Two-parter

Part I:  Baby Moses
My big 20-week ultrasound was Monday morning, and we learned that Baby Moses is a BOY!  I realize the odds were roughly 50/50 that this baby would be male, but I was still shocked.  As in, I didn't know how to react, I asked the ultrasound tech to look again just to make sure, I still have trouble calling the baby "he."  I was just very convinced this one was a girl.  My intuition regarding pregnancy seems to be worthless.  

Daniel and I can't decide yet what we want this little guy's name to be.  We looked at a list of Old Testament names online the other night, and it was just comical.  We were trying to find some fresh options in all seriousness, but we ended up in fits of laughter multiple times.  You know how sometimes you're in situations at church where you have to read some weird biblical name out loud, and someone makes a joke about how you should name your kid that?  It was like that, except we're actually trying to figure out what to name our kid.  We still have plenty of time to decide, but I am a psycho and want this baby to have a name yesterday.

Baby Moses, if you read this someday, please know that my thinking you were a girl and failing to have a name ready for you is no indication of how I feel about you.  I love you just as much as I loved your older brother when he was "in my tummy."

Part II:  Baby Ben
It's that time again -- time for a new round of Funny Stuff Ben Says and Does! 

• For a little while, Ben knew Daniel's and my first names.  But now when you ask him what Mommy or Daddy's name is, he answers, "Honey."

•  He has a freakish memory.  We can read a book or sing a new song once or twice, and he can suddenly fill in the blanks if you ask him to.

• While reading a favorite book about a visit from Nana, he showed extra interest in the page where Nana gives the little-girl protagonist a nightgown.  I usually call the nightgown "pajamas" to keep it somewhat relevant to my non-nightgown-wearing son, but I explained it a little further this time, and the following conversation ensued:

Micah: That's a nightgown.  Girls wear nightgowns.
Ben: Giwls wear nightgowns.
Micah: What do boys wear?
Ben: Boys wear... shirts.
He states both of these facts several more times, then out of nowhere...
Ben: Giwls wear... nuffins! (hysterical laughter)

I had no idea this sentiment was one boys spontaneously created before age two.  I am in big, big trouble.

•  He's started calling things "cute."  Mommy is cute, Baby Moses is cute, a random baby at the library was cute, animals are cute, etc.  And he raises the pitch of his voice when he says it.
  
• He thinks it's really funny to say that things smell like pepperoni (which sounds extra cute when you can't say the letter R).
  
• We took him to Lowe's recently, and he is in love.  He talks about the "tool store" alllllll the time now.  The morning after the Lowe's trip, I loaded him in the car to go to Wal-Mart and told him we were going to the store.  He excitedly asked, "Tool store??  See jigsaws?  Miter saws?"
  
• On that same special trip to Lowe's, we bought him a pink sprinkler - an item he dreamed up and has specifically requested for weeks.  Apparently our green sprinklers weren't cool enough for him.  I didn't even know pink sprinklers existed, so we pretty well had to get it when we saw one for under $3.  Maybe someday it will get warm enough to go outside and play with it.
  
• Have I mentioned before that he is insanely opinionated?  And bossy?  He will tell you to sit on the floor, and then get upset because he actually wanted you to sit one foot to the left of where you sat.  He also tells us frequently, "No say that!"  I considered it a milestone tonight when he, without being told to ask nicely, said to me, "No say that, Mommy.  Pwease."
  
• He sort of has an imaginary friend?  Her name is Goggy (which is all the more bizarre because I had an imaginary friend named Coggy when I was a kid).  Goggy started out as a nonsense word that Ben made up to amuse himself.  So we might ask, "Ben, what do you want for breakfast?"  And he would reply, "Goggy (hysterical laughter)!!"  Somehow over the course of a few weeks, Goggy has morphed into a person that he randomly talks about.
  
• One of his new favorite play areas is a "cave" I made him on our loveseat.  The cave is really not that awesome, but crawling in/out and throwing items in/out of it entertains him for long stretches.  We're talking minutes at a time, people!  He also cleans his cave with an ear thermometer, which he calls a "dust-buster" (the handle part really does look like a dust-buster -- props to my clever boy on that one).
  
  
  
  
  Parenting at this stage is quite an adventure.  It's more and more fun all the time to see the sweet, cute, witty parts of his personality develop.  But I have to get more and more creative to manage the strong-willed, whiney, stinkery parts that are also developing.  I complain too often about those latter parts because they sometimes take up a lot of the day, but I honestly LOVE having a toddler.  He is a gift that I do not take for granted!