19w4d - Kicks!

About a week ago (18w4d, give or take) Pecan gave his (I'm guessing) first kicks! It was amazing! I am pretty sure that I didn't feel Jocelyn's kicks for quite a while after this point. She was a very still baby in the womb. Pecan is super active! Even at my last OB visit, we had trouble getting a heart rate because he kept on moving around. It was cute :-).

A week from tomorrow we have the ultrasound that will tell us if our suspicion is true or false - we will find out Pecan's gender! We are SO looking forward to it. In fact, we're taking the whole day off. Of course, we're not planning to rest and relax all day. We are touring 5 day care sites! The MIL is moving out in October, so we need to find a day care solution for Jocelyn (and eventually Pecan).

I'm still pretty exhausted, and I'm starting to get a few other symptoms. Namely, I am getting the increased snot and bed time acid reflux. No good! I'm also starting to have vivid dreams. I had one last night that was of a.. well.. sexual nature. And not completely with my husband (although, he swooped in at the end and wooed me back). But it was so vivid, and felt so real, that I felt guilty and was a bit nervous. It's funny. Obviously it was a dream, and doesn't mean anything, but it's still a bit weird.

It's part of why I think I'm having a boy. I'm having more sexual dreams, and a higher sex drive in general. So there must be more testosterone in my system. I also gained all my weight in my butt and I crave junk food - specifically fast food. The only common craving between this pregnancy and the last is veggie burritos and sour cream. And spicy food. Okay, the junk food is the only real difference. With Jocelyn I craved salads.

In this case I can feel my uterus already. I had trouble finding it with the first pregnancy - probably because things on top of it were still tight and held together. But now that everything is all loosey-goosey, so I can feel stuff better.

Jocelyn is also being super, crazy cute lately. Now that the weather is nice we are taking her outside a whole bunch more. Sunday we took her to two different parks. We went up the road to the duck park in the morning. That was really cute. There is a new playground there with two sections - one for bigger kids and one for smaller ones. The old playground is still there, but nobody used it because the new one is so nice. Even among the little kids Jocelyn was little, but it didn't stop her from climbing up the stairs and sliding down the slide. And then trying to climb back up the slide.

Once she seemed like she had enough of the playground we wandered over to creek path and walked over to see the ducks. There were a bunch of people with dogs, and she LOVES dogs! So that was really cute! When we got to the ducks, she watched those with wild wonder for a little while, until she appeared to get really tired. So we quickly scooped her up, got her home and put her to bed. Where she refused to nap. She was tired, but just wouldn't settle. It was hours before she finally slept.

That evening we took her to the park around the corner from us, which also was fairly well populated with children. And, again, Jocelyn was the little one. We swung, we ran around one jungle gym and down the big slide, she chased some older boys around. One was on a bike, the other was on a skateboard, and she was fascinated by both. She also just adores going down the slide. It's funny, though, because she climbs the stairs for the first slide, but once she goes down it she wants to climb back up it. It's adorable.

In other cute news, she tries to mimic animal sounds now, which is awesome and adorable. And she's really into hugging / snuggling. She does this hug where she hugs you tightly around the neck with one had and has the other had around your shoulder while patting the shoulder. It just melts the heart!

This is a long post, so it's time to publish. Hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly!