An Earthquake, Lorenzo, and a Baby Name!

Earthquake

Today has been one of those misc. kind of days, so this posting today will be something of a misc. post.  For many of you living in Cincinnati, you have probably heard of or even felt this morning's earthquake.  Registering in at a 5.2 on the Richter Scale, this earthquake was centered in eastern Illinois, but was felt a few hundred miles away.  Nicholas woke up this morning at 5:30 screaming, so Brandon was coaxed out of bed to get up with him this morning.  I was incredibly tired, so I stayed in bed, but just a few moments later I felt our bed shaking.  At first I thought that it was Brandon moving around downstairs, shaking the whole house, but that didn't make sense.  I have also frequently been dizzy with this pregnancy, so I thought it might be a little vertigo, but then I realized it wasn't in my mind when I heard the house creak.  I thought a tree had fallen on us, but when I got downstairs, I realized that didn't make much sense because I probably would have heard the tree fall.  So, I laid down on the couch to explain all of this to Brandon, who was looking at me like "if you were going to get up anyway, why am I awake?"  Out of habit, I turned on the news, and moments later a breaking news report came on reporting the earthquake.  It was a relief to know I wasn't going out of my mind!  Poor Brandon was a bit jealous because he didn't feel/hear anything!  So, it was an interesting start to our Friday.

Lorenzo

I've mentioned Nicholas's teddy bear Lorenzo before, but I discovered today that Lorenzo must be Nicholas's best friend, even ahead of Mommy and Daddy!  I went grocery shopping after Brandon got home from school and Nicholas went down from a nap.  When I pulled up to the house upon returning, I could hear Nicholas screaming inside.  The poor boy is teething again, so I thought that maybe he was just being cranky about that.  I asked Brandon how long he'd been doing this, and he told me that Nicholas had been screaming for about 10 minutes.  I tried to calm him down, but he just wanted to stand at the bottom of the stairs and scream.  I thought that meant he wanted to go upstairs and play, which I didn't want to do, so I tried to distract him by reading to him and cuddling him.  This worked only for a minute.  Then I had a burst of Mom-inspiration and asked Brandon to go get Lorenzo out of the crib.  As soon as Nicholas saw his bear, the tears stopped, and he has pretty much been a happy boy for the last two hours.  And he's still holding onto Lorenzo!

Baby Name

Brandon and I have officially decided on a name for our baby girl.  We will be calling her Renae Autumn Brooks.  We don't have any specific reasons for the name other than we both really like it, and it just seemed to fit.  In two days I will be at 20 weeks, so we're pretty much halfway there!  (And are as excited as can be!)