Prebble Family Tales

So this is it. We’re down to eight possible names for Child 2. Seven of them have been discussed between Brandy and me. One was just now added by me, and I’m hoping for good results.

In the spirit of democracy, the names are presented in poll format for your feedback. We reserve all rights to ignore the outcome of this poll.

 Loading ...

Make your selection, and help us get past our name block.

UPDATE: Brandy feels it is only proper that I reflect her favorites in the list, even though I’m not a fan of them. Don’t let that influence your voting, though.

… boy!

Yes, much to the dismay of all the matriarchs hoping we would produce something featuring a double X chromosome, we found out today that we will be having a boy this October.

We were also provided about 20 photos, including one that explicitly pointed out the, uh, protrusion that proves the child’s maleness.  I’ll try to get those scanned in soon.

We’ve struggled for a while now with Gareth to get him to stop kicking us when he wants attention.  He does it largely because his legs are stronger and they have longer reach.  Of course, he has also learned that he gets an immediate reaction to kicks.

So imagine the confusion when we tell him kicking is bad but then talk about how good it is that the baby is kicking.

In the future, we will be referring to the percussion of the unborn as “moving”.  As in, “the baby is moving” instead of “the baby is kicking”.  This should clear up any confusion.

And I bring all this up only because we can now externally feel the “moving” of the baby.

A hearty congratulations goes out to one Frances Jackson who successfully registered for an account on this blog without requiring technical support. She now has the capability of leaving comments.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

On second thought, no, don’t give us any more heat.

Gareth earned some respect today for enduring the usual innings at his Miracle League game today. We could barely take the heat on the bleachers, so I can’t imagine what it was like for Gareth to be sitting in a black padded wheelchair seat in zero shade for two hours.

The good news is that the sunscreen he used was awesome. No burns at all.

After baseball, we went to as many places with air conditioning as we could find – Friendly’s, Dick’s, Ross, Target, Barnes. Yes, today became a “shop to get out of the heat” trip.

It probably didn’t take you long to figure out that the whole Sir Gareth blog has changed. For those who want the technical details, we’re transitioning from Nucleus to WordPress.

Some things still need shifted around (entries prior to a year ago have some problems with images), but this is what we’ll use going forward. With this change comes the return of comment functionality, though you’ll need to register an account to do it (click on Login on the bottom left, then click Register).

So why the shift? Well, that’s easy. With another addition on the way, it seemed silly to have the blog devoted to Gareth. And it also seemed silly to start up a second blog for Child 2. And while we’re at it, don’t you want to know about what happens to us, the wonderful parents? Of course you do! So now the blog is “Prebble Family Tales” instead of “Tales of Sir Gareth”.

Mind you, if you don’t care about the rest of us, you can still just click the Gareth category on the left to see only the items about him. If you want to be that way.

We had an opportunity to try Gareth in a power wheelchair yesterday. It was incredibly short notice, but we couldn’t pass it up.

It was a Quantum 1107 Dynamo chair in a green very similar to Gare’s bike. We got him strapped him, gave him the basic info on how the joystick works, and then watched him lose all control as he locked his arms in excitement. After a bit of work, he was wheeling around under his own direction, though we had to help hold his elbow still so he could keep his hand on the stick.

The specialist who brought the chair wants to set us up with two more test drives so that she can bring along some accessories that will help with Gare’s arm placement. We’re pretty optimistic that this will work for Gareth in the long term. Which means that we’ll have to garner a similar level of optimism for acquiring a wheelchair accessible van.

Power wheelchairs are heavy.

Saturday marked Gareth’s inaugural participation in the fine sport of baseball. He is playing for the Yankees in the Miracle League of Blair County.

He got up to bat twice (as did all the other kids) and scored two runs.

We are now debating whether or not to add HGH to his Pediasure.

Enjoy some photos.

This week is turning out to be rather eventful. It started with an afternoon spent waiting to see the elephants unloaded from the Ringling Bros. train near the Nittany Mall. We managed to just barely make it into a photo in the CDT – you can clearly see our legs through the underbelly of an elephant.

The next day, Gareth went on a field trip to the Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center out at Stone Valley. I don’t have any good details on that since he was asleep when I got home from work, but all indications are that he had a great time.

And tomorrow we head to Philadelphia so Gare and I can geek out over the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute.

For those who don’t follow the bike blog, Gareth made an appearance at the Bellefonte Middle School Make-A-Wish fundraiser a couple weeks ago. The whole family went, actually. And we took his bike.

Brandy and I were introduced as former students (which we are) and my old math teacher managed to rip on the fact that I was nearly bald. I did my schtick, got us off the stage, and then we danced for a little bit before heading home.

Gareth has acclimated to his glasses rather well. He doesn’t fight them at all and continues to tell us that he is seeing everything better than before. I can’t wait to see his reaction the first time he wears them on a bike ride!

In two weeks, we’re all heading to Philadelphia to check out the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Should be a fun trip, at least for yours truly.