Meet Violet Ruth Simpson!

 As you can see, IT'S A GIRL!!! and she wasn't shy about letting us all know it.

 Here is her torso on the left and her creepy skull on the right.

 Let's look at something less creepy and rather cute.  Sweet little feet!

And finally a brief little 3D image of her shy little face. You can see just a bit of ear, lips and her nose being shielded by her arm.

So much has happened in these past two weeks. Let's start with the ultrasound. The doctor says she is doing great and the tech said her heartbeat was perfect. The baby is growing fast enough they moved the due date up to 5/23/11.

So we had our boy and girl names picked and when we found out it was a girl, we were suddenly struck with the idea that this was a person, with a name, who we hadn't even met yet.  She never quite showed us her face, and the tech was nice enough to give us a second chance (hence the 4d shot above from a second session). While waiting to go in for the second ultrasound, we paced along the hallway.  There was still snow outside, and the parking lot was still a mess from all the ice stuff we had.  The windows outside were nearly all blocked by construction.  What all of this led to was a nice, quiet, insular moment for the two of us, where we could talk and think about how much closer we were to being a family.

So the name, we had both liked Violet for a long time, well before we had even seriously discussed getting pregnant and although we entertained several others, we eventually concluded it was the most awesome.  Violet was vetted among many strong contenders (names that evoked everything from "serious and studious" to "eccentric and artsy").  We tried to picture what our little girl might be like and for Violet we jotted down "pretty, graceful, kind, and playful."  Which is good because Spencer is kind of clumsy and as he says, "everything else she's pretty much sure to get from her mom."

We wanted to include a family name somehow whether it was a boy or a girl.  If it had been a boy, we had picked a name from Marcy's family and for the girl's name we picked a name from Spencer's family.  For those of you that don't know the Bozemans, it's a large family comprised of Spencer's maternal grandparent, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  There are a lot of grandkids and they're more like siblings due to the close proximity of age and residence (after Spencer came to Alabama in 5th Grade, none of the the families have lived outside of Jefferson county until the various cousins have become college-aged).  Spencer is named after the patriarch, Spencer "Jud" Bozeman and now Violet's middle name come from Ruth Bozeman, Spencer's grandmother (or Nana, as she is known to pretty much everybody). 

So now it's all about shopping for girl stuff.  We had what you could call a "Violet" day last Saturday with 8 intense hours of shopping and registering. We started the day with a trip to 2nd and Charles to pick up some more parenting books. While looking through endless stacks we noticed many "Guides for Mothers" dog-eared and stained with who knows what, while the "World of Fatherhood" books were pristine without the spines even being cracked.  We left with four books, Marcy requesting one of them being selected from those mint condition father books.

Registering at either baby mega stores in B'ham on a Saturday is no walk in the park.  There were waiting lists to receive scan guns, and trying to look at strollers was like running an obstacle course. (I suspect choosing the travel system will be our most difficult task.) Obviously we've been looking at a lot of purple stuff. Even though we are trying to refrain from turning Violet into the poster child for purple flowers, we were finding it hard not to register for everything purple in the store (sorry kid, it's gonna follow you through life most likely). This is the bedding set we ended up purchasing that day. Sure, we'll return it if we find something better, but it seemed too perfect for our little Violet.

 

Yes, we know it's purple flowers, but how can you have a kid named Violet and not have them at least somewhere in her room. It doesn't look as candyland-esque in person, and the nursery walls will not be purple. We're thinking of a light gray, and we will really only be using the bedding and not all that other stuff, plus the carpet is green, so her room will not be vomiting purple.  Speaking of the baby room, Jezebel has officially moved out and Marcy's mom (Jeneane) was awesome to come over this weekend to steam clean the carpet.  The walls are prepped and ready for painting, just have to make that final color choice.

Got a couple more gifts, including from Spencer's mom Jenny.  She had kept a pink blanket given to her by someone who had a feeling Jenny would have a girl (or at least a girl at some point).  30 some odd years later, it looks the blanket will finally have a home with Violet.

I think we are up to speed now. Marcy feels Violet moving more and more everyday and with it comes other little pains and discomforts, but our excitement and joy of being able to picture our little girl has overshadowed everything else.