summertime

It is a rainy summer day here at Casa Griffin. Tropical storm rains have given us an unusually wet week and the boys and I have spent our fair share of the days puddle stomping and catching raindrops outside. The days have been slow and sluggish. I have had a cold for much of the week, so the pace of the days has been welcomed. Last week I attended my last birth with Julia's clients and officially kicked off my summer with my boys, no longer on call. This is also my last summer with the boys, since I suspect I won't be able to be home with them over summers in the future quite as much. We've been enjoying camp school in the mornings and splashdays on Tuesdays and Field Trip Thursdays. Our fieldtrips have been to the peach orchard and for BBQ and a few in town trips due to illness or births. Future field trips will hopefully be to New Braunfels and the Children's Museum there and Landa Park, to Bastrop to hike and swim, to the Greenbelt to throw rocks, Mt. Bonnell and McKinney Falls and some farm days when the boys are out of school in a few weeks. I'm trying to enjoy our final freedom days before Zachary starts Kindergarten in a month and a half and Caleb begins school 5 days a week. I'm gladly enjoying their energy, their enthusiasm and hoping to break out some creative energy and create memories of slow days of summer mixed with some ice cream, water, sunny afternoons and dirt covered boys.

family.

New things. Caleb is cutting tooth number (drumroll please) 11. Yup, he's got all 8 front teeth, the starts of 2 molars and a big nasty blister on molar number 3. This of course means he hasn't slept well all month. He keeps waking up at odd hours and stays awake for a few hours. His naps are all over the place too. But I'm hopeful that by the time he's 1, he'll have all his teeth and sleep all night long while all the folks with babes who started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks will have waking kids with molars coming in. evil, I know, but then I'm kinda tired.

Caleb started crawling on all fours today. He's still cruising with his speedy army crawl, but today he decided that upright is kinda cool. I'm happy too because I'm kinda tired of his onsies acting like swiffers and I've been wondering if I'm going to have to rebuy all the clothing for friend that I've borrowed or invest in stock with Oxiclean. He's so cute cruising around and sitting up and pulling up. I have been trying to figure out how to stop him from growing more. I really like this sweet cute age and don't want to leave it. I also discovered that Caleb is our athletic ball thrower. I handed him a small ball and he'd chunk it across the room. again. and. again. Totally terrific and he was absolutely delighted to keep at it.

Zachary had his 4 year old checkup Monday. The brave guy got four vaccinations and did terrific. He exclaimed with an ouch each time and afterwards got tearyeyed and whimpered that his legs were burning. We let him choose dinner and we ended up at Mandolas for the requested meatballs. A shortbread cookie fixed all his ailments. A latte and a potroast sandwich fixed mine. Caleb consumed about half of my postroast plus some smooshed baby food.

Dragonfly

On our walk home from the pool Thursday, we found this lovely dragonfly on the sidewalk. The dragonfly became Zachary's new buddy and since it was injured, it came home with us to "recoperate" till dinnertime in the bug house. The dragonfly became his new best buddy. I found Zachary letting it take a ride on a toy car. He defoliated a sage plant to give the dragonfly something to eat and it spent much of the day hanging out on Zachary's hand. And Zachary was as sweet as ever with his new friend and when we went to let him go before dinner, his eyes welled up with tears and he reluctanly tapped on his friends wings to make him walk and encouraged him to eat some spinach plants in the yard before flying home to the lake to its dragonfly family.

6 months

Today is Caleb's 6 month birthday. Seems so old to me and I can't believe how quickly time flies with the second child. Caleb is rolling, trying to sit up and wanting to crawl and run after Zachary. Zachary is his favorite person and daddy second. He is the worlds biggest smiler and will work a room to get a grin. His eyes are starting to turn brown and I'm thinking he might also inherit his brothers long lashes. He still loves to hold my hand when nursing and strokes my side, which melts my heart every time. He also has outgrown all of the clothing that Zachary was wearing up to 9 months and is our pudgy baby.

Happy birthday Caleb.

Mama-boy snuggle

Today was a rare nap day for Zachary and I took the opportunity to get baby Caleb to fall asleep. I laid down in bed, cradled him in my arm and gave him my pinkie and stroked his forehead and viola, asleep. Then I settled in and fell asleep for a short nap myself. 20 minutes into my nap, I heard Zachary stirring down the hall and the sound of him getting a drink from his water bottle. Then the soft padding of his feet coming down the hall. He came into the room and hopped into bed next to me in my other arm. So I spent the next 30 minutes with my two boys snuggled next to me in bed. It was a sweet moment that I hope to replicate many times in the future.