Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

Some people say that you don’t take as many pictures of your second child, but I don’t think that’s true in our case. What is true, however, is that it takes me nearly six months to share them.

Visit the gallery to see many pictures of Mia.

Yesterday Mia had her two-week checkup at the doctor’s office. Her 2-week measurements were 10lbs and 21.5 inches. As you may recall, she was 19 inches long at birth.

If she keeps growing at this rate, she’ll be nearly 6 feet tall by her first birthday. I guess there’s a CHANCE the original hospital measurement wasn’t accurate These measurements basically put her at 90-95th percentile on both height and weight.

Evan is still pretty fond of her. He’ll sometimes call her “Mia Mia”. Of course, maybe he just speaks Italian…

Mia Charlotte Atterberry was born on 3/15/08 at 9:40am, weighing 8lb 15.5oz and 19in long. Mom and baby both doing great!

Click on the picture below for some pictures we’ve posted:

We’re all home from the hospital, and I’m taking the week off. Evan is excited to be a big brother! Thanks so much to all of our family and friends who have visited, sent gifts, called and sent well-wishes. We’re lucky to have so many who care about us!

I’m not sure who all has been following along, but today marks the official 37 week point in the gestation of our next offspring. In other words, our baby is welcome to arrive any day now! Like most ladies in her position, Dusty prefers sooner rather than later! The room is ready, the bags are packed and Evan is, as he puts it, “kinda scary!” (sic).

We haven’t gotten around to posting new photos of Evan lately, so we had about a 6 month backlog! Take a look on the photos page. Months 22 through 28 are new.

It’s a musical instrument (somewhat guitar-like) that is often used in Greek music. Would you know one if you heard one? If not, Evan’s got you beat.

A bouzouki has eight strings arranged in pairs and is similar in appearance to a mandolin. The paired strings and tuning create a distinctive sound shared by the mandolin but not by a guitar. On one of Evan’s Wiggles movies, they have a song about Athens in which they briefly introduce and feature a bouzouki.

Well, last night I got out my mandolin to show Evan. He immediately ran over to see it, proclaiming “Zouki! Zouki!” I’d figured he’d think it was a guitar, but his guess was actually much more accurate. A little while later I was cruising youtube for bouzouki videos and found a duet played on a guitar and a bouzouki. Evan heard it and came running down the hall saying “Zouki! Guitar!” He’s known what a guitar is for a few months, but I was impressed that he could tell the difference!

In case the photo below isn’t a dead give-away, Dusty and I are expecting baby #2 late this summer. We’re both very excited, and so is Evan. He’ll pat Dusty’s belly and say “baby!”, but he’ll also do the same for his own belly, so I don’t think he entirely gets it yet!

To answer the questions everyone asks:

• Yes, Dusty’s having morning sickness, except it’s 24 hours a day.
• Yes, we’re going to find out if it’s a boy or girl.
• Yes, we’re going to tell you when we find out.
• No, we won’t tell you what names we’re considering.
• No, either a boy or a girl would be fine.

Actually, on that last one, we’re hoping it will be a boy just on the grounds that agreeing on a girl’s name has been VERY difficult! Right now our gut feeling is that it’s a girl (so, there, we have our prediction in writing). We always knew Evan would be a boy, so we’ve been right every time so far

Today Dusty was reading Evan one of his favorite books. It’s a book about colors, with a kitten on each page dressed up in or sitting amongst some colorful object. When she turned the page, Evan pointed at a purple teddy bear and said “purpie!” From that we knew that he associated that page and bear with the word “purple”, but whether he actually understood the concept and knew the color we weren’t sure.

Later we went shopping for a few things and walked past the toy section in Target. He pointed at the giant cage full of cheapo inflatable balls and asked for one. We rarely get him toys, and he was asking very politely so we wheeled him over next to the bin and asked him to pick which one he wanted. I grabbed several balls out of the bin, but he refused each of them and kept asking “Ball? Ball?” “Which one?”, we asked him. “Purpie!” he said. We handed him the ball and finished our shopping while Evan repeated his excitement over his “purpie ball!” Two and a half bucks to teach a color? Money well spent.

Evan started saying an entirely new word tonight, but we couldn’t figure out what it was… It sounded like “Goy” or “Coy” and he only says it when he holds a phone up to his ear. We just figured out what he was saying. It’s “Korey”, but when has he ever heard that word? We always refer to me as “Daddy.”

Dusty’s old cell phone, which she lost in November, had a voice dialing feature. You hold the phone normally, press a button, then speak the name of the person you want to call. Her new phone has that feature too, but she doesn’t know how to work it, so it’s been a couple of months since that’s happened. Today Dusty’s friend came over and brought her phone back- she’d found it in her car.

Evan immediately picked the old phone up and wandered around the room saying “Koy” in the rather deep tone of voice that Dusty used to voice dial. He doesn’t do that with other phones. He’s very smart… it just took his dumb parents a while to figure it out.

Evan is at the stage where he doesn’t quite know the actual word for everything in his world, but he’s found ways to express what he’s observing or thinking.

Whenever he sees a siren on top of a car, he loudly mimics a fire engine siren: “Woo oo oo!” Any construction equipment reminds him of a Wiggles song, inspiring “Dig dig dig dig!” He knows what a wheel is, though he pronounces it with two syllables: “Whee-uhl!” Finally, anytime anything backs up, whether it’s a car, shopping cart, or himself, he’s learned from the forklifts at Lowe’s to say “Mah Mah Mah Mah”, emulating their backup alerts.

A few days ago, there was a snow plow clearing the cul-de-sac across the street from us. Evan sat in the living room looking out the window and was in the same predicament as a chameleon sitting on a television screen. “Dig dig dig dig, Woo ooo oo! Mah mah mah, dig dig, whee-uhl! Woo ooo, mah mah mah!” It’s good thing there weren’t any animals, balls, or helicopters outside, or he might have exploded!