18 Months Owl

Yup, he's a year and a half old now!  If there is one thing I can say about Sam that no one could ever argue, it's that he has a great personality.  He makes me laugh every day, even when I'm not feeling too good.  The temper tantrums of "why can't I do anything I wanna do?" have begun, but never last long.  He is a very independent little guy, which I guess is a good thing considering my attentions will soon be focused on a newborn.  He loves it when you sit and play with him, but he's often just as happy to be figuring things out on his own.  He will often walk off with a collection of items to sit on his own and fumble around with them.  He refuses to hold my hand while walking, but it's okay if Daddy holds his hand!  He's silly and smart.  He babbles non stop, but hasn't added many words to his vocabulary at all.

And he poops a lot.  A lot.  Like sometimes 7 times a day.  Good Lord.  That should make potty training a treat.

Stuffs He Do:
~  He can stack blocks.  Not just 2 or 3, but rather tall stacks of blocks.  Motor skills are good!
~  He understands how things work and demands that the light switch be flipped on & off while eating his breakfast every morning.
~  Everything is a phone.  If you say "ring ring!" he will pick up whatever is close and say "Hi!"
~  His favorite day of the week is Tuesday because that's library day and he gets to see all his friends!  At the end of the toddler program is the only time he waves and says "Bye" at the same time.  It's adorable and kills me.
~  He is a fruitaholic.  He's learning to like meat.  He hates all things veggie.  He used to love them.  I miss that.
~  The Sprout Good Night Show is our best friend in this house.  It has helped us to inch his bedtime down to 8:45!  I know that sounds late for a wee one, but it's much better than the 9:30-10 that was his norm.  Yay for Nina!

Photo time is hard.  So hard.

These Peter Cotton-tail overalls once belonged to my husband.  They are really cute, although I can't seem to wash the smell of old lady house out of them.  Anyway, the above shows Sam on his 18 month birthday and Morgan on his 1 year birthday!  So cute.

Update with stats from his Dr appointment:

Height is 34.75 inches, 97%

Weight is 25 pounds 7 ounces, 50%

Head size they didn't write down for me, but they did say it's still above the 97%.

So he's staying true to form and growing steadily!

Saturday Photo Round Up

This boy.  Oh, how I loves him.

Opinions and all.

He's not a fan of pants in hot weather.

Which means he's pretty normal.

Even if he is the world's ONLY child that doesn't like forts.

He does, however, like to nap in random soft places.

And, once again, not wear pants.

And I am huge at 29 weeks pregnant!

Reflection

I keep wanting to compare this pregnancy to my last pregnancy.  No secret that this time around things have been a little more uncomfortable for me.  I think mostly because, as odd as this may sound, I'm not as active now that I'm not working.  You would think that chasing after a toddler all day long would be more activity, but no.  Definitely no.  Not with the kind of job I had.  And since I'm not as active I tend to get tired a little quicker and experience more discomfort when trying to do things like rolling around on the floor with Sam.

Tomorrow I will be 28 weeks pregnant.  I was 29 weeks pregnant with Sam during that hectic week leading up to Christmas when we were crazy busy at work.  Then I was laid off at 30 weeks and worked one additional week packing up equipment and years worth of work.  I wonder if I would have the stamina to do that now?  To pack all those boxes of computers up, stack them, and prep them for shipment.  Not sure I could.  At least not without sneaking a nap on my office floor.  (I totally should have done that!)

I've been having cramps on one side of my uterus.  My back is killing me.  I pee constantly out of fear that one of these times I'm just not going to make it to a toilet during a Pencil Neck kicking frenzy.  The indigestion hasn't been as bad as it was with Sam, so YAY!  And thanks to the new mattress we got earlier this year I'm actually sleeping.  And I mean getting quality sleep despite waking up several times a night to pee.  So thankful for that one.

Other than me thinking a lot about pregnancy and having dreams about breast feeding (hello anxiety!) we have been happily busy lately.  Pig roasts, house warming parties, lots of library events, teething molars, a lost toddler war against the coffee table leg, and a Sam that has come down with a nasty head cold with cough.  So here's a few photos to make up for all the words.

Those donkeys are the biggest dogs he's ever seen!

Silly friend without kids gives a baby his OWN ice cream cone.

"Coffee table mean tu me!"

An Unsolicited Review: Addycase

I have this toddler.  This toddler who is an ipad hog.  And this toddler LOVES to get into the istore and try to install things at random.  Kids really do have magic little fingers that can do things on electronic devices in a split second and you have no idea how they did it!  He installed a skee ball game.  At least it's a fun game and it was free.

I've been looking for an ipad case designed to make the ipad more kid friendly.  Something that helped protect it from drops and slams, blocked access to the home button, and wasn't hideous.  After a few searches I found the Addycase!  The ONLY case I found that did all of the above without being military grade protection.  All the kid covers, with the exception of the Addycase, didn't even cover the home button.  Seriously?  That home button is the gateway to all things i-related that you don't want tiny fingers getting at.  What are they thinking when they design these things?

So yeah.  I bought one and have been using it for about 2 weeks at this point.  It's pretty ideal.  The soft rubbery cover has a handle to make holding and carrying it around easier for toddler hands.  It has ports in the case to allow you to use the camera (front and back), use the mute button, and plug it in to charge.  And even though the case does cover the home button, on/off button, and volume controls you can still access them with your adult fingers and a little pressure!  Plus there's no way he could get the cover off.  Not like the cover on my phone which he can remove in 1.3 seconds flat.

Sam has dropped the ipad at least 3 times, thrown in once, and spent probably too many hours playing the couple of apps I went ahead and purchased for him these past 2 weeks.  Nothing broken/cracked/etc.  Like I said, pretty much ideal in design.

Now if only the designers of apps would stop putting buttons in the kid games that lead you DIRECTLY to the istore!  And I'm not talking about just free apps.  Apps that I have paid for have tricksy little buttons attractive to tiny eyes.  But eh, at least the case solves half the problem!

Midsummer, Must Destroy Daddy!

Midsummer's Eve was Saturday!  Of all the odd feast meals the boys have each year this is the one I look forward to the most.  Usually there is dancing under strings of lights hung from the trees in Matt's parents back yard.  A fertility ceremony involving a fire barrel, torches, and flowers.  The possibility (or as Caitlin says the eventual) of an explosion/someone catching on fire/man related accident of epic proportions.  Good times!

However, this year tragedy struck when Matt's grandmother passed away on Thursday.  His only remaining grandparent was lost and his mother was understandably stressed and grieving.  Especially seeing as grandma was currently living at Matt's parents house.  All of this lead to us volunteering our house to be used for the feast meal since it was too late to postpone.  So this year there was no dancing under lights, dangerous fires, or fertility ceremonies.  There's always next year.

Instead there was LOTS of cake!

And then this morning (in between party clean up attempts) Sam and Morgan had a good 'ol fashioned tickle and face smash session.  Some things are too cute not to share.

Then Sam tried to run to me and Morgan pantsed him.

And he was very confused by it.

And Daddy had to help get them drawers back up.

A Little Something 'Bout Pencil Neck

I don't seem to be talking much about this pregnancy.  It's a combination of things.  Busy chasing Sam, not really much to tell, I'm lazy, I can't break out the laptop unless Sam is napping or he rips it apart, and I'm on Facebook this time around.  Up until I was 8 months pregnant and laid off from my job I wasn't a Facebooker.  But yeah, doing a 2 sentence status update with a photo is more in line with my lazy ways.

But, for fear that my precious pigeon pea #2 will read this 20 years from now and wonder "Why the lack of love, Mommy Dearest?" here's an update all about him.

He's growing and healthy and everything checks out.  He's much more active than Sam was.  He didn't give me his first firm kick till week 20 (which Sam did at 18 weeks), but he is constantly flipping and thumping around.  So much so that at our 20 week ultrasound they couldn't get a picture of everything they needed, even after an HOUR of scanning.  So today I went back for a 22 week follow up so they could get that last photo they needed.

No, the last photo they needed was not of his penis.  However, I like to remind myself often of the joy that will be TWO BOYS!  There are some who think I am completely loony for wanting two boys when we only plan on having two kids.  But for me, I really couldn't be happier.  I'm not a girly girl.  And I know if I had a girl she could be just like me and not care about hair bows, curling irons, ballet, and the latest hot boy band.  But. . .what if she did?  I'd have to ship her off every other weekend to my SIL's house just so she could get a dose of girldom.  This, this I am much happier with.  Much more comfy with.  All Hail The Penis!

Other than the most obvious difference (amount of activity) between Sam and Pencil Neck, he also doesn't like for me to eat.  I often go till noon before I realize I haven't had anything to eat or drink.  Even then, even though I might be starving, he sometimes just won't let me eat.  Nothing sounds like something I could manage to swallow and not feel like crap later.  He does love him some french fries!  But Mommy and Pencil Neck cannot survive on potatoes alone.  Oh, and he also hates it when I drink plain water.  Yeah, that's great.  Survival instincts.  He ain't got 'em.

Another funny thing, which I have managed to capture this time around, is that awkward stage of pregnancy where how pregnant you look completely depends upon if the baby is laying towards the front or towards your spine.  It's ridiculous.  5 1/2 months is apparently when this is the most extreme in my baby gestating.  Look and be SHOCKED!

Bedtime, kid pushing out my belly 'cause he's in the front.

Next morning, looking much smaller 'cause he's resting against my spine.

And that's about it for right now!  I have not started organizing and washing all Sam's baby clothes because I still have months to go till labor.  Kinda pointless since I would just feel that nesting urge to wash them again.  When Sam teeters over to me and grabs my belly to either headbutt it or give me a good shake we tell him "That's right!  Tell little brother to wake up!".  But of course he doesn't understand what we're telling him.  The arrival of the new baby will probably be quite the shock to him.  But I think he'll handle things just fine since, aside from the headbutting and stuffed animal choking, he's a rather gentle little guy.

And so the countdown till mid October begins!

Ketchup Monday!

So, yeah.  I have this blog where I write about things and stuff so I can help myself to remember the awesome times while entertaining the 5 people who trickle by to look at cute baby photos.  Speaking of whom - Hey, cute baby photo seekers, this post won't disappoint!

So Saturday before last we went to Cowan's Gap with friends for a BBQ and swimming.  Now, if you will recall, last year when Sam was 5 or 6 months old this didn't go so well.  He hated the water! My, oh my, how things can change in a year.  This time he loved it, didn't want to leave, didn't care that the water was cold, and was chasing after other little boys and trying to play with them.  Totally adorables.

Totally in love with Karen after she gave him Doritos.

Passed out after a long day of play!

Then we jump forward to Friday, June 7th.  Our anniversary.  5 years ago we did the "I do" thing, 7 years ago we did the "Yes, I'll marry you" thing, and almost 10 years ago we did the "Hey, you wanna get dinner sometime?" thing.  We celebrated by having my mom babysit, going to my 20 week anatomy ultrasound, going out to dinner, window shopping and ice cream, and seeing the new Star Trek movie!  What a GREAT day!  I mean, really!  I was on cloud 9. 

Fist pump!

It's A Boy!!

Yeah, the fact that I am carrying around a little boy had MORE than a little to do with how happy I was on our anniversary!  I may have confused our waitress with my happy and random "Penis!" outbursts during dinner.  Morgan kept laughing at me and my hyper joy, but he was just as happy as I was.  It's just, you know, he's a man.  He instead expressed his excitement by poking my side and belly during my exam after Pencil Neck thrusted his hips forward to reveal his wiener.

Ever since I have been day dreaming of bunk beds, living room wrestling matches, and scruffy little boys who come home so dirty after a summer day of play that they have to be hosed off before they can walk inside.  I'm so excited!