Because I’m of “advanced maternal age” now (I’m 35), there have been a few more blood tests and things with this pregnancy than with Annalie. One of those tests was a 20-week ultrasound today. Annalie and Troy both were there too, which was a relief. Troy wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get an hour or two off work as they were in the middle of prepping for a last-minute presentation to some Navy bigwigs. At the last minute he called and said he was leaving work and he would meet us at the clinic. Whew! I’d have hated for him to miss it, since he probably won’t get to be at any other doctor’s appointments for this baby. We’ll be lucky if he makes it to the birth, with how busy this job is keeping him.

Anyway, we were all there to find out that this baby is a GIRL!

The other things that were checked with this ultrasound—the baby’s size, brain, stomach, heart, amniotic fluid, etc.—were all fine. Or as the cheerful doctor told us with his Italian accent, “Norrr-MAL, norrr-MAL, everything looks perfectly norrr-MAL. Good, good, good. What a good little baby she is!” He said everything looked so normal that I might not even need a 32-week ultrasound. And while it would be fun to see the baby again before she’s born, I can’t say I would mind losing one doctor’s appointment in those last couple of months. There will already be plenty of them to deal with.

Annalie has been petitioning us for a baby sister for years now. She was thrilled to hear that she’s finally getting one. She had several name suggestions ready—Daisy, Daffodil, Rose—which is three more names than Troy and I have thought of.

Annalie also pointed out to us that her baby sister would be able to wear her old clothes, but she was a little worried that she would have to share her toys. Once I assured her that she and the baby will be far enough apart in age that they probably won’t be much interested in the same toys at the same time, she was fully enthusiastic about a girl baby. “But still…” she mused, “maybe we can put a baby gate in front of my bedroom so my little sister can’t get in my room and break my stuff.”

So I guess we’ll continue to have lots of pink in our lives! Although really, Annalie’s favorite color until quite recently was blue. Now she goes back and forth between blue, purple, and pink. And although I have nothing against pink, Annalie was far more likely to be dressed in a variety of primary colors when she was a baby. Hmm. Maybe those early fashion choices I made for her are behind her love of crazy combinations of pattern and color today.

Maybe I should just dress this kid in head-to-toe pink!

July 1: Our early-morning flight to Omaha allowed us to see a lovely sunrise at Dulles.

July 2: Aurora approved of the plate I painted for her; cousins chilling together.

Photo taken by Joe Sands

July 3: Painting pottery (and drinking Starbucks, and talking nonstop) with Kassie and Katrina has become a tradition when we’re all in Omaha at the same time, long may it continue.

July 4: Happy Independence Day! Grandma Carol & Annalie; sparklers galore.

July 5: Annalie and Grandma Val laughing; Old Man Annalie; Aurora making a face at the water we were giving her from the end of a straw, even though she apparently liked it.

July 7: Annalie monkeying around, Aurora watching and wondering how much longer till she can monkey around with her.

July 8: We took Angie out to lunch and introduced her to pottery-painting as an early birthday present, and did some handprints with Aurora and Annalie.

July 9: Lunch with Rachel; an impromptu visit with T and her kids.

July 10: A triple-the-fun birthday party for Zach, Josh and Alex; playing at the sprayground.

July 11: Lunch at Godfather’s with the Kay family (including Mike, who took the group photo); Krista cleverly disguised with a gumball-machine mustache.

July 12: Annalie hanging out with the mariachi band at the Mexican restaurant where we met Nancy and Ben, Angie & Aurora for lunch; shooting off some leftover fireworks at Ed & Leslie’s farm.

July 13: Katrina and I got pedicures and then went to dinner at an unexpectly busy Olive Garden all by ourselves and it was awesome. I think a new tradition has been born.

July 14: Starbucks for the moms, Slip’N'Slide for the kids—perfect on a day when the high temperature was near 100F and humidity was 91%.

July 15: We’re heading home.

I hope to write more detailed posts about our time in Omaha eventually, but for now you can enjoy many photos in my Flickr photoset Omaha July 2010.

After a busy day full of teaching dottery class and attending birthday parties, we hopped in the minivan and drove to Delaware, to the beach-town cottage where Anna and her family had just arrived the day before. We got there late, but Anna was kind enough to stay up and let us in before stumbling off to bed. We followed her example and went right to sleep, expecting all the kids to be up bright and early the next morning.

All three kids were kind enough to sleep in the next morning, not getting us up till after 7am. We ate cereal and pastries for breakfast and drank our coffee in a leisurely fashion while the kids played. Then we suited up and sunblocked everyone and headed for the beach!

It was so much fun! Since Annalie has lost her fear of the ocean, she loves the beach. And with so many adults there, she was able to play in the water as much as she wanted, only taking occasional breaks to play in the sand or have a drink. She had an enthusiastic water buddy in Anna’s son, J. They had a blast chasing the waves and each other around the beach.

But the best water buddy of all for Annalie was Troy. Dads are great when it comes to big waves that threaten to knock you down. They either grab your hand and haul you up quickly, sputtering and wiping salt from your eyes, or they just pick you up and swing you above the wave! Annalie loved doing both. I was kind of amazed at how many times she was knocked onto her knees or butt by a wave, yet came up laughing.

After a few hours in the sun and water, we were all hungry. Anna’s husband M and Troy, with Apple* tagging along, walked to a nearby pizza place and came back with some delicious pizzas that we devoured and two huge insulated jugs of soda plastered with the restaurant logo. Those cups kept tripping me out, because to me the logo seemed similar to an old logo for my favorite hometown pizza place. I’d see them out of the corner of my eye and be startled for a second before realizing it was a different logo entirely. Funny how that can happen.

*In case you’re wondering, Apple is not Anna’s daughter’s real name. It’s her blog name.

After lunch the kids went back in the water with the dads for a little while, but soon we were all ready to go home and cool off. So we packed up and made the short walk back to the cottage, where we enjoyed using the outdoor shower.

After everyone was cleaned up, M and Apple laid down for a nap. We got the big kids set up for some quiet time watching movies with the portable DVD player in the bedroom. Troy found something to watch on TV. And Anna and I decided, naturally, to go paint some pottery.

There happens to be a cool little craft studio on the main street of Anna’s beach town, and she’d been walking by and peeking in the windows for years, but had never gone inside. So we changed that! Anna had never painted pottery before, but she’d been painting houses for years, thanks to working for her dad, so she was a natural at pottery-painting.

I dotteried two little things, a star magnet for Melissa and a green bowl for Sonja. I was happy to find two little things to paint, because this particular place had a per-hour studio fee. I understood why—they’re on the beach, they probably have lots of tourists as customers and need to keep things flowing; and they guarantee your pieces will be fired by the next day, which of course means the fee will be higher than usual—but I still didn’t want to have to pay for more than an hour of painting! Also, we didn’t want to be gone all afternoon and leave Troy and M outnumbered by tired and hungry kids. So we painted, chatted, laughed, and walked back home.

On the way home from the craft studio, something funny happened: I was spotted in the wild by a blog reader! I didn’t know about it till we were back at home and she left a comment on a blog post. She wasn’t entirely sure it was me because Annalie wasn’t with me, I was in the wrong town, and she was a bit shy of saying hello to a total stranger. I emailed back in reply to her comment, saying I completely understood why she hadn’t said anything to me, but that I wished she had, that it would have been a hoot to have a blog reader recognize me on the street. I asked where she had seen me, exactly, and she emailed me back to tell me that she saw me on this street at that time by such-and-such building, and as it happened I remembered seeing her too! Crazy! For future reference, if any of you normal, friendly, non-stalker blog readers happen to pass me somewhere on the street, please feel free to stop me and say hello. I promise I don’t bite and I’ll even say hello back.

Photo by i am BeachMama

After our unknowing encounter with Miss Virginia, Anna and I continued home where we found hungry people waiting for us. We walked to a fun Italian place, where Annalie and J made good use of the play-dough I keep stashed in my purse for entertaining bored kids at restaurants while we’re waiting for food. Some of the TVs in the restaurant were showing an episode of Amen, which amused me greatly. I had completely forgotten about that late-80s show, both that it existed and that I ever watched it. But even without being able to hear the sound, I could hear the theme song in my head as the credits played.

We ate the delicious food, we walked back to the cottage, we packed up, we hugged our hosts good-bye and thanked them profusely for letting us crash their beach vacation. Then we headed home after a long, delightful weekend so we could start doing laundry and packing for our trip to Omaha later that week. We just don’t know how to stay in one place, do we?