Getting Ready for Baby

Mike and I are much more relaxed about the arrival of our second son than we were about Zeke; we're so relaxed that we don't even have a name for him yet. However, in a mild nesting fit on Cyber Monday, I bought a new infant car seat for Thing2 and a double stroller. (Zeke's infant car seat was an awesome hand-me-down but it reached the five year mark and had to be retired. )

As you can see in the picture, Zeke is thrilled about the double stroller. No, really. The camera just missed a terrific smile. He was less excited when I put the baby doll in the front seat - he thought that his Snowman doll should go there instead. The baby doll is supposed to represent Thing2 and help Zeke prepare for Thing2's arrival. Zeke is not entirely on board with the program. For example, he put the baby doll in the new car seat and tried to buckle in the doll and then he promptly sat on the doll and told me it was Zeke's seat.

Oh, well. If we can't be fully prepared at least we can be calm.

The tree is up

Today we brought out the Christmas decorations. That sounds grander than it was - we have a fake tree we keep in our storage closet, a few strings of lights, and some hand-me-down ornaments. It took less than five minutes to dig out. Since we like to move every year or so, it helps to keep things streamlined. Zeke, however, would have been thrilled if all we had was the lights.

The best part of the decorating procedure was when I asked Zeke to bring out the Momma, Dadda, and Baby from his toy chest. He went right to the toy box and pulled out our plastic nativity set and helped to set it up under the tree. He likes to put the baby in the manger and then sign to me that the baby is sleeping. It's cute.

The worst part of the decorating event is that Zeke credits Dad with everything. If you give him a chance to tell you about the Christmas tree there's a lot of "Dadda this" and "Dadda that", and some "Zeke this" too, but apparently I was hiding under the couch the whole time.