b's and g's

well, maybe that's overstating it just a tad, but seriously? i don't know what is going on, but i am SO excited about being pregnant again.
beyond ecstatic.
elated.

(and perhaps many other appropriate "e" words.)

when i was pregnant with elias, i knew i was having a boy right away. i even bought him the teeniest tiniest swim trunks you've ever seen before i knew. with piper, i was sure it was a girl, but then i was feeling like if i was wrong and it was a boy, i was going to be disappointed, which wasn't cool, so i spent a couple weeks telling myself i was having a boy so that i could come to terms with it. and i was pleasantly (not) surprised :)

i had a dream last night that i had a boy, and i tell ya, he was the most adorable thing i've ever seen, with tufts of dark hair sticking out all over the place (yeah. i have a things for babies with lots of hair. my kids, of course, are straight up bald). and in my dream, i was just enamored with him and his cute face. mostly with his hair, though. was my dream prophetic? i wonder...

(until, perhaps, i remembered that in this very same dream, i was also a double agent being chased up and down stairwells trying not to get shot. sooooo..)

my mom and friend lee are "voting" for a girl. which would be terribly convenient given the nursery walls are painted raspberry and there's a chandelier over the crib. having one of both, it's easy for me not to care. i would love a boy OR a girl. or both. (wait- what?!) but if i want a boy, apparently i can just eat lots of food, namely cereal.

(again- what?)

(i guess the high intake of pizza and mozzarella sticks i ate back in '06 explains a lot, doesn't it, kris?)

so indulge me. let's take a vote. everyone always has a "feeling" or a "thought" and, hey, you have a 50% chance of being right!

what do you think??
boy? or girl?

updates, edition 3: our vacation

dave and i differ on this point, actually, but i don't believe that you can "vacation" with children. if you're somewhere with kids, i think the correct terminology is a "trip" or an "adventure"...but not a vacation. vacations are relaxing, responsibility-free time where you don't have to pack your entire life up just to go and try to live it more inconveniently some place else.

don't mistake my realism for dread, however. it's a lot of work to go on vacation, don't get me wrong, but i LIVE for time alone with my little family, and getting away from the hum-drum every day. and one of my resolutions was to be more adventurous, no? :) so although it can seem overwhelming to me at points when i think of the amount of packing and logistics to consider, i truly am excited to get away with my love and loves.

whether you have a family or not, i'm sure you're quite aware that vacations are expensive. understatement of the century, right. especially when you're taking two kids and need that much more space to vacation in. it's not exactly in the budget to rent a house somewhere for most people. but this year, we are blessed to be vacationing in nantucket. for those of you who know anything about nantucket, this island is not a place i ever thought i'd be able to take my family on vacation (it's kind of "posh" or something). a day trip, maybe, but for a week? yeah right. but through another local pastor, we were introduced to the ozias', who let pastors and their families come and stay with them on the island for free.

man, some people really have big hearts, huh?

it's really an amazing blessing to not have to pay to lodge for a week (who says lodge?), never mind that we are lodging on the adorably quaint and insanely beautiful island of nantucket. blessed.

so we'll be on the island for a week, back home for a few days, then off to lake taghkanic in new york with dave's folks to spend a week in a cabin for some more rustic living. the kids are going to have a blast! and i'm really excited that dave's family, who are out in indiana and chicago, will have a chance for some stratton kid saturation. a little piper and elias can go a long way :)

and now it's crunch time. i won't bore you with my extensive list of things i need to find/buy/finish/locate/pack/organize before we can go. but i will tell you i'm going to miss writing to you while i'm gone. i'm not sure i'm going to be able to be away and not write for that long! i may have a couple blogs to fire as i'm away, one for piper's one year birthday, and a couple videos (if i can ever get them to upload, what the heck!), but i'll be on the beach or in the woods for a good while. i'm looking forward to it. it has the potential to be a lot of fun. we'll just have to see. don't worry- you'll be the first to know ;)

early bird & crazy fish

it's currently 6:32 am and i have been awake for nearly an hour, compliments of my chipper early bird, piper glory, who's insisted for the past few days that between 5 and 6 am is the perfect time to poop her pants.

but it's SO not.

(side thought: her behavior the past week or so begs the question- are ALL little girls some degree of high maintenance? some level of demanding, squirrely, determined, or impossible? i know that girls and boys are inherently different in some ways, but for you mamas with girls and boys out there- are girls WAY harder to deal with, or is it just me??)

i might as well take advantage of this early start, though, with a cup of tea, and a nice early morning blog. it's already 60 degrees outside, which determines that today i'm going to take elias and piper to the beach at watson pond. i have yet to do this solo. i feel pretty confident, except for the fact that my son thinks he's michael phelps (who is an outlier, by the way) and i don't have any "coast guard approved" swim gear for him. (swimmies/floaties are not approved flotation devices. whatever...) so if the lifeguards are there, they're going to kindly ask me to take his swimmies off. they'd rather he drown than wear unapproved swim gear. because that makes sense...

clearly they they don't understand that my son, ever since he could, runs full speed for ALL water, all the time, and he's a total unafraid menace...in a puddle, kiddie pool, big pool, lake, and especially at the beach. he's jumping in, waves knocking him over, salt water in his eyes, and the BIGGEST smile on his face imaginable. he's been jumping into my parents pool since he was 1, and last summer, at 2, he would jump in by himself, no help, and swim around. with his little floaties, of course.

almost completely fearless.

which can be SCARY and a tad UNNERVING. (just not to lifeguards...)

truth is, i pretty much love his fearlessness. he's a good fit with my crazy bartlett genes because i'm not ever worried about him. i find that mostly, elias makes other people nervous, but not usually me. moms pace around nervously glancing from him to me, wondering if i'm going to continue letting him do whatever he's doing. it's funny. since he's always had the propensity to be dangerous, so we've just taught him how to safely climb/teeter/jump/scale/reach/stack/etc. it's much easier than trying to keep him off off away from things. he's equipped with innate skill and coordination, so if he doesn't think he can do something, he'll always shoot me a glance like "i don't know about this one mom. what do you think?" and i'll give him a nod and a wink.

right now i'm kind of imagining him in the water at watson's, diving around, doing his stunts, while piper eats sand, splashes maniacally, and tries to leap in herself, carrying on the menace legacy. this girl...whew, i might be more nervous about her. the more i write this the more i'm wondering if i need back-up. hahaha. it should be...complicated and interesting.

what i don't imagine is that i'll be laying on a towel, reading a magazine, and relaxing. that would be what i would have been doing, say, 4 years ago. and i'd be all tan, and up on fashion trends, and drinking an iced coffee. but today? i'll be juggling kids, making sure no one drowns, feeding sandwiches full of sand, lugging gear, overseeing sandcastle constructions, monitoring sand throwing and splashing, packing and unpacking...

and you know what...it will be great. especially in my cute new bathing suit :) so 1950's. love it!