Here are Maddy and Joel as they looked on the first day of school:
OK, so that second picture was a re-enactment of the face Maddy gave for the photo the teacher took at school (a picture for her student portfolio). Yes, she’s developing a very distinct persona.
The kids really seem to like their teachers/classes, and Maddy is annoyed that we’re currently in a weekend and thus has to wait 2 days to return to school. Nerd alert!
Abe and Amanda have been keeping busy at home with board games, movies, Legos, and keeping the house clean.
I’ve been keeping busy hurriedly trying to get my animated entry for the Fox Holiday Animation Contest. The deadline for THIS contest is Aug. 31st. I’m just finishing up the last few shots this weekend, and after some audio revisions, I’ll be uploading later this week. I’ll send out a link when it’s online. It’s pretty hilarious. It’s called “Chuck Nutcracker,” and is a comedic version of the story of the Nutcracker, but with the Nutcracker as a Chuck Norris/Clint Eastwood tough guy, and the Rat King as a drag queen. As you can tell, it’s a little wackier and edgier than my usual fare, but it’s for Fox, so what do you expect? The kids have fallen in love with the movie, and they watch my in-progress version all the time, quoting lines and acting out scenes from it. Their favorite lines (recited in tough-guy voice):
“Looks like it’s time to crack a few NUTS!”
“Sleep in Heavenly PEACE!”
“CHUCK…NUTCRACKER!!!”
My other contest (the History Channel one about slavery) ends the Submission Phase on Sept. 2, and I’ll know by mid-September if I’m a finalist. There have been quite a few entries added to the contest—some good, most awful—but mine is still one of the highest-rated and most viewed.
Meanwhile, our newest family member keeps on making trouble for us. Amanda had an ultrasound on the 13th and the baby revealed himself as a male. Definitely a male. The image of his maleness was clearer and more prominent than I’ve ever seen in an ultrasound. So of course we were all a little disappointed…except Abe and Joel , who were ecstatic. Abe, in particular felt very smug, justified in his continued insistence that it was a boy.
But that’s not all—it turns out the baby is also measuring about 12 days SMALLER than normal for Amanda’s expected due date. However, Amanda is very sure of her “dates” (whatever that means—she won’t tell me). But they went ahead and changed her due date from Dec 26th to January 9th. Amanda’s NOT happy about thinking she’s 20 weeks, then being told she’s only 18 weeks along…
Another wrinkle, adding insult to injury, is that Amanda has Placenta Previa, meaning the placenta is in the wrong place, right near the cervix. I guess 90% of the time, the issue resolves itself, especially if noticed early, but for the next six weeks, Amanda’s on “pelvic rest.” No heavy lifting or anything else that would cause stress, strain, or trauma to the placenta. Feel free to do your own research on the subject for Extra Credit. Sept. 23rd we’ll have another ultrasound, at which they’ll probably be like, “Oh, the baby’s measuring big now, let’s change the date back…”
So, once we found out it was a boy, we had to purge our minds, hearts, and souls of all the girl names we’d considered (Bridget was the current favorite, prior to the ultrasound), and we then had to rack our brains trying to come up with a boy’s name we didn’t hate. Boys names are REALLY tough. Most of the good, stable, useful ones are so common that they had to be eliminated just because a family member already had the name. Sorry, no Michael, Daniel, Adam, Joseph, Jacob or any other “normal” names.
Other names got eliminated because one or the other of us hated it. I happen to think Ebenezer is an awesome name, but I can see Amanda’s point that you just can’t name a kid that. The same goes for Amanda’s suggestion of Seamus. Amanda liked Jonah, which to me sounds like a mentally handicapped child. Jonas, Amos, and other names that ended with nus or mos got vetoed because they sounded nasty. Harry Peterson also got eliminated to prevent vulgar teasing nicknames.
Job was a top contender, but did we really want a child to be “hated, cursed, and afflicted”? Also, to make a complete palindrome of the kids, we considered Haley Madison (also boys’ names) so we could have:
Madison Haley Joel Abraham Abraham Joel Haley Madison
But in reality, that’s lame…even if it’s chiasmus-y coolness.
We really wanted a name that felt like it was in the same realm as “Joel Abraham.” On a whim, we looked up the meanings of Elliot and Ephraim, two names we’d considered and we immediately realized these names were right. Look at the similarities between the names and meanings:
Joel: “The Lord is God.”
Elliot: “God is Lord.”
Abraham: “Father of Many”
Ephraim: “Fruitful”
So his name is going to be Elliot Ephraim Peterson (or, perhaps, Ephraim Elliot, but probably not). And for short, we can call him “Eep.”
Some final funny anecdotes:
The other day, I was up at 8fish doing some freelance work and Amanda was taking a nap. Joel came in and asked Amanda if he could have some grapes. Thinking we had just bought grapes the day before, she said sure, and he got himself some grapes…he came to her a little later and mentioned that the grapes tasted really gross. Turns out we hadn’t bought grapes, and the ones he ate were a couple weeks old. Joel even mentioned that some of the grapes had white fuzzy parts on them…At least he only ate like NINE or TEN of them!!! Why did he keep eating them when they were gross? We have no idea. We had a discussion with him about “when food goes bad…”
Finally, as most of you know, Amanda has spitting problems during her pregnancies—as in, she has trouble swallowing her spit. Well, she’s to the point where she’s usually able to swallow her spit, but the other night she had a dream that she was spitting into the sink. Unfortunately, she was waking up from her dream at the same time and ended up spitting all over her pillow in REAL LIFE. Thankfully, she was not turned toward MY side of the bed when this happened. In her defense, PART of Amanda’s semi-conscious brain was saying “Don’t spit! Don’t Spit!” as she was doing it.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve only got one shot left to animate for “chuck Nutcracker” and probably could have finished it in the time it took to type this blog entry…It’s also my birthday this Wednesday—34 years old, and apparently getting a bald spot…
