August

I was somewhat dreading this month. I had to cancel James's camp attendance to save some money. We had a pretty wide open schedule. Nate was still solidly napping in the morning.

I can only paint so many boxes ("barns") every day.

Luckily, our month has gone by quickly and is almost 2/3 done. We've had fun playdates and outings, including pool time, park fun (where Nate is now a crazy guy who climbs on play structures and goes down ANY slide), walks, experiments (ice cream in a zip loc...yeah, not so much, next time use half and half and get kosher salt like it suggests), and inside play (lots more imaginary play from James, very cool to hear him act out Little People as characters, etc., plus, he loves to play with bath toys and could spend 1-2 hours in there if I wasn't worried about accidents).

We also had two weekends out of town. I described our first weekend in Ohio - the very following weekend, we went BACK to Ohio. I will save that for another post (oh, in a month, I'm very slow) when I finally download the photos. It was a semi-stressful trip but in the end I was glad we were out there.

Nate has bedtime-weaned himself. He began pushing me away one night so I didn't push the topic. Next night, same thing. So, now it's been 3 weeks and he goes to bed like a champ - milk, stories, and paci. Bam. On another note, he is obsessed (OBSESSED) with "Moo, Baa, La la la". He is incredibly cute - when you read the third page about the pigs and la la la, he looks up at you with his huge smile and laughs and laughs. He wants it over and over again. I just read it today at naptime about 6 times. Yikes! But it's so great to see him recognizing funny/silly things and also starting to communicate more. His signing isn't there yet (and I fully admit to being bad about pushing signs, although they were a great tool with James) but he can definitely show me that he's thirsty, hungry, and MAD. When Nate is mad, he is MAD. He has a set of lungs on him rivaled, I'm sure, only by mine. :) And, on a great step forward, we are within 3 months of being able to let the boys play downstairs together ALONE...

So, other than night-weaning, Nate is down to two nursings a day. Sometimes three. Next step will be first thing in the morning. We'll see how that goes. It was hard for James. And hard for me - it was a great way to NOT have to get out of bed at 5:30 a.m. Methinks some blackout shades will be ordered soon for Nate's room.

James is great. Three is hard though. He very much could benefit from a 45 minute nap every day. Unfortunately, I can't force him to sleep. But at least he sleeps for a long time at night when he doesn't nap. When he's tired, he's mean. Hard to deal with. Yells. Kicks. Punches. On Monday he was mean to Nate and to me and I finally put him in bed at 3:30 in the afternoon - he fell asleep within MINUTES. Sigh. Other than this transition to no nap, he continues to gain language, sing, dance, try to tell jokes, go potty without help (we're processing getting dressed by ourselves still), run, play all sorts of sports, and in general be incredibly awesome. When I look at him sometimes I just can't believe this little person was once a baby. I'm shocked, excited, sad, and overwhelmed all at the same time. And to think Nate will be 3 some day just doesn't seem possible. I'm trying to embrace every moment as much as possible.

Greg has been working a lot but enjoying his new project, which is always good for him. And he continues to play soccer twice a week at work. This heat has been brutal. We've decided we need Gatorade powder and drinks in the house at all times. :) Greg and James will finish up their soccer class in the next few weeks. Only two kids are now showing up each week - Greg agrees it's a tough age to have this class. But, apparently, the "coach" isn't so good either. I think they are going to take a break from classes this fall with preschool. Speaking of classes, Nate and I will be taking a Tumbles class this fall while James is in school. It will be weird to have just one child for 9 hours a week!

Finally, I'm continuing my crazy marathon training. I run 4 days a week. Two days easy (41 minutes each time this week), with a hard run in-between those (up to 50 minutes). Sundays are the long runs. This Sunday will be 15-16 miles. It's hard but I feel strong. Some days are better than others. But I could say that about anything. It's a lot of time thinking about, planning for, and, actually running. But I will be just about as proud of myself for crossing that finish line as I was the days I gave birth.

Family Update Complete.