Whew!  Harry is 19 months old today--that means he is closer to the age of two than he is to one!  He is currently a little under the weather with a gross nose (he is really fed up with me trying to keep it clean!) and an occasional cough.  Poor little guy!  He seems to be in good spirits most of the time despite the fact that he probably isn't feeling too swell. 

What's new with the little guy:

• He picks up new words daily!  There are too many to list, but they are mainly things that you say to him and he repeats.  The cutest ones I can think of are:  Dorothy (Elmo's goldfish), Big Bird, drop ball (after I told him he dropped a golf ball), and he said Mommy, Daddy, Baby while looking at a picture of me, Travis, and him shortly after he was born. 
• He can put puzzles together!  Okay, so what if they are only 3 pieces and have huge knobs on them?  I was still really excited for him!
• His motor skills seem to improve on a daily basis!  He can climb on the couch or chairs in record time and gets up the stairs faster and faster.  I also noticed one day that he can remove and replace the cap on a skinny pen really well (with close supervision of course, don't want him writing on walls/poking an eye out).  I know that doesn't sound all that impressive, but it was cool to watch him do it! 
• He loves the Wii!  Travis and I get a good work out playing it when he is around because he won't let you turn it off!  He even gets the controllers out of the drawer and hands them to us when he wants us to play.  So cute!

I forgot to relay a particularly cute story that happened a few weeks ago.  I was getting him ready for bed after a bath and I held up 2 pairs of pj's and was trying to get him to pick which ones he wanted to wear.  He said something that I didn't understand, but he kept saying the same thing over and over again so I knew he wasn't just babbling.  I finally figured out that he was saying no to something.  I said "no what, honey??" "No pjs!" he said.  Travis and I about lost it.  It was one of the cutest moments ever!  We all (including Harry) had a good laugh over that one.  I love those moments when he is trying to communicate something to me in words and I acutally understand him!  Granted, I will totally be retracting that statement in a year or two but for right now it is really fun!

Tomorrow evening we will be headed down to Nana and Poppy's house for a much needed week of vacation/spoiling!  We are excited to have a week of chill-out time.  I am also excited to see how Harry likes a real Thanksgiving dinner.  Last year on Thanksgiving was the first time he had ever eaten meat (turkey with sweet potatoes baby food), so this year's dinner will be much tastier!  We have so much to be thankful for this year, it will be awesome to have time to sit and reflect on that.  And stuff our faces at the same time!

Baby boy #2 update:  24 weeks and counting!  We had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and everything seems to be progressing perfectly.  This includes the size of my belly!  After a poor showing in the weight gain department the first half of the pregnancy, I somehow managed to pack on about 7 pounds in one month which brings the overall total to about 12 pounds (gained in 8 weeks!)  Yikes!  I am almost totally in maternity clothes now, but I can still wear some of my tops and scrubs for work.  Travis finally has been able to feel him move as he was going absolutely crazy during church last week.  Maybe that was due to our ritual of stopping for Krispy Kremes for breakfast on the way to church every Sunday??

Sorry for the extreme lag in posting...work has been picking up a lot of steam with flu season coming on and end-of-year vacations and Travis has been plugging away at work to try to avoid working when we take our own much needed vaction during Thanksgiving week!  And this whole pregnancy thing tends to zap my energy most days, so there's my lame list of excuses!

Harry has been an extreme joy and a huge handfull all at once lately!  You never know what you're going to get with him.  As the title states, he has very specific opinions about everything, although unpredictable!  Eating has been hit or miss again.  The only things he seems to eat everytime they are offered is fruit (and probably candy/goldfish/Teddy Grahams if we offered those at every meal, but we don't!).  What is funny is that he sometimes won't eat something the way it is given to him, but will eat it if you try a different presentation.  For example, he might not eat a sandwich if you cut it up for him, but he will eat it if he can take bites.  However, don't get used to that rule because he will change his mind the next day.  I'm grateful that for the most part Travis and I are both pretty laid back because his antics really don't bother us all that much.  We both realize that it's part of being a kid and he would eat whatever it was in any style of presentation if he was truly hungry enough.  I will, however, if it comes to fixing multiple meals will draw the line at that! 

His teeth are continuing to come in rapid fire style!  He started cutting all 4 molars at once, and yesterday I noticed his top 2 canine teeth are coming in too!  Poor guy.  He keeps his fist in his mouth a lot of the day so I know they are hurting.  It doesn't seem to affect his mood much so I am glad about that.  He also seems to enjoy his nightly dose of ibuprofen too!  Getting new teeth changes his appearance so much, so I know when he finishes off this mouthful of teeth he will look even more like a little boy instead of a baby!

Harry is also currently going through a stage that for some reason I thought we would avoid---separation anxiety.  Majorly!  I guess I thought he would be so used to being left with Katrina and Mom that he wouldn't know any better, but I was wrong.  Some days are worse than others, like the day I dropped him off at Katrina's and I could hear him screaming and dramatically pound on the door.  It gets bad too when I can not only hear him crying, but he also yells "Mommy!  Mommy!"  It's rough.  I don't even want to think about how hard it will be to leave 2 behind. To perhaps remedy the situation in the future, Travis and I are making a real, concerted effort to get some aspects of our finances the way we want them so that I can cut back on work sometime next year.  I told him I could stick out working full-time if I had a possible date that I could stop working so much!  Having a husband who sees so many people struggle with money as they reach retirement age is good in some ways because I know he won't let that happen to us.  It's bad in the respect that, well, he worries about money a lot so the prospect of us having the same lifestyle while making less money is very scary for him! 

Little brother seems to be getting along in his nice, warm home.  He seems to be a bit more feisty than his big brother.  I think I feel him moving a lot more than I did with Harry, and I can already feel him on the outside as well.  I think he is mostly hanging out upside-down because almost always feel the kicks down low.  After a few great weeks of being nausea/vomiting free, the growing pains are starting to kick in.  I'm mostly in maternity clothes now which I'm pretty excited about since I went months without gaining weight.  Baby Boy B will be here before we know it!