Our new home away from home

Henry is almost 3. A typical little boy, he's at the age where his imagination has been galvanized by those magnificent, mercifully extinct creatures known collectively as. . .DINOSAURS! It's all about the dinosaurs these days. And not just the typical roster of dinosaurs that mommy knew about (brontosaurus, tyrannosaurus, triceratops). Oh no--we're deep into it. Maiasaura. Chasmosaurus. Leptoceratops. Henry calls them by name and talks about attributes like bony frills and armored plates. Fun stuff.

Feeding this interest is the Canadian Museum of Nature, a.k.a "the Dinosaur Museum," which is walking distance from our house. Last year the museum was being renovated, so all the major exhibits were packed away. There wasn't much to see. It's now reopening in stages, and there are plenty of fossils, interactive displays, reproductions and whatnot to enjoy. The place is now a destination for families with young children. Little girls quietly contemplate the exhibits and partake in the craft activities set up to engage the young patrons. Little boys go totally apeshit over the dinosaur statues.

Henry has been to the Dinosaur Museum four times in the last three weeks.

It's the ideal family outing for us. Henry freaking loves it. It provides hours of educationally oriented entertainment. We bought an annual family membership for $45, and there's a pack-your-own-lunch eating area, so it's a very cheap day out. Also, walking distance from our house! Really, it's a remarkable resource to have in our backyard. I imagine we'll be there practically every weekend until Henry's interests move on to something else.

I never thought I would know so much about a topic that previously held no interest for me. But that's one of the fun parts about being a parent--little kids love things passionately, and you get pulled along for the ride.

Of course there are photos!

New camera

Tom got me a new digital camera for my birthday last month. It's much nicer than my old one: 7.1 megapixel and 6X optical zoom. Today I finally installed the camera software and downloaded my first set of pictures. I'm especially pleased with this one. I'll put more on my Flickr site soon.

I hate the weather

I'm sitting here feeling gloomy because the day's forecast high of 2 degrees C (36 F) is turning out to have been a bit too generous. Yes, I'm sad because it won't hit 2 fracking degrees today. 2 degrees!!!! This is what it's come to. Hands down, this is my least favorite time of the year (yes, I've blogged about it before). It's March, and I'm ready for springtime, and in these parts, it's nowhere to be found. In fact, we just endured a week of the most brutally cold temperatures we've had all year. Highs around -15 C/5 F. Lows around -30 C/-18 F. Awful, awful stuff. I spend my days trying to come up with a feasible plan to move to California that wouldn't involve living in a studio apartment that costs twice as much as our current house. So far, no luck. I guess the long winter here is good for keeping property values reasonable. Um, yay.

I'll post some cheerier news later. But seriously. There are days when the climate here makes me root for global warming.

Surprise!

No surprise just yet. But there will be! Yes, even though I'm having an ultrasound next week when we could find out, Tom and I have decided (well, I decided, and Tom agreed to go along with it) to keep the sex of Baby Deuce a mystery. This is a big about-face for me compared to last time, when I couldn't wait to find out if I was having a boy or a girl. I had no mixed feelings about it whatsoever. I wanted to get organized. I didn't want to worry about girls' names if I didn't have to, and I just flat-out wanted to know. Knowing I was having a boy helped make the whole idea of having a baby much more real. Now, it's the total opposite. I'm enjoying the mystery. I have no illusions about "getting organized" ahead of time, so beyond buying a second car seat and a cache of newborn diapers, I'm not going to sweat it. We don't even have a dedicated bedroom for Deuce, so nursery decorating schemes are irrelevant. Plus, I want to add some drama to the delivery, since there's a good chance I'll end up having a scheduled c-section (my OB's policy is that if I go into labor before my due date, we'll try the "traditional" method, but if I make it to my due date, he'll do the surgery that day instead of waiting for the baby to get all huge and stuff).

In other pregnancy news, I am feeling better, finally. Energy's back to normal. I still have morning sickness and/or an inoperative digestive system some days, but it's all manageable. I'm a lot bigger now than I was at the same point in my pregnancy with Henry (yes, I took pictures to track my belly's growth with that one. Not gonna happen this time). And I've started to feel the baby moving around!

One thing that is the same as pregnancy #1: Tom and I are totally stumped when it comes to girls' names. Any ideas?