Circles of Names

We have been trying to decide on a name for weeks now.  It seems this was so much easier with Grace, once I said the name we knew, but this time....  We know that this baby's middle will be Grace, to honor and remember her sister.  We have a list of names that we like.  Unfortunately some of our favorites do not sound particularly good with Grace, and some of the names that do sound wonderful with Grace do not have any special sentiment for my DH.  I feel like there is this enormous weight to make the right choice.  I want her to have a beautiful name, with a wonderful meaning that every baby on the block does not have.

Halfway there... how did we get this far?

As of Friday I am 20 weeks pregnant, Bear is halfway done gestating.  She moves often, she is more outgoing than Grace was and does not mind kicking on command.  It is nice for Mark since Grace would stop moving as soon as he would put his hand on my belly and Bear just keeps kicking away.  My belly is pretty obvious now, and my pregnancy side effects are as well, sneezing and coughing are continence busters at times, leg cramps are daily and I am even having round ligament pain.  I don't mind a single one, I will go through anything to bring this baby home alive.  At this stage with Grace we only had 3 more months left with her, I think about that often.  Will I have more than 3 more months with Bear?  God I hope so.  So although we are halfway there in terms of time there is a lot more of this mountain to climb.

Grace has a new kitty friend

We made the impossible decision to put our kitty Louie to sleep today.  He was our pooping outside the box boy.  It was finally clear that he was not doing this because he was mad or stressed, but because he was neurologic.  It turns out he had a kitty version of something like Parkinson's disease and had been falling in the litter box and that was why he was not using it any more.  All of this really just became clear in the last few weeks as his neurologic symptoms worsened.  So I took him to work and we put him to sleep.  I got so upset I started vomiting just after he passed (I am sick with a mild case of food poisoning).  Also today is 11 months since Grace was born so the grief is just compounding and expanding.  I know that saying good bye to Louie was the right thing for our family, I know that he was not going to get better and was in fact getting worse by the day, but he was still him, his mind and spirit were happy and I ended that too.  We gave him the best day today, canned cat food, all day out in the house to play and lay in the sun, so much attention, we took a nap together, I loved him with everything I could.  He was so happy.  Now I am so sad.  The right thing and the easy thing are rarely the same are they?

Louie  - we will miss you!