All the news worth telling

I'm squeezing this post in during the few minutes of down time I'll have today, because there are some things that must be announced.

First of all: It's a BOY! Another one! We found out this morning during my ultrasound, and we couldn't be happier. And it couldn't have been clearer. I was a little bit sad at first, not necessarily about having a boy, but about not having a girl. Does that make sense at all? But the more I get used to it, the more I'm loving the idea of having two little boys running around playing together. They'll be the best of friends, I hope. And together they may stand some chance against their legions of girl cousins. This new little one makes the score almost even on the Cowell side of the family. We got to watch the baby for a while on the screen, and he was extremely active, waving his arms around and sucking on his hands and all. It was weird watching him move so much and not feeling it at all. I think I still feel very little of what he's doing, at this point. The tech said he's healthy, he has lenses in his eyes and four chambers in his heart, and no cleft lip or palate. And Nathan says his spine looks great! Now if we could just come up with a cool name. Judah has told me it should be Lightning, after Lightning McQueen, of course.

In other news: we found a new place to live. We're moving May 19th, when I'll be about 24 weeks pregnant. That's much better than last time, when I was 36 weeks along, and due in less than a month from the move date. The new place is a treasure. It's a condo in Placentia and it has just about everything we could have asked for: 2 car attached garage, laundry hookups, three bedrooms, large backyard. We're ecstatic. And it's HUGE! It's 2000 square feet, almost twice the size of our current apartment. We don't even know what we're going to do with all the space, there's a whole room that we don't have any furniture for. We're thinking of making it a playroom/library. It will be so nice to spread out some, and to be able to store things where it makes sense, rather than having our crystal in the linen closet, say. Or our tools in the heater cabinet. There are a couple of things we're not thrilled about, but they're minor. The decor is pretty 70s: the bathroom sinks are faux marble, yellow with red streaks, and the kitchen counters are white tile with dark yellow flecks. Ug. But it's worth it. We can't wait to be moved and settled in.

So that's what's going on around here. We're flying out tonight for Phoenix to visit Brian and Ashlee and Eszter and Josiah and Sophia, and I'm having about three heart attacks an hour thinking about having Judah on an airplane. There was a story in the news a couple months ago about a couple that got kicked off a plane because their child was being so noisy. I'm afraid we're the next newsmakers. I guess if nothing else, Judah and I can hang out in the bathroom for the hour flight. I can't really imagine anything more miserable than spending an hour in an airplane bathroom with a screaming two-year-old, though, can you? We're armed for the flight with new toy cars, a banana, goldfish crackers, teddy grahams, and a ton of books. So that all should keep him busy for at least the first forty-five seconds. Pray for us!