brought to you by the number 22

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write this post for almost a week now but just haven’t found the time. I’m currently at work, taking my automatically deducted 30 minute break and thought this would be as good a time as any to finally get to writing. As of this week Jackson is 22 months old and I am 22 weeks pregnant. Pretty fun stuff, huh? We’ll start with a Jackson update.

First of all can we talk about how we’re 2 months away from my child being 2 years old?!? I don’t want to talk about it.

Oh Jackson. Where do I even begin with this boy. He’s intense and gentle all at the same time. He listens well and pushes limits. He eats me out of house and home and barely touches a thing. Life with a toddler is anything but boring and I honestly love every minute of it. I was just thinking earlier today how easy it is to be his mom and how I’m not sure I’m ready to start all over again in a few months J Some new things going on in Jackson’s world include learning ABC’s. He can go up to G all on his own. I wish I could put a voice clip of his ‘f’ on here. It sounds like AWWF – it’s hilarious. Equally funny is that when he recites the alphabet after me he will try to say every letter except for J. Instead it goes like this:

Me: I

Jackson: I

Me: J

Jackson: that.

Me: No, say J

Jackson: that.

So, future kindergarten teacher, if my child says, “…g, h, i, that, k, l” well, we tried. Anyway, we work on our ABC’s every day and he knows which one is the last one he can make it to because he enunciates it twice as loud and long as the others (currently GEEEEEEEEEEEE) and immediately starts clapping for himself and then expects a high five from everyone in the room. Hey, positive reinforcement is the way to go in our house! We’re still slowly but surely easing our way into potty training. Here’s the deal with that – if the boy stays naked he goes in the potty every.single.time. Both #1 and #2. Seriously, every time, no accidents. BUT, if you have a diaper or a pull up on him you can forget it, he’ll take convenience over the aforementioned positive reinforcement any day. We obviously can’t go naked all the time so we still have a long way to go. I’m not going to push it until he’s at least two. Good grief, let him be my baby for a little while longer! Ben and I have noticed for some time now that he is aware of quantity. He now refers to things as one, two or ten. He gets one and two right on the money but if anything has more than two, like from 3 to 23432 it’s automatically 10. Makes sense.
I just can’t tell you how much I love being his mom. Watching him grow into this amazingly complex, ultra personality filled being is such an honor. I remember Ben telling me about reading Wild at Heart and I see so many aspects of being a ‘wild man’ in Jackson. He just really lives life to its fullest every day. This usually means I’m saying no to him 483 times a day but man – what zeal…I love that.

As for me, I’m 22 weeks along…well 22 weeks and 6 days as I write this. Nonetheless, I’m trucking along quite nicely. Now that I’m not sick anymore I can honestly say that I love being pregnant. I amazingly started to feel this baby move around 16 weeks. With Jackson I was at least 22, maybe even 23 weeks before I felt anything. He seems to be a lot more active than I remember Jackson being. I hope that’s not foreshadowing of what’s to come. I don’t know if I can handle two wild men. Heaven help us all. I go back to the dr when I’m 24 weeks to do that nasty glucose screening. I hate having to drink that stuff. Worst part is I failed the first screening with Jackson by 2 whole points so I had to go in and do the super long one where they draw your blood every half hour for 3 hours. By the time it was over I was so shaky that I started licking sugar packets once we got to IHOP afterward (we had to be at the lab at 630am and didn’t leave until 10). Thankfully I passed the second time around and didn’t have to be put on that super restrictive diet. Here’s hoping I just pass the first time around with this one. Please Lord. Speaking of diet I’ve done nothing but crave junk food. How fab is that? I’m trying to keep my weight gain under 25 lbs and all I can think about are chips, big macs and sour gummy worms. Geez. It really isn’t like me to crave that stuff. I love healthy food. Honestly. But, since being prego, not so much. We had grilled fish, brown rice and steamed veggies the other night, one of my favorite meals, and I had to choke it down. Although I do love being pregnant (for the second half anyway), it will be nice to be me again… whatever stretched out, hormone crazed, sleep-deprived remnant of my former self that might be anyway.

Hope ya’ll are doing well.