The Shape of Things to Come

I made it to my first gym class in a year on Thursday night. It was an incredibly fun PowerStep class, and I'm so out of practice that I forgot a water bottle and left with a face flushed crimson (and a body filled with endorphins, which made the pain so worth it). On top of that, this gym is about .4 miles away from us on our very own street, and they have a fabulous baby-sitting program for babies as young as eight weeks, so Will already qualifies. I don't think I'll ever get back to my pre-pregnancy weight without the motivation and peer pressure that comes with group exercise classes, so all of this is extremely good news.

One of the blogs I follow has a new fitness website that I'll also be using for inspiration, called http://www.bodiesinmotivation.com/. I'd like to be back to my old weight by January 1, 2009 and in fantastic shape by the time Erin and Matt get married at the end of April. And then I'd like to maintain that shape for Amy and Dave's wedding in August. After all, both brides-to-be looked so beautiful in my wedding photos:

Massachusetts, the State of Emergency

We knew it was supposed to rain. This morning we woke up with a couple inches of water in our basement, but we found out we were lucky when we watched Governor Patrick's press conference and learned that 350,000 homes are without power--so far--across Massachusetts. Those who experienced the worst of the ice storm have lost heat and have to seek shelter, which I absolutely can't imagine, with or without a two-month-old baby.

Meanwhile, our living room cable box, which has been on the fritz, has miraculously corrected itself since the overnight storm. Hm.

Dave is working from home until the pump starts to make a dent in the basement (metaphorically speaking), and even though all Will-related things are my responsibility, it's very nice to simply have another adult around for the illusion of socialization!

Growth Spurt Much?

7 pm: Falls asleep on Dad
9:30 pm: Mom and Dad wake him up to feed him 5.5 ounces, after which he falls asleep immediately
3:45 am: Wakes up and eats 4 ounces, goes right back to sleep 15 minutes later
8 am: Cheerfully wakes up and consumes another 5
9-10 am: Takes a nice little nap before we head to our last moms' group of the newborn phase (!!)
11 am: Another nap, this time in the carseat as class begins
11:30 am: Wakes up to glug 3.5 ounces, play with his little friends, and practice standing (his favorite thing to do)
1:30 pm: Fussing for another feeding...two bottles later, he's sent another 7 ounces down the hatch

Put another way: in the last 17 hours, Will has ingested 25 ounces, more than his usual 24-hour intake. And yes, he is sleeping again.

PS: In the interest of avoiding a jinx, let me add that I hope he is growing outlandishly and not coming down with yet another cold...

Fairy Godmom

Aren't they a cute duo:

Oops! I meant to say, aren't they a cute duo:

(Will was about eight weeks old at this here photo shoot.)

Great-Grandma, Great-Aunt, Great Visit

I'm late again in posting some pictures, but my grandmother and Aunt Peggy made it out to Boston from Ohio to visit William a few weeks ago, and I wanted to post the photos of our good time. My grandmother was kind enough to give Will the "Freeman stamp of approval"; she says that her mother-in-law (my great-grandmother) used to say she had to check out babies and make sure they were up to Freeman standards. And thankfully, Will seems to have checked off all the boxes. Phew!

Party Like It's 2007

This past weekend, we went to our first party...and left Will with my parents! The feeling of liberation lasted for about half an hour before we found ourselves sitting in a corner, just me and Dave, talking about Will's different cries. We also did some impressions of those cries...and corrected each other on the exact tone of each one...and we were not bored. Then Dave said, "I really hope no one's listening to us right now," and we got our act together and made the most of our freedom for another few hours.

We had a fabulous time at Kim and AlRo's holiday bash. That's Kim with me in the above picture. The last time we posed together with me in that dress, Kim was wearing a black cowboy hat and a faux engagement ring the size of my head. (It was at my bachelorette party.) I have no idea why we forgot to take some pics of me and AlRo, too. Maybe because I spent the whole night reminiscing with her instead? (We were laughing about our summer-of-2000 cross-country road trip, and typing that just made me realize that I have now known my college friends for over ten years! That's unbelievable.)

The next one is a shot of me and Lauren, who was very proud of me for getting all gussied up and drinking champagne, even if it meant leaving her godson behind for a bit.

And now we go back in time to Friday, when Auntie Mel came over to meet Will. After she cooed over him for a while, I believe her exact words were: "Can I not go to work and just come over every day and watch One Tree Hill with you and the baby?" (Of course, if it were up to me, uh...YES, PLEASE!)

Baby Names

My sister-in-law Jean and I recently had a long conversation about naming babies. She is due with a boy in March (boy cousins five months apart = great news for Will!) and I was grilling her a little about her naming process. While she and John are not revealing the name ahead of time, we talked about how they had decided on "Megan" for my three-year-old niece: "It wasn't my top choice, and it wasn't John's top choice...it was just the only one we could agree on."

Dave and I had chosen a boy's name prior to the Big Reveal Ultrasound, but not a girl's name. In fact, when we left that ultrasound appointment in a stupor, Dave commented that now we wouldn't have to think about names again for a couple of years.

Dave, is it? Hi, I'm Joanna. Nice to finally meet you! Baby names? Sure, I've been thinking about them since I was five years old, although at that point I was trying to name my imaginary future baby sister. What did I do when I realized I wasn't getting a sister? Thanks for asking! I actually proceeded to name the five panels of my bedroom bow window. I gave them first and middle names. And I wrote their names on the windowsills. In neon puffy paint.* What do you mean, that's crazy? Wait, where are you going? YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME NOW, WE TOOK VOWS, THINK OF THE BAAAAABY!

But I digress. Basically, Jean and I concluded that 1) naming babies is hard, and 2) naming babies whose last name is "Noon" can be especially hard. "Noon" is a noun, and therefore the following adjective/descriptive-word names are out of the running before the game's even begun: Summer, Autumn, April, May, June, Scarlett, Coral, Ruby, Dawn, Crystal, Amber, India, Chyna...not to mention anything that rhymes with "Noon" and all the tricky monosyllabic names like Brooke, which I love but Dave doesn't like when it's paired with Noon. He tells me it sounds too choppy. Even the name Taylor when paired with Noon...well, it rhymes with the name of the animated Japanese character Sailor Moon.

My last name is hilarious!

All this, and I'm not going to tell you what our favorite names are because there are still more babies to be had and therefore secrets to be kept! Suffice it to say, girls' names are tough, and boys' names are not that much easier. Still, I'm sure that we will all love the newest Noon boy's name, whatever it may be. Of course, we'll love the boy himself even more.


*This story is entirely true. Eventually I had to help my mom chisel the dried puffy paint off of the windowsills; I wish I had written down those names before they were lost forever.