I just want to put out there...

...my husband is the best man I've ever known. He drives me mad sometimes, but I love him so much. He takes great care of us. He is loving, and kind, and goofy, and sweet. Sometimes he's tactless, but that just makes him more lovable. He's incredibly attractive, and physically very attentive. He puts up with all my crap and loves me for it. I'm a lucky ducky. That is all.

There's this little tiny detail...

...that no one seems to understand: I am a HUGE dork. I get really excited, I express myself fully, often forgetting that I should use a social filter.
   I've been stressed. This weekend I got a string of great news, and I'm feeling much better. I also got Girl Scout cookies. And the mother helping her daughter sell them gave me her number and asked me to call her so we can hang out. We have a lot in common. She has a two-year-old daughter as well as the older one selling the cookies, I have a son the same age. We're both 28 weeks pregnant. We go to the same midwives. We're both pretty awkward and giggly. It was nice to meet someone that didn't think I was a total spaz, especially another mother. Most moms think I'm a weirdy. I let my son have princess sippies and wear capes and MLP stuff in public and encourage my son to ask a million questions and never shut up. I wear my bun off to one side of my head and I smile too much, too big, and I wear bright colors and I'm as loud and energetic and random as my toddler.
   I was positively giddy at the prospect of a new mom friend in my area. I still don't have many friends here. It's a bummer. I get kind of lonely. Brandon was laughing at me. What started as me never being able to say no to a Girl Scout, especially one peddling Samoas and Thin Mints, turned into me having an awesome conversation with a perfectly sweet stranger. It was lovely. And her little girl was sassy. It was adorable. She didn't cut my darling husband any slack. We bought 3 boxes of cookies, and she got a cream soda out of him. It was perfect.
   I'm in love with my impossibly handsome man. He's great. He drives me insane, but he's the best man in the world. And his hair looks really awesome today. I want to do horrible things to that man, later. Right now though, I'm going to fall asleep to some true crime documentaries about killers.

The thing about boys...

   I have one child, currently. Just my perfect little boy. I can't really say if this describes girls, but I know this description is accurate for my little boy.
   I've talked to moms in a pregnancy forum that so desperately want girls and are terrified of having little boys. I have no idea how this is possible. My little boy is in-freaking-credible. I've heard women describing boys as rambunctious, inattentive, loud, gross, more difficult to teach and discipline, and basically described as being a creature of great difficulty with little foreseeable reward for people that do not have one of their own. As the proudest mother of a little boy, I would like to give a completely honest representation of what it is REALLY like.
   My son is precocious, rambunctious, noisy, and random. Yes. It's true. Little boys are all of those things. But it's more than that. He's passionate in the most innocent way. He really loves with every bit of his great big heart. It doesn't matter if he's pouring that love into a picture he draws for me, proudly proclaiming, "I drew a big doggy!" He could be pouring that love into playing cowboys with the dog, or saving a princess, or just being with Brandon and I, snuggled up on the couch. Everything he does, he does because he adores it, and he's proud of everything he chooses to do. Some days I'm busy, and I forget how much he cares and tries to make me proud of him, and I don't acknowledge him with my full attention, and it hurts him, but he doesn't get mad or throw a fit or cry. He just gets very quite and walks away until I realize that I made him sad, and then he shows me the picture he drew or a new "cool trick" he practiced just for me. I love that about him. I love how freely he loves and how unconditional and forgiving he is.
   His noise is such beautiful noise. He plays his guitar, bangs on pot drums, sings songs, makes sounds effects to the games he plays, tells great big stories, and asks a million questions. Before he was born, I relished the quiet. Now I miss his noise when he's gone. It makes me smile. Even the sound of his breathing when he sleeps makes me happy. I'm not going to lie, there are days when I'm stressed and overwhelmed that I just want ten minutes of silence, but when I have it, I realize the empty space in my head that is normally occupied by his happy noise. It's not like he's a walking junior high garage metal band that practices 24/7. His noise is the noise of a happy toddler figuring out his universe and finding joy in everything.
   He's so full of energy. He runs and jumps and ninja fights. He's full of life. He's not ill-behaved. I know I can take him to the store and trust him to stay near me, keep his voice down, stay out of other shoppers' way, and not pull things off the shelves. I can trust him to know the difference between how it's acceptable to behave at the book exchange versus the park. He's brilliantly smart, so while yes, he IS a rambunctious handful sometimes, I love that I can take him to the park and let him play until he's so exhausted he can't stand anymore. He wants us to be proud of him, so it was easy to explain appropriate behavior. Sometimes he forgets and takes off down a store aisle, but a quick reminder and he's back to being my sweet, well-behaved baby, staying near the cart and walking. It might be that I have a pretty easy toddler, but he's so easy to redirect and discipline. He just wants to make us happy, get a high-five and a hug that squeezes the air out of him.
   He can be pretty gross. He's often sticky. He likes to try to eat thinks like apples in ketchup. He eats candy he finds in the crannies of his car seat. He jumps in puddles of mud. He giggles when he farts. He's a toddler. And he's a boy. And his mother is a tom-boy. And his father is equally gross. He loves bath time, brushing his teeth, and is really particular about not wearing clothes that get stuff on them. That's good enough for me. He's uninhibited and plays rough, gets dirty, and laughs off bumps and scrapes. At the end of the day he smells nice and wants a cuddle and a kiss.

Netflix! Why?!

   I just watched the final episode of the UK version of Being Human on Netflix. Now I have to wait and see if they get more. The one really big flaw of having Netflix instead of TV is that I get hooked on these shows, and can't keep up because I have to wait to watch the new ones for an incredibly long period of time. It SUCKS. I might have to just download the new episodes, the season I haven't seen. It's an awesome show. The US version is ok, but I adore the UK version of the show. It's fantastic.
   My neighbor has been bugging me. I'm not sure how to go about telling him that I really can't stand him. I try so hard to be courteous and neighborly, but I really don't want to be friends with him. We've lived here over a year now, and he still keeps trying to be friendly. I fundamentally disagree with him on pretty much everything. He's a white supremacist bag of assholes, a day-drinker, a junkie, and pig. He's disrespectful and drives me insane. All he talks about is sleeping with women in the most derogatory manner imaginable, and how much he hates his family. I'm on the verge of telling him to just disappear, giving up on being neighborly completely. I don't want people like that around my son. It would be different if he wasn't such a douche canoe.
   Brandon gets paid tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked to go grocery shopping. We're getting pretty low on food, and I much prefer having a full pantry. Brandon caught what Cooper and I got, so I'll be getting him some stuff to help him suffer through the worst of it. I finally seem to be getting over it, and Cooper is coughing a lot less, so we're FINALLY doing better. This winter. Ugh.
   I'm in the third trimester. Time to really start preparing. I'm getting really excited. I'm nervous, too. I can't wait to find out if we have a daughter or a son. I'm eight or nine kinds of stoked. I wish we'd have more help in the beginning though. I'm nervous being so isolated from anyone that can help us with the new baby and Cooper. I hope I can do it all on my own.

I love my darling son.

   He's been sick. We all have, but he's taking a little longer to get over it. It seems like we've been sick a lot more this winter than every before, and now winter's over I'm hoping this will be the last time we get sick this year. Meanwhile I've been pumping Cooper full of hot green and white teas with lots of honey, juice, and water. He's staying hydrated, darn it! He's still playing a lot during the day, but he's tired faster. Instead of taking a nap from 2-4 he's been going down at 12 and waking up around 5 or 6, and then going to bed on time and sleeping all night. I'm letting him sleep as much as he can, and have been making stuff that's easy on his throat to eat, like eggs and other soft foods. I've been putting Vicks on him at night to help him sleep without coughing, and he seems to be doing better. He's coughing less, anyway. We've spent almost a week watching cartoons in our jammies with the couch full of bedding. We've painted toe nails and colored a lot. I made cookies the other day with him just to get him up.
   About the middle of the week we needed to go to the store, and he begged to stop at the playground on the way, so I let him play himself out. He's RAN for 2 hours. Up and down the equipment, on the swings, just playing so hard. I feel bad because I know he hates being cooped up and being sick has meant staying indoors, so I let him just play. He was exhausted, and it seemed to make his coughing worse. I was hoping the fresh air would be good for him. No dice. So now we know, I shouldn't give in and let him play outdoors like a maniac when he's sick. I know it seems like common sense, but I really did think that maybe the fresh air would help, and he was so desperate to play. I kind of feel like a crummy mom.
   I'm feeling BIG. I couldn't button my usually oversized saggy cardigan today. I love big round pregnant bellies. I don't just look bloated. I look all pregnant and adorable. I just wish my skin would chill the hell out. There is no reason for it to break out as if I smear Country Crock on it twice a day. Overall I'm liking the way I look right now, though, which is nice. I like being confident in my appearance. I think liking myself also sets a good example for Cooper. I want him to like himself and know that it's not only ok, but GOOD to be self-confident.
   I was reading some current events and there are two that kind of got to me, on completely different levels for totally different reasons. One being Justin Bieber and the Anne Frank guest book. Ok, so while I DO think what he wrote was self-serving, immature, and disrespectful, I don't think he should be bashed to the level that he's being. I hate his music and think he's a ridiculous public figure, but not for being basically a young man. He did something that is so classically young, stupid behavior, I can't really judge him. He was egocentric, tactless, and thoughtless, but I don't think he was intentionally being any of those negative things. I think he's just a young kid that put his foot in his mouth. It was stupid, but honestly, not unreasonable.
   The second thing is the Boston Marathon explosions. My heart goes out to the victims. I hope they figure out the cause, and every bit of me hopes it was a freak accident, and not some bomb. Either way, it was tragic and horrific, and I wish the survivors speedy recoveries and the families of the deceased all the strength to carry on as best they can.
   I'm off to watch Samurai Jack with Cooper. I want to enjoy every moment of his innocence. I hope nothing that terrible ever touches close to home.

IDGAF TONIGHT!

   I have been soooo good. I've met and exceeded my nutritional goals all week, I've picked healthier options even when I really, REALLY wanted to eat nothing but buttered peas and toast with jam. Tonight Brandon and Cooper can have leftovers for dinner if they are so inclined. I myself and frying up a big batch of carnival-style scones with raspberry honey butter. I'm going to eat one bigger than my head, and if I'm still hungry, I'll eat another. I don't even care right now. My midwife appointment went fabulously, I'm healthy, baby is healthy, and we're right on track. I get to have one night where instead of a meal, I'm eating dessert. Deep fried, golden brown, crisp on the outside, fluffy and bready and soft on the inside, dripping with sticky golden honey butter dessert goodness.
   Tonight, yeah, it's going to be a good night.

Today is a much better day.

   We all got some much needed sleep, and are in top form. It's nice. Cooper is being his usual, fun-loving, mellow self. Now that it's warming up we're spending a lot of time outside. He is my little sunshine boy. He would much rather be outside in the sun and the dirt than indoors watching TV. He's already getting a little tan, and I'm going to have to start sun-blocking him like crazy more than once a day here pretty soon.
   He's such a funny little thing. He loves to be helpful. He wants to help do dishes and laundry and pick up the living room. It makes him feel good to be helping me. We high-five a lot, and turn the music up really loud and dance and do productive things, and then we go outside and have a snack and he rides his bike all over the place. Some days are hard. Some days are really hard. some days being a parent is like running the gauntlet of madness. The majority of days make up for it a million fold, though. I love my little goon. My little sunshine baby.
   Baby 2 is getting big. I can feel a lot more movement, and it's awesome. It seems like time is slowing down the closer I get to being done. I'm 15 weeks away from my due date and Brandon's birthday, and I'm just starting to get hit with reality, that we're having another baby, and that it's approaching rapidly. The more reality creeps in, the slower the days go, as if to say, "Oh, you are getting really excited and anxious? Let's see how long you can survive these feelings as their intensity increases before your head explodes."
   Today has been a burning curiosity day, too. I want to meet this baby and find out if it's a boy or a girl, get to know them, watch them figure out how to be a person, watch their personality grow every day. I want both of my children to know how very much I love them and watching them become whoever they turn out to be. I hope they know that.
   I think I'm starting too many projects lately. I need to s    l    o    w        d    o    w    n. I've picked two to focus on. The cloth diapers, and our garden. Brandon is really excited, and told me yesterday that he's already budgeted in everything we need for a big container garden this year. I'm really excited. Saturday we're going to the street market downtown and I'm going to start getting local plants. I want at least 4 types of heirloom tomatoes, 2 types of strawberries, 3 types of peppers, my usual 8-10 herbs, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, peas, and maybe blueberries. I was also thinking about doing onions and garlic this year. Who knows. It depends on how ambitious I'm feeling as far as how big the garden gets this year. I might even grow more things if possible.
   I think everyone should grow things at some point. Especially produce. There is something so rewarding about making things grow and getting to eat a warm tomato picked fresh or juicy strawberries still dewey from being watered. I think Cooper is really going to like helping. We're going to get him a little Cars gardening set with a "gas can" watering can, a pair of little gloves, and a trowel. I'll teach him how to prune and care for one of the plants that will just be his. I'm thinking a tomato plant, since he LOVES tomatoes, and they are pretty easy to take care of. He'll like that.
   Cooper's napping, so I'm going to hop in a shower while I can.

Today is one of the tougher ones.

   I'm 25 weeks pregnant. I'm getting round, and gaining weight, and it's starting to get more noticeable in my daily life. I can't bend as well, I'm short of breath more frequently, I'm tired all the time, and between the hormones and the lack of sleep lately I'm also pretty cranky.
   Yesterday was fantastic. Cooper had so much fun. All the other kids there were a fair bit older than him, but he had a good time anyway. He primarily hung out with his older aunts and cousins anyway. I'm talking the ones in high school or college. Jojo is his favorite person on the planet right now. He followed her around off and on all day in between activities. It was pretty cute. The party was fun. There wasn't a whole lot of non-dairy foods, so I was pretty hungry by the end, but Cooper loved it, and it was a blast watching him run and play and learn and get to experience the holiday fresh. He doesn't remember his first two Easters.
   My family has a tradition for the egg hunt every year, called the booby egg. Basically, there are all the bright, pretty, candy-filled eggs for the hunt, and then there is one REALLY ugly hard-boiled egg. It's dyed to be as ugly and gross looking as possible. It's always the hardest egg to find, and some years it takes HOURS before some clever little kid unearths it's hiding spot. The person who does, gets a bunch of money. Since Cooper was the very youngest by a few years, he didn't even really understand the egg hunt. Instead of running around getting as many as he could, he was fixated on meticulously getting every egg that the faster kids had missed, and he opened them to find out their contents before putting them in his little bag. Of the nearly 500 eggs between 12 kids, he maybe got 25. But he got all the ones hidden in the trees that the other kids bolted past, all the ones tucked away in the flower beds or nestled in bushes. Once all the plastic eggs had been found, the hunt for the booby egg began, and all the bigger kids started searching high and low.
   I told Cooper there were no more eggs to find, and that we should go play a game, and we started the walk around the VERY LARGE (about the size of my house) koi pond that had 7 or 8 HUGE koi fish. It was so big it was also stocked with crappie, and a bunch of the older kids and their parents were catch-and-release fishing earlier in the day, and catching craw dads. As we were walking around the pond, Cooper saw a pole that was still in the water. All the other had been packed up, and this one was still out in the water, unattended. Cooper LOVES fishing, and got so excited. We didn't bring his fishing pole because we didn't know there was going to be any fishing, so he didn't get to fish earlier. It was my uncle's pole, so I hollered up that Cooper wanted to fish, and asked if I could help him use Marshall's pole. He got a huge grin and he and my uncle Seth both hollered back to let him fish. So I did. I held the pole steady since it was much bigger than Cooper's little pole, and he reeled it in and was just tickled that he would get to cast it and catch some fish.
   As he's reeling there is something silver on the end of the line, and I laughed and told him, "Look, baby! You caught a can! That's good. The fish don't like trash in their pond." Yeah. It wasn't a can. They had put the booby egg in a sandwich bag, then sealed it with duct tape, and put it at the end of the line, in the water. So Cooper found the booby egg. The bigger kids were PISSED, and kept trying to get him to give it to them, and kept asking me, "What is a baby going to do with all that money? You're his mom. You can tell him to give it to one of us." He just kept saying no, and went back to fishing. Meanwhile all the adults emptied their pockets of change and small bills into the pot as per tradition. Cooper made $24.09. I'm going to round it up to $25 and take him to get something special when we're in Boise on Thursday. Maybe I'll let him take it with him to his grandma's so she can take him to pick something out. Whatever he wants to do, really. It's his money. Little squirt found it fair and square.
   After the party, Cooper was supposed to stay the night at my mom's, but she called around 9 and asked if she could bring him home, because he was homesick. After spending a few nights with dad and Jo he wanted to be home with us. I got on the phone and talked to him and he was so sad. He said he wanted to come home and wake up with momma and have dinner at the table and sleep in his bed. He was crying. So I told him he's ALWAYS allowed to come home, and to get his shoes on so grandma can bring him back. He wasn't eating at my mom's because he was so upset, so she picked up McDonalds on the way and we all had dinner when they got home. He was so happy to be home. He kept saying, "I missed you, momma! So bad!" I kept telling him he can always come home no matter what, because we loved and missed him, too. That seemed to make him feel better. He stayed up until after midnight watching movies with us in our bed. Then Brandon and I stayed up. And then Brandon couldn't sleep so I woke up to help him relax and got him the Tylenol for his broken tooth. And then this morning I got up, found his work stuff, and made his lunch. I'm tired and cranky today. It's been a lonnnggg day. One of those days where I have to remind myself to take a deep breath and not be a grouch.
   I'm thinking I'm going to hit the hay early tonight. I need it.