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Q & I went out to lunch yesterday. He drank half of my banana chocolate shake at Potbelly, gobbled up his chips! (he loves chips), & sat in his chair swinging his legs from general happiness & satisfaction. We've had quite  few of these lunches - first at various spots all around New York, eating his first french fries at Shake Shack, picnicking at Central Park - & now around The Woodlands & Houston. After a morning of errands & dragging an unhappy toddler through the mall (Q knows Sephora means This will be a while), I thought he was deserving of a special lunch out - special because Potbelly means a shake! & we know how Q feels about shakes. Anyway, we sat there sort-of-sharing our lunch together - he was in much better spirits, of course - & I couldn't help but wonder if this was our last mama-son lunch together for a while. I've been having a lot of these moments lately, & they give me sad / nostalgic / time please stand still for a second longer feelings. He's been my little sidekick for these past two years & we've had some really happy times. The fact that things are about to get shaken up marks the end of a really special, never to be duplicated / mother of one era - while marking the beginning of a new & happy one, of course. 

Of course. 

(But there are still so many sad / hesitant / nervous feelings right now. I'm just trusting on the belief that hearts & love do expand, that lots of people in the world have more than one child & are still contributing & reasonably sane members of society, & that I can survive labor again.)

In the meantime, Q is watching an admittedly shameful amount of Gabba & I'm plowing through a to do list with a vengeance that is of course nothing short of exhausting - but it's what I do & how I cope. I'm not deserving of any gold stars (maybe just some therapy), but so far, the end results feel really great - a nursery that is 99% completed, a piano room that finally has a rug down & furniture on order (!!), birth announcements planned & soon-to-be stamped & addressed, family photography set up, our bedroom finally 100% decorated (as of 24 hours ago!), double stroller assembled, closets cleaned out, hospital bags packed, birthday gifts in the mail, appointments set, walls painted, etc. The rest of the things that I need to do are admittedly trivial & fairly unimportant, but will help keep me busy until Little Brother arrives. And then there are those things that I'm thinking just won't get finished in 2012 after all, & this is really nothing more than a mildly frustrating reality (more hours in the day, please). I don't do well with resting, clearly. 

In other news: 

Q is still mostly refusing to wear shoes. This makes getting out the door a little bit more of an adventure, & also means that outings often end up as scavenger hunts for his missing right shoe. 

He hates long-sleeved shirts. And pants. Winter may not go so well.

His favorite words are up! up! up! Mama (if he's desperate), up!!! Typically while making dinner. With those eyes, how can I say no? I'm really appreciative of when people help me do things (I've had people race across the parking lot at Trader Joe's to help me unload my cart into my trunk - I guess toddler + 9 months pregnant looks like a lot to handle), but seriously?! I carry around a toddler all day long.

(I've also been having strong contractions for weeks. Oops.)

There are love bugs all over the Houston area right now, which basically means that everywhere you go, there are these bugs that are doing it!!! all around you. It's awkward (& funny! Mike initially called them the two headed bugs & I was like nooooo), & I'm looking forward to the end of their mating season come October. 

Speaking of bugs, I stepped on a cockroach two mornings ago. In the dark. In my son's room. Our bug guys were here the next day. I hate bugs = understatement of the century. However, I'm proud to say that I don't scream when I see them anymore - I just move really quickly. But isn't it a strange existence to do a swift scan of the bathroom floor every time you walk in, just in case? Mike & I discovered a few weeks ago that we both do this without faily (I won't take the time to find the post, but there was an incident in my first trimester of pregnancy where I literally almost peed my pants walking into the bathroom & seeing a cockroach waiting for me on the floor).

In happier news, our high temperatures have been in the high 80's & low 90's, & the humidity has said see you later! for the time being. The other morning it was even cool. Oh my goodness, it's so refreshing! I wore jeans the other day just because I could(ish). It was lovely, until Q & I went on a walk around the park. Then it was really hot. 

Also, giant balloons provide endless entertainment. 

Q's birthday is on Sunday. He turns two, & we've been practicing telling people that every day. As a matter of fact, a woman asked him at the mall how old he was & he said Two!!! (while holding up one finger - we're still working on it). My mom flies in today, & per usual, I'm sure that I'll have the immediate sense that everything will be okay as soon as she steps off of that plane. An added bonus - I'm really happy that she'll be here for Q's 2nd birthday like she was for his 1st (photos & video - he was so little! I was [relatively] skinny!! Our house was totally empty!!). She'll be a huge help of course, but just having family around is a special little treat for us down here in the south.

We have something really simple planned with friends on Saturday to celebrate our little boy, & then we'll just continue business-as-usual until things are suddenly not quite so usual any more.

One year ago.