Baby Noon is Coming to Town

Dave is home today!

In celebration of the beginning of our Christmas, I had an appointment at my obstetrician and then ran errands--by myself! And I have to tell you: I felt free as a bird. Thoughts kept going through my head like, "Wow, that's a bitterly cold wind--good thing I don't have to carry around thirty pounds of boy and parka in this snow!"

I don't know whether that's a reflection of my sunny, glass-half-full outlook OR my sad life attached at the hip to a toddler. Since it's Christmas, I'll go with the former.

We have a busy holiday ahead of us, so I probably won't be able to post again until the New Year. I leave you with a new poll (TO THE LEFT) asking you to predict our second son's birthweek. If you need "something to go on," I'll remind you that early labor with Will began 4 days before my due date, real labor started the following day, and he was born 2 days before he was due. Do with that what you will!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Oh (Big) Brother!

Four months from the outside:

And from the inside:

Now to review the poll stats. There was an overwhelming majority predicting "girl"--78% to be exact. I was on the side of this heavy majority--the first trimester was different this time, and just like I could NEVER picture Will as a girl, I could never picture this baby as a boy.

Except...HE IS.

He's a healthy boy who really likes to stare at his skeletal fists as he opens and closes his fingers. He's been poking me for a month now, but only in the last week has he become a truly active soccer star, leading Dave to secretly start wondering if this baby was in fact the proud owner of a Y chromosome. He's perfect, and we can't wait to see how he manages to be as handsome and cheerful as his older brother!

(And maybe he'll also manage to be one of those laid-back babies I'm always hearing about? Maybe?!?)

Boy? Girl? Monkey? Vote Now!

Between a bout of Midnight Madness caused by Will's insidious fifth and sixth teeth coming in and our long and sunny and wonderful and pool-filled weekend in Ohio, there's been a lot going on, but I wanted to make sure and get this Boy-Or-Girl poll up before posting pictures and stories.

The last day to vote is Friday, August 14 (when two certain somebodies are getting married!), and we'll find out, baby permitting, the following Monday.

Now, I don't mean to be critical, but you guys did miserably last time, voting 63% in favor of a girl! While I have a very strong feeling in one direction this time around, and my favorite nurse agrees with me, I'll give nothing away. Vote over in the left column when you've made your decision!

Finally, thank you for all the "Happy 29th" messages! The day itself was a colorful one (see Midnight Madness, teething, etc. above), but all of your birthday wishes and treats helped to turn things around in no time (see fabulous weekend in Ohio, also above). I appreciate it tremendously--thank you.

Now go vote!

Empty Comments Section

As much as I appreciate all the congratulatory texts, phone calls, even emails, we need a few COMMENTS! That post looks so lonely up there...and all day yesterday, Dave admitted that he kept checking for comments with no luck. I know this is Baby Numero Dos, but c'mon, we need some bloggish evidence of the excitement for the record books!

(Those of you who still can't figure out how to comment, you are forgiven. You still have to vote on the poll when it's posted, though!)

(And seriously, thanks for all the congrats, whatever form they took.)

Now Hair This Instead?

A little more modern than the Jessica styles, don't you think? I'll post "after" photos tomorrow.

Many Looks for Muhlhan

In anticipation of doing a bridal makeup demo with Erin in January, I started perusing some photos of Amy Adams, another beautiful ocean-eyed redhead. Here are some options I came up with, and the accompanying notes. Erin is an...opinionated person, and I'm sure she will make up her own mind (and look gorgeous in doing so), but your thoughts--though they may well go unused--are welcome.

This is tbe most natural look of the four. The hair is in an updo, but only a semi-formal one. Amy's wearing thin black eyeliner on her top and bottom lids, and her lip is nude, which puts her blue eyes and the tendrils framing her face that much more in the spotlight. It's definitely pretty, but I don't know that there's much else to say about it.

Amy's hair is half-up in this photo, which is a look I adore on Erin. She looks a bit more Hollywood here: bronzed skin, sheer pink gloss on her lips, and a more defined eye with extra liner and mascara on the outside. My favorite part of this makeup is the mascara on upper and lower lashes for a truly glamorous--without being too dramatic--set of peepers.

The first word that comes to mind: dewy. It looks as if Amy's makeup artist may have forgone the matte foundation on this particular night. On the eyes, we see a more muted liner/mascara combo--see how Amy's lashes go out rather than flip up? She's rocking the ingenue image with peachy blush and lip color and a full-on porcelain base tone. The gathered side 'do is actually one of my most adored hairstyles, but it's probably more fit for a bridesmaid than a bride.

If I had straight-up, no-bones-about-it red hair and light eyes (and this hairstyle went with my dress), I would choose this as my bridal look. There is an appropriate balance between matte and shine on the face; the cheeks and forehead are tinted barely with a peachy bronze, but the outer cheeks and jawline are accentuated with a blush that has just the right amount of orange in it to complement the hair. Her eyes scream DRAMA, but with only black liner and mascara and a brown-based shadow that work with the pink-brown mouth to tie the whole look together. Finally, her eyebrows are so well-groomed here, and nicely shaped brows are the classy icing on every va-va-voom cupcake.

So...Erin and everyone else, what do you think?

Now Hair This

I need your input. At my next hair appointment at the fabulous Joi Salon in Boston's North End, I'll be asking for one of these looks (yes, they are both Jessica Simpson hairstyles, and no, they are not very different from my current hair--just bear with me here):

Look #1: Longer and Layered with Sideswept Bangs

Look #2: Shorter and Razored

Please do not be distracted by the fake tan/fake lashes/fake nose...

You can vote on the sidebar to the right!!

Pounds, Ounces and Inches

It's time for you to "weigh in" on our final Nooner poll!

We're asking for specifics here, so please leave your guesses in the comments section. Tell us your thoughts on pounds, ounces, and inches...you can even throw in eye color and hair/no hair opinions if you've got 'em! Plus, because with this poll we can see who made which predictions, we can reward the most accurate respondent with a surprise package of goodies...so it's really worth your while. :-)

To give you something to go on:

• My father was ten and a half pounds at birth. My husband was nine pounds, fourteen ounces. I told this to a nurse many months ago, and she replied, "Oh, that's OK. How big is your husband now?" When I said he was over six-foot-two, she raised her eyebrows and admitted that the baby would probably be big.
• The nurse who saw his most recent ultrasound said that based on the amount of fluid she saw, "you've got a big baby."
• The same nurse then palpated my abdomen and said that he was "about eight pounds, and will probably be nine or nine and a half if he goes to full term [forty weeks]."
  When I fretted about this report to my nurse practitioner, she reassured me that she'd been told her own baby was going to be eight pounds...and turned out to be five and a half, even at full term.
• The average size of a newborn in the United States is seven and a half pounds, with boys trending toward the eight-pound mark; the average length is between 19 and 21 inches.

Thanks for giving us all your guesses--we love reading them, and we can't wait to name a winner!

36 Weeks and a Brand New Poll

Here I am at 36 weeks, with nine lunar months under my belt (and roughly nine pounds of baby above my belt, from the look of it).

And now that we are crawling through the last month of pregnancy, it's time to ask our family and friends for some more fun guesswork. We'd like to know when you think this baby is coming, so be sure to record your vote on the poll in the sidebar. Hopefully you are more accurate this time around!

63% of You...

...were wrong!

IT'S A BOY!!!

While Dave won't let me post the "revealing" photos online (you all know I would have no problem doing so!), we were given a very clear view of the telltale body part at both of our ultrasound visits. Dave and I were both so overwhelmed with the news after that first appointment that we stumbled onto the elevator as we left and rode it up two floors...before realizing we had entered the building on the ground floor and didn't need to use the elevator at all! We were definitely in a daze.

To make 63% of you feel better, out of my eight students, only one predicted it would be a boy. The rest were shocked to discover they had guessed wrong, and one girl even lamented, "I can't believe it!" before asking, "Are you sure, Miss?" My class is also being very protective of me, refusing to let me lift even the smallest object (which drives me nuts) and reminding me to drink water, "Like the doctor told you!" As much as I am looking forward to the summer, I will really miss them when school ends next week.

As for Baby Boy Noon, we do have some front-runners in the naming process, but we'll be keeping that under wraps until the newest Nooner makes his debut. We have to keep something a secret from all of you!

Baby Noon's First Photo Shoot

Well, no one can accuse Baby Noon of being shy...or lazy. BN was swimming all over the place during the 18-week ultrasound. Here are some of the best shots:

Here is Baby Noon's cute-as-can-be profile at 18 weeks.

Baby Noon's footprint looks awfully large to us,
but we frankly have no idea what a fetus' footprint should
look like, so who knows?

By the end of the ultrasound, when the tech needed to check for cleft palate, BN had its chin tucked firmly into its chest and was not having it. So our tech APOLOGIZED as she asked us to come back for another ultrasound in two weeks. Um, are you kidding? We'd be happy to come back every day for more pics of the baby, if they'd only let us. Sigh. That baby is cute!

So, while we still don't know if or when we are sharing the baby's gender while it's still in utero, we do want to see what YOUR hunch is. Take a second, indulge us, and register your vote in the sidebar to the right.