The Harmelings

Stand up and celebrate 8 months, Lulu!

Oh life has been so dang busy at Casa de Harmeling that I didn’t get a chance to share every tiny detail of Lucy’s first 6 months on my blog. But don’t you worry, I can sum it all up quite easily, in just one little word.

SCREAMING.

We love her so, and she is so cute when she is sleeping, but she spent most of her waking moments during the first 6 months screaming. Seriously, a lot of screaming. And barfing. It was pretty rough. But one great thing about having a second child is that you have done this before. You know there is light at the end of the tunnel, that every day is not going to be this rough. And for us, we knew that no matter how much barfing and screaming happened each day, she was going to be so much better at 8 months. To me, 8 months is when it all gets good.

So forget that we referred to her as the devil spawn for 180 days, because today our little juicy Lucy is 8 months old. And she is dang cute. She celebrated by standing up. Check it out, we are oh-so-proud.

 

Lucy stands up – 8 mo from Courtney Harmeling on Vimeo.

F**k You

So, I admit I have been a little busy in maternity land, plus my little adventure to gallbladder village (read: pain killers) but how did I miss this??? We all know how much I enjoy both  singing and swearing (not that I can do either convincingly.) So, WHY my dear friends did you not make sure the DJ was spinning this song at the Harm Farm?

I feel so out of touch. So passe. Sooooo uncool. By noon I will have this memorized and then I promise to belt it out if you invite me to your holiday party (and give me booze.)
Clearly its pretty dang mainstream if Gwyneth covered it on Glee.

BTW – Gwen’s agent has done her DAMN well this year. She was just falling over the likable fence and bordering on “stuffy-bitch”. (See, there is that swearing thing I was writing about.) How cute is she here, right?

I Love Lucy.

It’s been months since a new word has been posted here at the Harm Fam. (Or the Harm Farm as a friend calls it.) Its been 6 months actually. Why so long, you ask? It has a lot to do with superstitions, surgery and sleepless nights. But bottom line, it has to do with the very sweet addition to our family. On July 1st at 8:00 in the morning, we welcomed our long awaited baby girl into our family.

Lucy Paige.

LuPe. Lulu. Milk Face. Snorty McSnoogleheim. Great White Shark. Luie.

The DJ, Jack, myself and even the dogs are all in love with her.
I promise to post more often. Check back soon if you want to hear about all the goodness leading up to the arrival of Lupe, and exciting events since.

Peace. Out.

Not the face of a killer

I don’t think she meant to do it. Although she can tear the head off a superhero, or remove the sole from a Croc in 10 seconds flat, Leni can play with a small bug for an hour and hardly mame it. So Hopey and I watched in total shock as Leni pounced in a small bird feeding in the grass and actually caught it. I think Leni was shocked too, shocked that it stopped moving. RIP little bird.

Meet my new friend, Edward. I call him Little Eddie.

Last night I headed over to Newport Beach to visit my dear friend Pearl, and her sweet spanking new baby boy, Edward. He is just 4 1/2 weeks old, and as beautiful as can be. (I promise, Pearl, this is a true compliment since I kinda think ALL newborns look the same. Mine included.) Oh, and it was great seeing new-daddy Tom again too – because it had been years!

Now, as another dear friend (E-dog) always says, “I’m not gunna lie…” Sweet little Eddie did bust out that desperate newborn baby cry on me a few times. My blood pressure shot up, and my nerves rattled a tad,  just like back in the ol’ Baby-Jack days. But have no fear, this old momma still has it! I battled back with some tight swaddling and my patented super-rock-and-jiggle move. I had that little guy out cold in minutes. My 2 hours visit left me simmering over a wide range of feelings, from “what the heck have we gotten ourselves into?!?!” to “I think I am going to be able to do this.”

Not that it matters at this point, since tomorrow I will be 6 months and 1 week 8 months pregnant.

The truth about lies.

I feel huge. I look huge. But I actually have a long way to go.

A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
William Shenstone

Today I am 23 weeks prego, that’s days away from 6 months. The problem is, a month ago I was telling people, strangers, that I was 6 months along. But when people look at you,  your belly, and back up to your eyes and with a goofy grin say “wow, look at you, how far along are you?” Well, 5 months just doesn’t sound substantial. And honey, I AM substantial. So I would say “oh, you know, 6 months….” and then I would hope they wouldn’t ask for a due date and do some quick math.

Now that we are knocking on 6 months, I think I have to start saying I am 7 months. That’s cool, right? (I am not the only one who does this – I swear. Right Alisa?) But the problem becomes, as Alisa pointed out, when I am finally at my due date, my lies will have surpassed me, and I will be 12 months. And did you know zebras and blue whales gestate for 12 months??? What does that say about me? Er, us (Alisa!)???

We got our hair did. You should too.

So, the $0.99 paid itself off instantly in belly laughs. On a recommendation for Sarah K, I just bought this silly little iPhone app: ReDo – which lets you try on different hair styles. The hair is more cartoony than realistic, but c’mon, its still good fun.

DJ thinks I am a dead ringer for Ellen Degeneres with this do:

And Check out the DJ with Michal Scott hair (or is it more of John Travolta????):

And the viking neighbor Lars, looking like Ryan Adams:

A very big night of firsts for Jack

The DJ wins another award for world’s best daddy-o, seriously. Tonight he took Jack to his first NBA game, at the Staples center in LA. (I know, that sounds expensive, but its not at all if you are a Clippers fan. No one goes to those games, tickets are cheeeeeeap. The DJ has been a faithful Clippers fan his entire life, and I don’t believe they have ever had a winning season. The DJ is a pretty loyal guy – another thing he wins an award for.)

Anyway – Clippers vs Phoenix Suns. Jack dug through his dresser looking for a shirt that would have both teams’ colors even though he said he was “going for the Suns.” Unsuccessful in finding a shirt with red-white-blue AND purple-orange, I told him to have daddy-o buy him a shirt at the game. Cant wait to see if he comes back with a Clippers shirt or a Lakers shirt, since it is the Staples center, “home of the Lakers” and  Jack’s favorite team.

On the way to the game, the DJ took him to Denny’s for a grilled cheese. Another first. When they were done eating Jack said, “Now THAT… was perfect.” If I ever hear him say that about a French Slam plus a milkshake,  I will check his room for a bong.

I think they have been there for less than 30 minutes now and I just received a text from the DJ that they have showed Jack on the scoreboard twice already. D says Jack has been impressing those around him with his crazy NBA knowledge. I’m not keen on NBA trivia but I did find it pretty funny when he said “Why dont the Clippers just use the Laker Girls instead?”

BTW, with the boys gone, I had ice cream for dinner. Fetus had hot fudge. Rock on.

It’s a girl….

Ya, I know this isnt news. Just last month I posted in-utero vagina pictures for goodness sakes! (Clarification – I posted pictures of the fetus’ vagina. Not mine.) But I was just sending an email to my dearest friend in the whole wide world, and realized that repeating “its a girl” is helping me cope with what I call “girl-panic.” Also typing the word “vagina” helps.

EW EW EWWWWW. I’m kinda grossed out now. But what else do you call it? Ug. No nicknames. We are being mature here.

Ok, anyway, it’s a girl. It’s a girl.
To prepare, I have purchased her crib bedding.  Nothing says “It’s a girl” like orange, brown and gray! Blahahahaha. My mother and my M-I-L are both dying to see rosebud fabrics and iridescent pink painted walls in my house, but that aint gunna happen. We have a 1970′s house, and we have done a dang good job of staying true to its roots, grass wallpaper and all. (You should see Jack’s new wall color = “retro avocado.”)

Anyway – Here is HER new bedding. Walls will be “classic creme” and “vintage mauve.” (Not the samples in the picture.)

How we found peace in the mornings

With Jack’s undying obsession with NBA Basketball, he has taken to reading the sports page every morning while eating breakfast. Some mornings, the DJ catches an early train downtown… and ohhhh how hell breaks loose in our house. Jack will go downstairs and discover the newspaper is gone, and so is daddy. He will start crying, pick up the phone, call daddy, and pretty much yell at him for taking his sports page.Well, we all know the DJ is a smart man, and thus the perfect solution: Photo copies. The DJ has to copy all NBA related pages of the sports section before leaving. And then there is peace.

I recently heard mention of teaching Jack to read ESPN.com. I don’t think I’m up for that yet. I cant imagine starting the morning troubleshooting internet access issues for my 5 year old.

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