You are a rather helpful lot, aren’t you?

OMG, thank you SO much everyone for the great responses on my last entry. Especially to Michelle, SouthernBelle, Ree and Lisa for giving me some faboo comments to read on my cell phone at the McDonald’s in Winnemucca. But I truly want to thank you all; the flood of response has been fantastic and you guys have some great tips. Some tips that struck particular chords with me:

Beware the hormones. I have a rather hormonal boy at the moment, so I can only imagine. I figure if I can raise him to adulthood, I’ll be well set. If she is any worse, I’m in big trouble. LOL! Better start investing in the Calgon now, methinks.
Don’t worry obsessively/smother the poor thing. She’s a capable human being (hopefully).
Beware the talking (should invest in earbuds too, I guess).
Not EVERYTHING has to be pink (oh and headbands are of the devil).

That last one is one I have already considered. I’m just not really the sort that feels the need to swim in pink. Don’t get me wrong, I love pink (she types, as she is wearing her pink fluffy robe and pink fluffy slippers… gee, ya think??). But I don’t want it to look like we sprayed the place down with pepto bismol either. I looked at some nursery collections online last night and was practically horrified that so many of them were just a nauseating level of pink, butterflies, princesses and fairies. I’m not going to deny the kid some princess-love, but I’m sure I can find a reasonable way to tone things down. And, for what it’s worth, out of the three outfits we’ve purchased so far (yes, only three, the restraint is to be admired) only one is pink. The other two are purple. I guess it’s no large coincidence that the pink sleeper has a princess-y thing on it. Oh well. But I’m not planning on a pink Pack n’ Play, pink carseat, pink stroller, pink saucer, pink bouncer seat, etc and so forth. I don’t think we’ll be repainting the nursery either (it’s pale yellow right now) but we’ll see how I feel in a couple months when the nesting hits me hardcore. Then again, this is my third child and while I’m definitely excited, there just isn’t time and energy to get obsessed with this stuff. We have a good amount of decent baby gear around here right now, thanks to Liam, and I imagine she’ll be using that stuff.

We will be buying a new carseat and stroller, but I’m looking at this and this, and you’ll notice neither is pink (though they do match). Of course, I found the stroller on sale over here for a ridiculously awesome price but it doesn’t match the carseat I picked out (in which case I would probably get the matching carseat instead. Yes, I suck.) But again, not pink. I think most of the pink strollers and carseats look a bit much, frankly and I’m just not used to that level of… girly. I’m sure that sounds silly, but there you have it.

I wasn’t a terribly girly-girl myself growing up. I loved stuffed animals and yes, I did have a major thing for My Little Ponies for a while there. But I also loved to play with Hot Wheels in the dirt with the boy down the street, I loved to play with Transformers and Construx and watch Star Wars and run around outside getting dirty. My big thing was playing “make believe”, and often-times, boys toys were more fun for that than girls’. I had a Cabbage Patch doll or two, but they were tomboys too (the one’s face was so dirty that she became another color altogether). I played with Barbies now and then, but there weren’t really my thing. I liked pink well enough, but had a good variety of clothes. I mostly wore pants as they were more practical (I hated wearing tights). I did like to put belts on my nightgowns to make them into dresses and I would dance around pretending I was a princess (I’m pretty sure my parents have a picture to this effect somewhere). If I had to make any predictions, I would say that my little girl will be much the same. Still, that’s a vast difference from what I have now as both of my sons are very boyish and without any prodding from us at all, Liam has become amazingly obsessed with cars and trucks. Not a doll to be found for miles around here. My old “Beauty and the Beast” movie has about an inch layer of dust on it from lack of viewing. Wow. This is going to be different.

Anyhow, thanks for all the great input. I’m still looking for more suggestions and tips (just what IS the deal with the diaper thing anyhow? Anyone care to clue me in??), so feel free to keep posting your comments on that entry!

In the meantime, I’ll entertain you with some pictures from our trip to Elko. I didn’t take as many as I would have liked, but that always happens, doesn’t it?

Liam and his favorite sippy cup and his favorite dolphin. He’s actually craning his neck to look at the big TV on the wall. That cup will be the death of me as it’s quite possibly the worst sippy cup in existence, yet it is the only one he will drink out of.

This is Spike. He’s my in-laws’ 4 month old Min Pin and he’s cute as a button and only about as big as my boot. His brother and sister currently live with my sister in law. He’s cute, but we found the Min Pins to be a little on the temperamental side.

My lovely, ever-so-stylish wrist brace! Kile keeps snarking that I picked out the most expensive one in the store. Puhlease. It fit and didn’t drive me crazy. This is for the carpal tunnel I seem to have developed. Now that my wrist doesn’t hurt 24/7, I only wear it when doing repetitive tasks (such as dinking around on the computer) or sleeping. It has helped dramatically, even if it does look a little dorky.

On our last night in Elko, we stayed up pretty danged late watching “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”. I forgot how long a movie it was and nearly slipped into a coma before the end. So I took this picture to keep me awake.