My attempt to get a second catch-up post done in July appears to be a solid fail. Sometimes when I have the most going on in my life (and head), I’m the least in the mood to write. I decided we had a lot of ‘firsts’ this month.
Fourth of July was moderately uneventful, with the exception if it being Christopher’s first time to 
experience fireworks. With the ages of our boys, I am never motivated to go far from home after dark, so I’m glad our neighbors put on a pretty impressive show out on the street. Utah doesn’t have the same strict restrictions on fireworks as WI does, so the show includes quite a few large aerial explosions and is more than sufficient for an excited 2 and 4 year old. Every year I am torn on whether it is easier to let them stay up until the fireworks start, or put them to bed and wake them up a couple hours later. This year we ended up allowing them to stay awake until fireworks (another first), and then promptly apologized to our daycare lady the next morning when we dropped off two semi-cranky little zombies. From the sound of it, most of the daycare crew was in the same boat. We repeated the experience for the July 24th holiday (Pioneer Day) with similar consequences.
Mid-month I decided (on a whim one afternoon) that we should move our television to the fireplace mantle. This had been in the long-term living room plan for quite some time, but our cheap-o Walmart TV stand was still doing its job, and we were no closer to being able to afford built-in cabinets, so we just hadn’t moved anything around yet. Of course, the minute Jason humored me by moving the TV, he should have known I would immediately be shopping the classifieds for a deal on cabinets. The two large cabinets I found were a steal ($50). Getting them picked up was a bit of a circus, and turns out the paint job(s) were some of the worst I’ve seen. About $100 in paint and supplies and some serious elbow grease later and I have two gorgeous living room cabinets for a lot cheaper than built-ins. Perhaps some day we will still do built-in ones, but for now I’m pretty pleased with the way this project turned out.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–I love our neighbors. Every summer the HUGE trees on our front lawn drop seed/leaf/nut/fruits-from-hell and every summer we end up raking them up for about 2 weeks in the 100 degree heat. This summer our neighbors saw us out raking once again and brought over a push type leaf sweeper for us to try. Apparently it had been sitting in their garage unused for years and they thought it might work better on our leaves. Now I never want to be without it again! Not only was it much easier on the grass, it cut our raking time almost in half. Thank-goodness for such giving neighbors!
Andrew continues to be a little sweetie. He is now 4 1/2 months old, and although we are currently having some hiccups in the nighttime sleep department, there are a 
lot of days where he is easier and more content than either of his older brothers. Sometimes I wonder if he’s learning so many new things that his brain is going so fast he just can’t sleep. This month brought his first successful roll from back to front. His latest trick is that any time you put him down (i.e. on his play-mat) he proceeds to roll over immediately and beach himself whale-style. Then he’s MAD! It could be someone’s full time job just to roll him from his front to his back every 30 seconds. I hope he learns to roll the other direction relatively soon. He is also drooling a ton. Sometime in the next month I would expect to see some teeth based on all the chewing and drooling. He thinks his older brothers are AMAZING. He also thinks the cat is amazing…so I suppose they shouldn’t be too flattered. I expect that in the future the brother’s will eventually rank much higher than the cat.
William keeps asking when he turns 5. The other day I decided “not soon enough” based on the fact that we are still tolerating some pretty terrible terrible 4’s. I told the pediatrician he has a hard time listening as if his ears are just totally shut off. He said if I can figure out a cure for it we could split the profits. When he’s not tearing around not listening, William can actually be quite shy. He currently finds lots of things scary, and it is difficult to tell which fears are real and which are fabricated in order to leverage more attention. He also has a bit of perfectionist streak and will occasionally melt down over the smallest failures. I hope as he gets older some of this passes. On the rare occasion he is well-rested and well-behaved he is actually quite pleasant. 🙂
Another first for the two older boys was a real swimming experience in a big swimming pool. I know, shame on me for not having them through swimming lessons and lifeguard certified already, but life is so dang busy! Anyways, the occasion was a friend’s 4-year-old birthday party and once we convinced the boys to get in they didn’t want to get out. Best of all, Andrew slept through most of the event, which allowed Jason and I BOTH to get in the pool with the boys at the same time. So much fun!!
Christopher is talking up a storm. The words and phrases are more complete all the time. He isn’t as articulate as William was at his age, but it is exciting to get a glimpse into that little mind. He and William have the wildest games of pretend! Most of their play revolves around fighting bad guys and creating Angry Birds levels. Sometimes it is difficult to follow, but it sure is fun to watch! He showed an interest in potty training for approximately 2 seconds before forgetting about it completely. I think I will save myself a headache and just wait to see when he seems ready. With three small people already controlling our lives, I don’t have the energy to take on a power-struggle with a 2 year old.
Last week was a stressful one in our household. Friday Andrew and William had well-child visits and shots. By Sunday Christopher was puking and had a fever. Ironically he was the one who HADN’T
gotten any shots, but he probably picked something up at the pediatrician’s waiting room. By Tuesday afternoon, Jason and William both had sore throats and William was running a fever as well. Wednesday, my daycare informed me there had been a positive strep test from one of the other children, so we made our first visit to an Instacare for a strep test for William. Thankfully it was negative, and everyone has returned to normal by this weekend with the exception of Andrew who is still waking up at unusual times. It’s amazing how fast you can go through Tylenol with 3 sick kiddos. With all of them taking turns waking up it seemed like no one got any sleep all week. By the end of the week I was so tired and clumsy that I was a danger to myself and the kiddos. I even stumbled and fell once while holding poor Andrew–who thankfully is no worse for wear. By the end of the week naps were in order for everyone!
This weekend we were forced to choose between the Midvale Harvest Days Parade and going to Jason’s annual summer work picnic. We’d celebrated Harvest Days with a block party/potluck earlier in the week, so for the weekend the picnic won. I’d like to say we had a lot of fun, but the two older boys decided to be quite the handful. Despite our children, it was the perfect family event complete with an animal show, face painting, a ‘train’ ride, sno-cones, a band, games, and lunch. The park they held the event at has quite an impressive play structure, but it was so busy that I kept losing track of my boys (every mom’s nightmare), so Jason took our boys back to play when it was quieter this morning. As you can probably imagine, it was much less busy at 8am on a Sunday, and much easier to keep track of our boys when you could hear them over the live band.
The only other thing I can think of that happened this month is that Jason spent a week in Ely, NV for the national NSS convention. It was the first time I was home for an extended time since Andrew was born in March. It was a busy, stressful week. I felt a bit empowered knowing I could handle the three of them if needed, but also very thankful that I have an amazing husband who isn’t afraid to jump right in and get his hands dirty.
Later this week my mom is coming out to visit! In the spring we found out the Antiques Roadshow (PBS show) was coming to Salt Lake City and my mom said if I could get tickets she would send a few things to have appraised. Turns out tickets are all free but it is a pretty competitive lottery system to get them. As luck would have it we got tickets and then I convinced her to come out for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (another first) and of course to visit the grand-kids. I don’t think I had to twist her arm too hard. In all honesty I have no interest in being on TV, but it will be interesting to see what they have to say about our items. Sounds like she’s bringing 3 old toys to have looked at. Should be a fun and interesting day!
Until next month!
S.~