Well, it was a nice maternity leave while it lasted. I headed back to work on June 18th. 
It was bittersweet. 12 weeks at home with William felt a little long. 8 weeks home with Christopher felt a little short. Unfortunately we’re paying 2 mortgages until we sell our old rental house so going back to work was the smart thing to do. We’re on summer schedule at my work now, so Jason does daycare drop-off and I pick up, meaning everyone is out of the house by 7:30 am at the latest. Most days life feels like a series of driving trips, loads of laundry, and washing baby dishes in slightly varying orders depending the timing of spit-ups or blow-outs. My breast pump and I are again (in my opinion) spending too much time together. I am thankful that I’ve had such good luck pumping and that Christopher can have breast milk at daycare, but with a good eater I have realized how much more work pumping actually is. I’m still outpacing him pretty heavily. Hopefully I don’t need a new freezer for storage before all is said and done.
Christopher continues to be mellow and happy. He turned 2 months old this week. 
He smiles easily and still doesn’t cry much unless he’s hungry. Lately he has been eating twice at night again and I’m hoping it is just a growth spurt because only one night feeding was really really nice. He is starting to discover his hands and bats at toys but does not yet grasp things. He does chew on his fists (especially when he’s hungry), but I’m no longer convinced he will suck his thumb like William. I am also not convinced his eyes will be blue, but I’m still holding out hope. Today at his 2 month appointment our pediatrician didn’t want to make any wagers on eye color so I guess we will wait and see. At the 2 month mark Christopher and William’s measurements are neck-in-neck. I will put Will’s 2 month numbers in parentheses: weight 13.06lbs (12.94lbs), length 24.0″ (24.5″) and head circumference 16.1″ for both of them. Anyone who knows how they measure infant length knows it is plus or minus a half inch anyway, so I’m going to say their 2 month measurements are darned near identical.
William is starting to really understand having a baby brother. He tells me to get his “blankie” when he cries. What he actually means to say is “binkie”. He also suggests we should feed him when he is upset. He likes to tell people his little brother’s name although he has a hard time pronouncing Christopher so it sounds more like “Kris-Fer” or sometimes “Kiss-o-fer”. He talks a mile a minute and is now obsessed with power rangers and pillow fights. It seems every toy is fighting some kind of bad guy. He is reluctant to potty train, but we’re starting to really try. We’re following the lead of our daycare lady who after 7 kids of her own, and 20 years of daycare, has a pretty good routine. He’s smart enough to get it, but likes to be contrary to the suggestion of sitting on the potty. We’re starting to get good quotable quotes though…this morning’s excuse for why he couldn’t go potty was “my butt is empty”. He sings every song he knows, our favorite rhyme currently is No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. Chocolate milk is his favorite drink. He must have some of my genetics because anything chocolate is fine by him. A week or so ago he announced that he needed a map to find the treasure. Jason drew him a map and I carefully hid a couple Hershey’s kisses in the trunk at the foot of his bed. They had so much fun “finding” them! Now he’s not sure why there isn’t treasure in the trunk every time he opens it.
I spent my last week of maternity leave finishing some weeding in the yard. It was one of those projects that I figured I wouldn’t get done this summer and then once I’d started I had the whole thing finished in two days. 
The flowerbed on the north side of our house could really use some attention, so in the next year or two I plan to add some more perennials to it and clean it up a bunch. I may dig out a few things from the old house and move them to our new yard next week when we get our hands on the rental property again. We now have the rose bed under control and the garden boxes are doing quite nicely. We had a lot of winter kill in the roses this winter but they have bounced back really well. We didn’t get much of a raspberry crop, but not for lack of trying on our part. I think they need to be thinned, and we didn’t get great pollination. I think it is time to do some raspberry research and give it another go next spring. I wish we didn’t have to water so much. We don’t need 10 inches of rain per week like the Midwest, but in June we recorded a whopping 8/10ths inch. With such low humidity that doesn’t go very far.
My parents are coming to visit the first part of July to help us get the rental house ready to sell and of course to play with grand kids! It has been a year since my dad has gotten to play with William, and he has not yet met Christopher or been out to see the ‘new’ house we’ve been living in for almost 2 years. They recently sold the milking portion of their dairy operation so I’m hoping it won’t be so long between trips out to visit anymore. This trip will give them a real taste of the HOT and DRY of desert living. I’m sure when we travel back to the Midwest in August we will get a taste of HOT but not necessarily dry. 😉 Until next time…S.~