Yesterday morning when he woke up, Baby Evan lay in his crib and announced he was awake rather than cry or scream.

He ate a bagel and grapes for breakfast, an entire grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and ravioli off a plate WITH A FORK for dinner.

He brought us books and sat quietly while we read them. Over and over and over and over.

We played the “name that body part game” and he did nose, ear, head, belly and bellybutton on both himself and on me.

He gave lots of kisses both on demand and on his own.

He appears to have grown some more hair, especially on top.

At bedtime, he had a bath and jammies and a book and then E said “night night”, put him in the crib awake and standing up. Baby Evan lay down, hugged his blankie and went to sleep. Not a single protest.

WHO IS THIS TINY HUMAN BEING PERSON AND WHERE DID MY BABY LUMP GO????

p.s. I also felt Sandy moving for the first time yesterday. OMG THEY’RE GROWING SO FAST.

Baby Evan totally skipped his nap yesterday and was in a state of constant meltdown from about 3 pm on so the cute baby tricks video will have to wait. Plus he learned to point to a WHOLE NEW BODY PART and you wouldn’t want to miss that.

So. Instead.

This is a list of possible girl names I’ve had saved as a draft for the past few months and am finally ready to put out there for opinions/suggestions. I kept hearing and seeing names I loved but forgot ten seconds later so I started keeping them on my WordPress dashboard. It made sense to me at the time. Our gender ultrasound is August 5th (ONE MONTH!!!1!!!!111!!) so I’ve got to start making some decisions. And thanks to my internet friend/reader Megan for pointing me towards Swistle’s Baby Names blog, where I’ve not only found some really good names but also wasted the better part of several days reading the archives.

Eloise
Louisa Mae
Louisa Jane
Natalie – born on Christmas, middle name only & only if actually born on Christmas
Jane
Caroline Louisa
Carolina Jane
Carolina Mae
Claire
Merin
Clementine
Ruth
Penelope
Eleanor
Harriet (Hattie)
Isadora (Sadie, Izzy)
Ginger

Eloise and Harriet are from the children’s books, which is my absolute favorite reason to name a kid something. I’d consider Matilda and Ramona too if I thought E would even consider them and/or celebrities hadn’t already ganked them. Or Madeline if it wasn’t so popular.

Louisa (Louise), Jane, Caroline (Carolyn, Carol), Claire (actually Klair, grandfather’s middle name) and Ruth are family names.

Merin is a friend here in Connecticut whose name I just really, really like and am considering stealing it. It’s like #4000 on the popularity list, sounds slightly nautical, and yields no weird Google results. I also stole Mae from internet friends, including my lovely commenter TMae and Mae from Parenting in Progress.

The rest of the names came from Swistle’s suggestions. I don’t think E will let me use any of them. Plus, Ginger is my BFF’s dog, although I might totally use it anyway if Baby #2 comes out with red hair.

For the record, the polite internet way to tell me you absolutely HATE a name is to say “not my style” (abbreviated NMS. Feel free to say it as much as you want to or offer up better/alternative suggestions.

In other words, HALP!!!

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Last time I’ll bug you, I swear, but voting for the BlogLuxe awards ends July 12th. You can vote every day (not that I expect you to actually vote EVERY DAY) but I sure would appreciate it if you would do it once. The link is over on my sidebar or you can just click here. I’m under the “Funniest” category. Shocking, I know, since you were totally looking for me under the “Blogs You’ve Learned the Most From” category. AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I was waiting until after my OB appointment this morning to write a post because I was going to give you a very exciting Baby Sandy update. Apparently my pregnancy brain forgot that appointments between now and about 36 weeks are all incredibly boring and pretty much unnecessary. Besides the Big Giant Important Ultrasound on August 5th, I have pretty much nothing to report until I start having contractions. Sorry for my super normal, boring baby-baking.

The most exciting part of the whole visit was that I got to go BY MYSELF since my parents are visiting this week and Mom watched Baby Evan for me. Of course I forgot to bring a book, or my knitting, or even my phone so I didn’t get to take full advantage of a baby-free lap. The two screaming, running children terrorizing the waiting room didn’t help either – especially when one of them slammed full speed into my knee caps and I had to practically bite my tongue in half to stop myself from saying “NO. NO running in the doctor’s office! That is a POOR CHOICE.” But since the poorly behaved children weren’t MY poorly behaved children it was still a nice break.

My blood pressure is good (excellent, actually, super duper healthy low and TWO nurses commented on it), I’ve gained 5 lbs so far which I am extreme happy with since last time I gained 15 pounds between getting a positive test and my very first check-up at 5 week 6 days and my only goal for this time around is not be THE SIZE OF A HOUSE before the third trimester, and the baby’s heartbeat is very strong.

Speaking of the heartbeat, it was also fast (165 bpm) and the doctor said “That means it’s a girl.”

Ok, then she said that’s not necessarily true and might just be an old wives tale but she had at least a 50% chance of being right.

But that teeny tiniest of hints might just be enough motivation to start knitting a sweater out of this pink yarn I’ve had sitting in my drawer for months. Maybe.