Good Monday

Well, our broken water pipe proved to be a bigger deal than we initially thought. My husband worked on it until dark on Sunday and then took Monday off to finish the job. The materials we thought we needed actually weren't going to be compatible with the particular piping used so he spent three hours being send all over town to different plumbing supply stores until he finally found a place that had all the necessary parts and a very helpful guy who walked him through the process step by step. It took another 3 hours once he got home to finish, but it appears to be fixed, we have water, and we are hopeful this will last. Part of the problem is a huge mesquite tree whose roots entangled and punctured the pipes causing the break. We would like to rip it out but our Gestapo home owner's association mandates that every front yard must contain one 5 gallon tree (ridiculous considering how close together our homes are). So, now we have to have a plumber come out to look at the tree, the roots and their proximity to the pipes and hopefully put in writing the fact that if we leave the tree the roots will cause further damage. It is then our hope that we could successfully contest the mandate. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to go against common sense that an HOA could mandate the necessity of certain foliage when the presence of that landscaping would cause damage to the actual dwelling.

In other news, we were supposed to find out the sex of our baby tomorrow. My husband was going to take the day off and come with. Long story short, since he took off yesterday to deal with the water pipes I called the office to see if there was any way we could come in and have the ultrasound done then instead. They actually said yes, which I totally wasn't expecting so we hustled out.

The baby looks perfectly healthy and was very active during the ultrasound, although proved to be very modest, refusing to uncross the legs. I was starting to get a little anxious because I wanted to know the sex, not really for myself, but the kids were dying to know. Finally at the end we got enough of a glimpse to determine.................................IT'S A GIRL!

Our two year old son was thrilled. He has said since the moment we told the kids I was pregnant that he wanted a sister. However, today when we were at the store, my daughter was pointing out all these cute little girl clothes and I don't know if he started to feel left out because all of a sudden he started crying and said, "I don't want a sister anymore. I want a brother." Broke my heart.

And We Will Call Him or Her........

It's funny because almost the minute we started telling people we were expecting another baby they started asking if we had thought of names yet. Being the Type A person that I am, I had of course already compiled a list of possible contenders. If this baby is a girl, the name will be easy. My husband and I fell in love with a girl's name when I was pregnant with our son, who is now 2.5. That name is still at the top of our list. In fact, it is the ONLY name on our girl's list.

Our boy's list isn't so finalized. I have literally suggested close to fifty names and the ones that weren't flat out rejected by my husband were met with a wishy washy, "Ehh, it's okay." Dear husband, on the other hand, has suggested ONE name. That's right! ONE!!! And it's a name he suggested months ago that I said no way because no one would ever guess our child was a pasty, white kid of Irish decent with a name like that. Yet, he continues to submit it for consideration.

Then, this week I suggested two names (two of the original fifty I initially submitted, if you are keeping track like I am). Suddenly, he likes them both. They are now his "top two" as he calls them. Is he trying to drive me crazy?

The thing is, we have months to go. It's not like we need a name right this second. We don't even know the sex or if we are even going to find out the sex....although we need to make that decision pretty soon because that ultrasound is coming up. With both of our other kids we LOVED their names from the get-go. There was not a lot of discussion or deliberation. Both names just were, if that makes sense.

The real kicker is going to be if this child is a girl and we spent all this time negotiating over a name we can't even use.