$59 and a Really Wonderful Husband

Today Danilo and I ran and grabbed a bite to eat for lunch. As we were leaving the restaurant, I noticed that ShopKo across the street was having a huge garden sale. I'd been wanting to go pick up some gerber daisies to put in a pot on our front porch, and when I mentioned that to Danilo, he said we could go take a look. As we walked in and saw tables and tables of trays of flowers, I started to get a little gardening bug. Long story short, a couple of stops and $59 later, we'd picked up everything we needed for our first flower garden, which has to consist of hanging baskets and flower pots when you have cement instead of a garden plot. Danilo was wonderful and I kept telling him he was as he followed me through the aisles and the greenhouses. We didn't forget a thing among the 40 pound bag of soil, the Miracle Gro, and my very first own trowel and gardening gloves. I think he felt like I did the time I followed him around RC Willey to find the best entertainment system. While he worked on homework, I sat on our porch and threw our little garden together. Once I got it all cleaned up, he came out and said all the right things about how pretty it looked. I go out every half hour just to look at it again and get all tickled inside. I think it's because I planned on being inside all day long doing the house cleaning routine and instead it turned into a beautiful outdoor Saturday in May. I'm also especially feeling grateful for Danilo this weekend. I had a co-worker and friend unexpectedly lose her husband this past week and it has given me a fresh perspective on how fragile life is and how grateful I am every time I get to be with him.

It'll Be So Cool Babe: Part II

(If you haven't yet, see It'll Be So Cool Babe!)

DANILO: "So how much do you weigh these days?"

BRITTNEY: "I don't know, but you're sure looking fit!"

The Perfect Diet is no longer a joke. It was not merely a passing phase. Danilo dilligently goes to the gym five or six times a week, eats one helping at dinner, and keeps record of exactly how many cookies, bite-sized candy bars, single M&Ms etc. he's consumed each day. He's getting so stinkin' handsome (as if that had been an issue)! In the meantime his wife, whose torso is the current home of their unborn daughter, continues to see numbers on the scale that haven't ever appeared in that order before. Do we weigh the same? I'm not broadcasting that information online. :)

I'm Staying Home

A few weeks ago, my principal visited my room during recess and said, "All right, girl. I've got to know what your plan is for next year." I had been anticipating this moment ever since the day I accepted my first teaching job knowing that when the first baby came along I would be exiting my career. "I'm going to go home and be a mom," I answered, relieved the second I said it that it was out. See, when my principal hired me, she made me feel like she felt lucky to have found me. In her eyes I saw her having visions of the type of asset I would be to our school in five or six years with all the first years of teaching bumps ironed out. That's why I didn't expect the response that came afterwards. "Good for you," she said. "Good for you." She went on to tell me that she didn't envy me for having to make such a tough decision and that the teaching career will still be there in 15 years or in 20 years or whenever I decide to come back. I hugged her as she started to tear up. As the news has gradually made its way through the building, I have been amazed at the support I have received from my fellow teachers. Anyone who has said anything is happy that I have chosen to stay home. I guess I just expected to have to stand my ground a little more. I have enjoyed working with great people. I plan to finish out the year strong and then get Gracie here so we can hug her and love her!

Spring Break is a Sweet Thing!

One week. No school. Beautiful. It's been going since Monday and I've attempted to fill it with out of the ordinary things. Danilo took one day off for us to spend together and we used it to do a session at the Logan Temple. Neither one of us had ever gone there before, it was neat. We had a yummy lunch afterwards.

Tuesday afternoon we got a treat. One of Danilo's radiology instructors had offered to sometime do an ultrasound for us as a sort of demo for some of her students. We jumped at the chance and got to see how much our baby girl had grown (quite a bit!) in the month since we'd last looked. We got some close-up images of her face. I don't think I'll get used to having ultrasounds. I think you can plan on continuing to see posts on how exciting it was after each one.

Spring break offers a wonderful change of pace and scenery, and what I tend to enjoy most during times like these is the extra time I get to spend with people that I love and love to be with. My mom and sisters and I especially have visited all of our favorite stores and then some.

Making Her Presence Known

The expectant mom was expecting to be bigger by this point (exactly five months along), but at least I know she's in there. Today the junior high band came and put on a mini-concert to hopefully recruit some of our students in the near future. Little Gracie (the name is actually growing on her dad) was clearly very aware of her surroundings. When the percussion started thumping and the horns started blaring and the rest of the band started doing their thing, I got a kick out of feeling my little girl rock and reel inside. I was disappointed when it was over!

The Tentative Plan

Before we were even married, Danilo talked about having our children grow up speaking both Spanish and English. It sounded great to me at the time. As our family is beginning to materialize before our eyes, I have become ever so less excited about the idea. If you give me a minute to explain, hopefully I will come off not sounding so selfish. Danilo's original proposal was to speak pure Spanish in the home because they would get exposed to English everywhere else they went. I had my reservations about that because though I love the Spanish language, it's not my first language and not the one I fall into speaking naturally. While raising my children, I don't want to have to hope that I'm conveying the right message. When I'm putting my baby to sleep, I want the words I speak to her to be genuinely mine. So we compromised when we found out a baby was on the way to me speaking English when I'm at home with the baby, speaking Spanish as a family when Danilo got home, and Danilo always speaking Spanish. While it was a compromise, I still wasn't embracing the idea. I think when you begin raising a family, at least in my experience, I have craved going back to my roots. I want my children to have similar experiences to what I had growing up, and speaking a different language when we're all together is so foreign from the experience I had as a child. Yet at the same time we will be joining two cultures, and because I love both Danilo and his Chilean background, and because he had a childhood that was different from mine, I realize it's important that we represent both. So the idea occurred to me the other day to balance both by having weeks. We can have a Spanish week where I get good Spanish practice as the whole family speaks Spanish. We talk in Spanish, say our blessing on the food in Spanish, eat dinner in Spanish, say our family prayers in Spanish, have family home evening in Spanish. And when the next Sunday morning comes along, it's English week, and we do it all over again in English. I took the idea up with Danilo, told him why it was important to me, and he was agreeable. The idea might still receive a little tweaking, but it feels pretty good.

The Ever Important 20 Weeks!

Last Thursday Danilo and I had an appointment with an ultra sound tech to see our baby again at the 20 week mark. I hadn't felt a lot of movement inside and so was very excited to see we have a very active baby!! The tech flattered us by telling us how DARLING our baby was and by the end of the appointment was almost absolutely certain that we've got a little girl on the way.

Sweet baby foot!

So what does this mean for the name debate? I love the name Grace. To me it's timeless and classic. It won't be too big for her when she's born and it will grow up with her. I love the thought of calling her Gracie, and she can decide which she'd rather go by. When I think of Grace, I think of, well, grace, and poise and beautiful things, as well as the grace of God. Danilo likes it somedays, and not so much on others. His main argument is that people will call her "Crazy Gracie," since almost anyone who speaks Spanish knows the word "crazy" in English and a Spanish "z" sounds more like an s. Then it sounds more like "Crasy Gracie." Yeah, it rhymes. At this point in the conversation (we've had it many times) I tell him you can do that with any name, and tell him about my mom's cousin Danny who would lovingly refer to me as Brat-ney. We'll keep you posted on this one, too!