today's cuteness:

"emerson, you are getting so big, honey."

"i know, mommy. ya' know why i'm getting bigger and bigger?"

"why?"

"so i can fight crime."

so... i'm almost 21 weeks pregnant and i'm still nauseous and exhausted and dizzy. sigh........... i'm getting discouraged. i'm so far into my second trimester... supposedly the easy one and easy is not the word that comes to mind. i was actually starting to feel better until i caught another cold and just went under. the cold is gone but the aftershocks are horrific. it's like i just can't bounce back. i'm facing the hard conclusion that i'm going to have to just start letting some things go that i haven't been willing to... i need to rest.

my sweet husband offered to send me to miami beach with the boys and a friend for a week just to be warm and let all of our immune systems have a break. tempting... very tempting. but i'm just too frugal. we really can't justify that kind of extravagance just yet.

emerson has been a constant source of smiles. ------

"mommy, why do mommies protect their babies?"

"well because mommies love their babies and don't want anything bad to happen to them."

"mommy... you protect me and julian, right?"

"yes."

"but where'd you learn to fight?"

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the other day we were in barnes and nobles buying a birthday present and i stopped at the classics wall and started to pontificate....

"emerson, these books are some of the best books in the world. people from all over the world have read these books for sometimes even hundreds of years and loved them. these are very important books."

"i justed tooted mommy."

sigh...........

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julian has also come out of his dark stage. :) the last 3 or 4 days he has been so delightfully sweet and affection and cute. he seems to be enjoying life and relishing his family which is wonderful and rewarding. at last. it's like after months of withstanding the worst of julian, the best is beginning to surface and we're all beginning to fall in love with this little boy.

don't get me wrong... he's still a force to be reckoned with... but a wonderfully effervescent, full of life and overwhelmingly sweet force to be reckoned with. :)

the other day he was asking for candy and i said no and gave him a fruit leather. he grabbed it from my hand and promptly walked across the room and threw it viciously into the trash can. and then looked me in the eye and pointed at the candy bowl. (this is before he even knows how to talk people... what am i in for?) still... i really don't know anyone more loving. he is a snuggly, giggly, passionate little guy and i'm so smitten with him.

have been on a reading binge for a few months now. i go through books faster than i ever have in my life. even with very little time to read. so if anyone has a great recommendation... send it my way. i've been reading novels and memoirs for a pretty long time and those are always welcome but if anyone knows a great, stimulating non-fiction book... that would be a nice change of pace too.

emerson has just realized that we eat animals. he was a little upset by this and for the past few days he has been trying out vegetarianism. we have given him total freedom to choose to eat animals along with us or to abstain. he broke his fast today with pepperonis. i reminded him... "honey, you know these are meat, right?"
"what are they made of mommy?"
"pigs."
"mmmm. i just love pigs."
zero to 60 in one bite.

we're having another boy. :)

Lord, help us.

(just kidding) .... kind of.