the dog. Luckily she had her paci in, otherwise that would have been just gross. Harley-Quinn's been bathed this month, but she's not exactly clean - although P gets enough dog hair on her and in her mouth just by being in the house. No amount of vacuuming can get all the pet hair Harley & Flea shed every day.

A couple of days ago we inherited some cool toys from my Aunt Diana whose kids have outgrown their baby/toddler toys. So Pen got a kitchen, games, potato head, and a ton of other cool toys. She's in love with the kitchen set, especially the oven and microwave which make noises when you press the buttons. This morning she brought me the doctor kit with a stethoscope, thermometer, and other doohickey, and made me listen to her heartbeat over and over again. She hates it when the doctor does it (although we have a new female pediatrician so maybe next visit she'll be more cooperative). Playing with the toys might also help her feel more comfortable when it comes to exam time - who knows.

So thanks Aunty Di for the toys! :)

Oh, one of the games we inherited is a matching game. It's meant for slightly older kids, but I'm using one of the boards now just for fun. Penny can already match half of the pictures! She's a genius! (That or she REALLY loves frogs, dogs, butterflies, and suns and so already knows those well enough to be able to match the pictures)... we'll go with genius.

I will endeavor to take pictures today so I can do a picture update. P's getting big (and so am I!).

Names... again

The other day I realized that I just don't love any of our boys names. Bryan really loves Milo, so we'll keep it on the list - but I'm officially scrapping every other name. No more Parker, Xavier, or Theodore.

Which means I need help coming up with boys names. My requirements: the name cannot have been on the social security's top 100 for 2008 (http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/) (they haven't posted the top names for 2009 yet), and the name must go well with "Walter" as that's the middle name. That's it. I used to have a Greek origins requirement but we had to drop that... Bryan is English/Irish (mostly) and I'm Greek/Swiss/German (mostly) so names from those cultures/nationalities would work - but they don't *have* to be from any particular one.

Our girls list hasn't changed: Calliope, Isadora, Milla, Ophelia, Athena, & Amelia.

I almost added Renee to the list, but we have enough names - so no more for the girls list.

But we could sure use help beefing up our boys list (well, when I say "we" I mean "me". Bryan is convinced the baby is a girl and says we don't need a boys list. I'd like one just in case).

Blogging instead of Sudoku

I was so very close to clicking on the "web sudoku" bookmark instead of the blogging bookmark... so very close.

It snowed in Sacramento yesterday - barely enough to really be called snow (at least at our house) but it was still rather eventful. Some school districts up the hill had snow days (for less than 6 inches of snow, wusses) and people forgot how to drive - fun times. Penelope celebrated the momentous occasion by sleeping in. She also slept in today, so I don't know if I can call it "sleeping in" anymore. She may just be changing her nighttime sleep pattern from 8-6:30 to 8-7:30. I am totally and completely ok with this. Of course, this means that we only get one nap during the day, but it's generally a 2 hour afternoon nap and that works out pretty well. If this is still the pattern next week then I'll consider it an official schedule change.

We've also been pretty successful about cutting out one of her three bottles, so she's basically down to two. One before nap and one at bedtime... I honestly don't think the nap bottle will be all that hard to eliminate but she may prove me wrong. The bedtime one will probably be the most difficult and I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to go about doing it. Cold turkey or a gradual weaning? I still have a few months before I want to attempt messing with that bottle so we'll see how things go - she may wean herself if I'm super-duper lucky.

Still no walking on her own. I know she can do it, and I am really really really ready for her to start. As soon as I say this out loud there are a dozen people who tell me I'm crazy and will regret saying such a thing as soon as she starts. I say bull. Anyone who tells me I'm not ready for her to walk have never had a 28 lb 1 year old and been 6 months pregnant at the same time. Damn skippy I want her to walk, my back is killing me.

Speaking of pregnancy, New Baby has decided that nighttime raves are uber awesome. I swear that as soon as the sun goes down he/she parties it up like it's 1999. Bryan was able to feel the baby kick the other day, which (if I remember correctly) was much sooner than he was able to feel Penelope. So someone is already raring to go and will probably walk 5 minutes after birth, which may be sooner than their big sister. (Ok, so that was a tad melodramatic, Penelope WILL walk before she's 16 months).

We've also added a new name to our girls list: Amelia. So for those who are keeping track, the girls list (in no particular order) is: Amelia, Calliope, Isadora, Milla, Athena, & Ophelia. Boys list is the same as it was: Theodore, Milo, Parker, & Xavier.

I've yet to fall in love with any of our boys names, there are some that I *like* but none that I love the way I love nearly all of our girls names. This means the baby will probably be a boy (not really, both Bryan and I are still convinced it's a girl). But I'd still like to add a few more names to the boys list in hopes that we find a few we really and truly love. This means I'm going to have to change my standards (although I already have with 2 of our girls names and 1 of the boys names). So they no longer HAVE to be Greek in origin. Greek boys names are really difficult to find; I mean there are a ton of them but they're either super common (like George or Jason) or REALLY Greek (like Posiden or Agamemnon). I love my Greek heritage, but I can't saddle my poor son with a name like Posiden, or Perikles, or Ajax. (And for the record, I love the names Perikles & Ajax - but one would be very difficult for people to pronounce or spell and the other has a line of cleaning products with the same name).

I could go with something like Apollo, which both Bryan and I like - but that's an awfully big legacy to live up to. That's really my greatest hesitation in using the names of gods and goddesses - that my child will somehow, in someway, feel compelled to live up to the myth surrounding their namesake. I am, perhaps, putting way too much thought into it. It's likely that since so few people know anything about Ancient Greek mythology (which is a shame) that no one but me will even think about things like this... but *I* think about things like this. Blame my Undergraduate Degree.

Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering - the boy middle name is Walter no matter what first name we choose. The girl middle name depends on the first name, so it's either Ruth or Katherine.

Of course all the name talk makes me both curious and excited to find out what the baby's sex is... and we have a 19 week wait! It's almost too much to handle, but I'm really happy we've decided to hold off on finding out. It makes me look forward to labor/delivery that much more - and makes me more excited about the pregnancy in general.

Alright, this post has been long enough. Web sudoku calls.

I'm going to regret this...

Here is our TENTATIVE list of boys & girls names. There's poll on the actual blog (for those of you who read this on facebook), so feel free to visit & vote.

A few things before I share the list.
1. Popular names are not guaranteed a spot on the final list.
2. If I am told "oh, I hate this name" I can GUARANTEE you that I will immediately LOVE the name. I am nothing if not ornery.

With that said, here are the *tentative* list(s)

Girls:
Calliope
Isadora
Milla
Athena
Ophelia

Boys:
Theodore
Milo
Parker
Xavier

Names will undoubtedly change before April...