I just don't know what to do with myself...

Matt is going out of town for a few days this week and for the week after Thanksgiving.  Bummer.  However, wasn't there a Sex and the City episode where the girls talked about "single girl behavior"?  Plucking things, shaving things, etc.  Things that you just can't do with a man around.  There are a few things I can assure you will happen while Matt is gone.
1. I will shower less.  I won't be gross, I'll just be less clean.
2. I will get in the bed earlier than I'd like to admit.  And I'll be SUPER happy about it.
3. I will go to bed with the t.v. OFF.  Something that rarely happens with Matt around.
4. I will watch ridiculous girl t.v. with no shame.  There will be no ESPN this week.
5. I will make (and most likely eat the whole thing as to leave no evidence) some fabulous chocolate cake/pie/cookie.  I will eat all of it with little to no shame (until I go to my next doctor's appointment and wonder why I gained so much weight this month).
6. I will let my child watch more t.v than usual.  Give me a break here, I'm pregnant.
7. I will give the dog water.  I forgot to do this last time Matt went out of town until I found Buford crying at the toilet (3 days after Matt left).
8. I will get bored and lonely and wish my husband would hurry up and get home so I can have someone to talk to.

Randomness.

I am so behind on my blogging.  I planned on doing a Fall recap to cover all the fun things we've done so far this fall but the thought of wading through all the pictures to cover it all seems overwhelming right now.  So, I'm just going to type and see what comes out of the ole brain and then I'll throw in some completely random pictures so you can see if you remember what we look like.

Something you may have forgotten is that we're having another baby.  In fact, I kind of forgot myself until I tried to bend straight over last week and about squished the poor kid to death.  Somewhere between weeks 22 and now (almost 25) the belly just poked itself right on out there.  I had a moment of panic in the middle of the night last week that I really have just about 3 months until this bambino gets here.  And, I haven't done ONE thing to get prepared.  Not that there's much to do since we're still in the TTT (teeny-tiny townhouse) and there's really no place for him to go anyway so we'll just put him in a bassinet in the corner somewhere.  Do I feel some momma guilt about that?  Absolutely.  I also realized that with Banks we borrowed almost everything...swing, bouncy seat, bathtub, bumbo (really any baby item that starts with a "b"), snap and go, etc.  We might as well just borrowed a baby at the rate we were going.  So, there are some major things we need to buy and if you know Matt, the accountant husband, that really excites him.

And speaking of the TTT, the walls seem to be closing in on me.  Seriously, my kid might be the loudest kid in America.  He just can't help but yell all the time.  He hits the ground running (literally) and doesn't stop until he's forced into his crib.  He can be awake for 12 minutes and have pulled every toy out of every bin.  It's a wonder I don't break my neck with the amount of debris through which I have to maneuver.  We're super ready to be in a house.  So much so that we're even entertaining the idea of building.  I just almost choked while typing that.

Let's see, what else?  All the Halloween festivities seemed to fly by and we are really looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I just love this time of year and it's even more special this year knowing it'll be our last with just Banks.  Santa might just have to be extra good to him for that reason!

So sorry for all the randomness but it's an update, right???  As promised, here are a few pictures.  I'm off to bed.  Yes, I know it's only 9:00 and yes, I know there's a great football game on, but let's be honest here.  About the only thing that gets me excited this time of night is a brownie and a bowl of ice cream and getting in the bed.  Night all!

Banks the Witch at his school Halloween party.

Proud of his pumpkin!

My little froggy at the Fall Festival:

Having a ball at the Zoo today:

The Grove

We took Banks to the Grove for the first time this season and he. had. a. ball.  It was a little boy heaven.  No joke.  He might have been the dirtiest he's ever been at the end of the day.  Thank the Lord for Oxyclean or his outfit might have never been the same.  I consider our trip to be a success for a few reasons:

Reason #1: He didn't get lost. 

 This is not necessarily due to my awesome parenting skills but more to the food table.  He didn't get more than 50 steps away from the table all day.

Just helping himself...

I know for a fact he ate at least 4 of these rolls, a sandwich, some fruit, hand fulls of chips, two (maybe more?) cookies, carrots and no telling what else.

Reason #2:

I didn't have to entertain him.  He had lots of friends to do that for me.

Will and Maggie Jones with Banks (note that he is still eating here)

And with June Perkins

In addition to lots of friends, he had lots of boy stuff with which to play.

He dug in the dirt and pulled up the grass.

He played football.

He wrestled.

Reason #3: He was exhausted by the end of the day.  He had no nap and pretty much went this speed all day (only stopping to eat, of course):

Finally, he became quite the ladies man that day.  He's quite the charmer anyway, but really took to a few of the "older" ladies.  Here he is telling me to stop taking his picture because I'm embarrassing him in front of his lady friends: 

The anatomy of a tantrum

Stage 1:  They all begin the same way.  With a simple request.  "Can I watch ah-nudah show", "can we go outside", "can I have a cookie?"  It is difficult to document this stage as one never knows when such questions will be asked.  Today I captured the moment perfectly:

Stage 2:  Simple request is denied.  Regular sounding crying ensues.

Stage 3:  He crumples to the floor and thinks about writhing about.  The regular sounding crying is starting to escalate into some sort of pterodactyl (yes, that's the spelling...I had to google it) scream.  Things that do not help during this stage: shhh-ing, laughing, taking photos.

Stage 4:  Writhing about ensues.  There is rolling around, leg kicking, and thrashing about all while pterodactyl scream continues.

Stage 5:  I leave the room.  He picks himself up and follows me.  Repeat stages 3 and 4.

 Stage 6:  Things begin to de-escalate and he picks himself up off the ground.  He declares "my nose" refering to the large stream of slime coming out of his nose.  He runs off to play with something, let's say, for 15 minutes or so before Stage 1 rolls around again.  Oh, the joys of a two year old.

Grown-ups and pretending

I'm about to do something I may not have done since Banks was born: post pictures of something other than him.  Last weekend we had a grown-up weekend in Oxford for the Ole Miss/Georgia game.  I made a point to take pictures to document the weekend since I NEVER take pictures of things other than Banks these days.  I took four whole pictures.  Well, guess that's better than nothing!  We had a blast-catching up, talking about things other than our kids, and staying up way past my bedtime.  This was one tired pregnant lady come Sunday.  It was fun pretending that we didn't have any responsibilities!!!  I forgot how easy it is to just take care of myself for a few days!!!

The girls from the weekend: Lauren, Ashleigh, me, Molly and Ashely

Rare pic of me and the hubs

And speaking of pretending, I've been told that most toddlers don't begin really engaging in make-believe until closer to the age of three but I've been noticing Banks pretending more and more.  He pretended to call some folks on the phone last night and I heard him say "oh, I just doing a puzzle.  Mommy and Daddy almost all gone with dinner."  He's also started to pretend with his toys some.  He likes to pretend they're eating a snack.  The other day he told me "Lightening Queen make a mess."  And he had.  Apparently, Lightening doesn't know how to swallow apple sauce. 

The lawn mower was really hungry for a Cheez-It

 Not to say that he's pretender extraordinaire...when we ask him what we should name his brother, he says names like "donk" (short for donkey???) and "outside."  Outside Still has a nice ring to it, eh?  Much better than Donk Still for sure.  Poor Donk.  He's already getting the shaft as the second kid.  With Banks I documented (for our eyes only) my belly growth every week.  I'm doing good to remember to do it once a month this time around.  And we can't decide on a real name for Donk.  I don't remember it being this hard to decide with Banks.  I guess because we always knew if we had a boy he would be Banks.  This time we're going WAY back in the family trees to figure out what Donk should be named.  Wish us luck!!!

It's a....

One of the main questions people ask when you announce a pregnancy is "will you find out what you're having?"  The answer for me will always be a resounding YES!  I even fudged a little this time and told the doctor I was going to be out of town last week (I was out of town for part of the week) so that I could schedule my appointment for this week to find out what we were having.  Finding out boy or girl is always so fun to me.  It makes it that much more real for me and I can begin identifying and picturing myself with this bambino.  More importantly than finding out the sex, we get to see the baby and all its parts.  It is so very reassuring to see the heart, stomach, arms and legs, brain and spine.  Today we got to see our little bebe and it was perfect.  The ultrasound tech asked if we wanted to know the sex.  You know our answer.  She put the wand up to my stomach and what did we see?  Penis.  Right off the bat.  We are super thrilled that we're having another BOY!!! 

All I could envision was these two boys getting stitches together, getting into lots of trouble together, and doing lots of rough-housing.  AM I UP FOR THIS???  Being an only child, I can't identify with what it's like to have a sibling.  However, I can only imagine that Banks and unnamed baby boy will have the closest of relationships.  They'll love each other and may even love to hate each other.  They'll play sports together.  Banks will teach him all about frogs and other yucky animals.  Matt will take them to sporting events together (leaving me at the spa, right?).  It's just going to be so much fun.  Lots of dirt and bloody knees but so much fun!

Just checking in!

I refuse to acknowledge reality.  Just a quick check-in and then I'm off to the beach again for a bachelorette party!  Good thing I won't be driving home in Tropical Storm Lee this go-around.

We had a blast at the beach last week.  It is amazing how it seems to take forever for vacation to get here and then a week flies by and it's back to business as usual before you know it!  We go to the beach every year with two of our couple friends and their children.  The boys are very close in age so I fully expected to do a lot of fight breaking up, however, they all played surprisingly well.  I also feel confident that Banks can be around an infant without me needing to fear for that infants life.  That's good news for our #2.

Banks had a ball on the beach. He was very interested in "catching whales" (unfortunately we didn't see any this year), seeing crabs and catching seaweed. He loved building "can-castles", eating lots of snacks, and digging holes. There was a monster game of monkey-see-monkey-do going on this week. Charlie had ketchup, Banks had to have ketchup too. Banks had a waffle, Charlie needed a waffle too. Banks and Charlie were born only a day apart so it is no surprise to me that they were two peas in a pod. Will was pretty confident in doing his own thing...pooping in the potty and playing with "his" iPod.  Such a big kid...

Will, Banks, Charlie

 All the young-uns: Banks, Maggie and Will Jones, Baylor and Charlie Berry

 My next post will be about whether Banks is having a BROTHER or a SISTER!!!  We find out next week!