They Couldn't Find a Penis

Here we have two beautiful (and yes, completely different) photos of what we are now calling a daughter. The ultrasound tech wasn't 100% sure, but as she couldn't find a penis, and girls are generally known for their lack of penis. My mom brought over doughnuts before I went for my appointment, saying that if I ate one the sugar would make my baby move for the camera. Only this backfired, and the baby was moving so much that the tech had a hard time doing the anatomy scan and it took forever (I had to pee).

So now we leave the floor open for some female name suggestions. Here are some of my family's:

Robin, from my sister Robin who has been campaigning hard to have a child named after her. She also thought William should be named Robin, as it works for a girl or a boy.

Craiginella, from my brother Craig, who said that he was going to use the name for his kids, but I could have it if I wanted.

Hazel, from my Dad, who thinks it's the greatest name ever and is quite excited by it. I don't think this name is as horrible as my mother seems to think, but it won't make the maybe list because it makes me think of old ladies and that old song: "Hooray for Hazel, she put me down. Hooray for Hazel, she made me her clown." Besides, what if she has brown eyes?

I do have a possible name that I won't reveal yet (I don't want to be affected by the criticism), but it isn't set in stone until it's written on a birth certificate.

Guess the Flavour10

Toda./;,y I'm blogging with guest blogger William on my lap. We'll see htgtgt how that goes. Oh, he has climbed down and is currently demanding mini croissants from the top of the fridge. Okay, we're back, blogging snack in hand.

This afternoon I have an ultrasound that will hopefully determine what flavour of baby I'm having (with or without nuts). If I don't find out that\
will just be the worst, adding to the tragic event of yesterday when I found out (much to my dismay) that La Feminique, my favourite bra store of all time, had gone out of business. Apparently my buying one bra a year wasn't enough to sustain their company.

Anyway, if I do find out boy or girl I will announce the info onvvc this blog sometime tommorrow.b f Thereby b leaving lots of time for everyone to put in their guesses. And no guessing twins or triplets (or to the dungeon with you!)

Day trip becomes a two-day trip

So I asked Adam to pick out a nice beach for us to laze about on (as a juxtaposition to the heckneckness of the Lion Safari), and he chose one that was three hours away! Now when one is driving a longish distance with a toddler, the trip can be quite pleasant until the tot wakes up. At which point he will demand to be let out of his car seat immediately and/or need to be fed large quantities of honeycomb.

To be fair, Sauble Beach is supposedly the "best beach in Ontario" and once we got there we had a great time. It's difficult to say if William had a better time than he would have in our back yard (which is equipped with both a pool and a sandbox), but it was nice to get away. The weather and water were perfect (not too cold, not too warm), the sand was a great sandcastle-building consistancy (William enjoyed playing Godzilla to our efforts), and the waves added that extra bit of fun without too much fear of being swept away by the undertow.

Of course we couldn't go home the same day, that would have been ridiculous, so we picked a motel at random and stayed the night. We brought a playpen to use as a temporary crib, but William wasn't so keen on that so I tried him in the other double bed. Seemed to work. Middle of the night: crash! William fell between the bed and the wall. I think he hit the radiator on the way down because he got a small gash on the back of his neck. He was fine, but added to our parental guilt, as it was his second big fall that day (at home that morning he had taken an impressive tumble down the stairs and was still walking with a limp). After much cuddling and crying and bed with Mommy and Daddy and a little advil, William finally went to sleep in his playpen.

The next day we took a tour boat and went here:

Flower Pot Island, in Fatham Five National Park. Isn't it gorgeous? The sky, the trees, that tropical-looking water (don't let it fool you; we stuck our feet in and considered having them amputated).

Anyway, William was having none of it. Cranky, cranky, cranky. You'd think two major falls (and two new molars) were some sort of big deal. The island was also very unstroller accessible, and we didn't want to carry him for the hour-ong hike everyone else was taking so we hung out by the rocks.

A trip can either be super fabulous, or dreadful, based on the mood of a toddler. Luckily William is usually a pretty happy kid. If he were crankier more often perhaps I'd have a bigger tolerance, I don't know. Anyway, looking at the pictures now, I remember some portion of a nice time on the island. It is beautiful there after all.

For more pictures of our two-day trip, here's a link to Adam's gallery: http://www.filipowicz.ca/galleries/sauble.html

Day trip #1: African Lion Safari

For someone who enjoys frequent visits to the zoo, even in the dead of winter, it seems odd that I haven't been to African Lion Safari since I was a kid. For those of you who have never been, African Lion Safari is like the zoo in that it has lions and various other exotic animals, but instead of walking around and looking at them in cages, you drive through their cages and hope you don't get eaten (or have your car torn appart by baboons).

My darling husband and his fancy camera I'm sure have many pics to rival National Geographic's greatest hits. But he only brought his super-zoom penis lense, which wouldn't focus close enough to take shots of baboons leaping on the hood of our car. I knew there was a reason I brought my focus-impaired camera with senior-citizen shutter speed (the above is like my eighteenth try of capuring the speedy primates in focus).

Here's another:

If one is worried that the monkies might leave presents and/or take souvenirs, there is a route that bypasses the baboons, but that's for fuddy duddys. The baboons are the best part. (An inspection of our '99 Forester reveals that it is now all dented and rusty, I might think about suing the park).

Here's a good shot of the zebras coming to check out Adam's fancy camera.

After the drive-through safari there's lots of fun stuff, especially if (like us) you have a toddler. There's a small ballpit for kids under five, and a water park, and a some animal shows. William loved the goats at the petting zoo. He even kissed a baby goat (cute) and patted another goat right on the anus (gross). It was a challenge to keep his from playing in the goat-dropping-rich gravel. Kids have no sense of disgusting.

We saw an elephant show (anyone else want to sing Skinnamarink e-dink e-dink?) and a bird of prey show then decided we were too hot and went to the splash area. They have two sections of the waterparkishness, one for big kids (though not as big as me), and one for little kids, with a water slide so tame that William can go up and down it himself (it was actually too slow for him and he had to push himself down it).

Anyway I have to put William to bed now. Also my husband informs me that he has some good pictures "for my blog" so perhaps I shall edit this entry later with some National-Geographic-style pics.

*Update*: Adam has so many super great pics that I can't post them all here. But check out this link to his best (there are some good shots of William in the waterpark. Also I believe #16 is of him kissing a goat):

http://www.filipowicz.ca/galleries/lionsafari.html

A few days off and nowhere to go.

This being the week after my husband's birthday he took a few days off so that we could go on some kind of summer vacation.  Unfortunately nothing has spontaneously planned itself.  I've been googling and googling but have yet to find the perfect getaway for a couple of cheapskate parents and their 17-month-old.

Problems:

-Any trip we take with William will undoubtably be more work and less relaxation than staying at home

-Both sets of grandparents are taking vacations of their own so even getting babysitting for a few hours is out of the question

-William will not remember anything anyway, so spending a lot of money on his experiences seems a waste (especially since every playground and splash-pad is a resort to him)

-We just bought a house, so we want to save our monies

-Despite all this, I would be disappointed if we didn't do anything at all

One idea was to stay home and take day trips. But where, oh where, shall we go?