Rear Ends and Green Things

So, I was rear-ended a couple of weeks ago.

I'd just exited the freeway and was stopped at the light, checking traffic to turn right when I felt a big jolt. I looked behind me and saw a lady in a Lexus SUV saying "Oh no!"
So we exchanged insurance information, and I went on my merry way.

Only to realize I am an idiot.

You know, for months I've been thinking to myself as I'd drive, "I don't really know what to do if I'm ever involved in an accident. Exchange insurance, something, something. I should probably look that up." But I never did. And there I was, ignorant and the victim of a minor collision. Apparently, you ALWAYS want to call the police and have them file a report so there is an official document of what happened. Otherwise, the people at fault can just claim it wasn't their fault, and you're kind of stuck because it's just your word against theirs. It occurred to me to call the police, but I thought, "No one's hurt; she's acknowledging it's her fault; no need to waste anyone's time," but that is idiot thinking. Probably anyone reading this already knows these things. But I didn't.

Luckily, it still all worked out well. She acknowledged fault and contacted her insurance, got us a rental car, and they got our car all fixed up. Dane was really excited about our new, silver car.

It's not a particularly exciting story. The impact wasn't even that hard; it was about like braking harder than usual. I'd kind of been feeling bad about myself for being dumb after it happened because at that point we didn't know if she was going to really take responsibility or not. But then we drove past a serious accident with injuries and stuff and realized that we were really fortunate, especially since I'm pregnant and all.

Speaking of which, we have our ultrasound tomorrow! We're probably not finding out what the baby's sex is, but I am really excited to see its little features and make sure everything is developing healthily. I told Dane, "We're going to see pictures of the baby tomorrow; isn't that exciting!"
He said, "Uh huh. But, not izzattly because I don't want to hear the baby because it's scary."
I'd taken him to my last prenatal appointment, and we listened to the heartbeat. It didn't occur to me until Dane told me he was scared that the loud, windy-sounding thump thump of a baby's heartbeat in utero could sound frightening to a child. Especially when he was probably expecting the baby to say hi or at least cry or something.
Anyway, we'll update about that soon.

P.S. The pregnancy is why this post is titled "rear end" in plural, because my rear end is ever expanding. More details soon.

St. Patrick's Day
A leprechaun visited our house on St. Patrick's Day, leaving his footprints everywhere and one-syllable clues toward some sort of treasure. We helped Dane sound out the clues and went on the exciting treasure hunt:






Where could the next clue be?

Hmm....

(Joel felt quite proud that this picture shows that Dane bears some physical resemblance to him.)
There's the rainbow (and a clue that said "DIG")

A pot of gold!

What a nice leprechaun. And a cute boy.

Finally, my sister-in-law Laurie Jayne commissioned me to make a blessing outfit of lederhosen for her baby boy. Here are the results:


I was happy with how they turned out. And you can even see the baby boy himself modeling his outfit on her blog.

And stay tuned for ultrasound photos!