July Catch Up...

It’s gotten to where if I don’t blog often enough, I’ve already forgotten half the stuff I really wanted to remember. So I’ve started just making notes on a piece of paper to remind myself when I don’t have time to blog. Which is good, because most of what I’m typing about today is ancient history. I really need to do this more often!

Caleb has his own unique way of talking. He’s brilliant, of course, and verbose, but sometimes it takes a little bit of getting used to. His phrases are almost right, but just a little off. Like my personal favorite, “Not so quite.” “Are you ready to get out of the pool, sweetie?” “Not so quite.” “It’s time to go to bed, beloved.” “Not so quite.” Too cute.

Or when he kept nagging me about the “put raps.” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was talking about. Then he said, “Remember? In Royal tummy?” Jonathan had let him play with the RAT PUPS before he fed them to our snake. He was so cute with them, too! I came into the room where they were playing, and it looked like Caleb was holding a mouse up to give me kisses. I don’t care about my son handling rodents so much as I hate the idea of having a mouse loose in my house. But since it was just a little rat pup who doesn’t do much more than crawl, he was free to play with them as much as he liked. The funniest part was when he put the pup down on the floor, squooshing him just a little, and said, “Rat sleeping,” then punctuated it with a snoring sound. And the two rats kissed a lot. Pretty innocuous stuff, really.

Gavi is getting two more teeth, and if he survives the coming in, I will be grateful forever to the giver of those teeth. He’s not getting diaper rashes like Caleb did, but he’s SO dang cranky it blows my mind. This little sweetness turns into a howling lunatic when he’s in this much pain. I’ll hold him until he falls asleep, but the second I try to put him down, he’ll awaken with a shriek, and continue yowling until I pick him up again. Good times to be a mom, lemme tell you!

He had his first pizza bone a couple weeks ago! He ate the majority of it, then gummed the last little bit until it resembled the dough it started from. It was so cute. I got some pics, but since I’m the photographer, they might not be entirely clear. Ugh.

Jonathan and I took Caleb to his first professional sporting event ~ A Colorado Crush game! I think he may have been more impressed with the BMX display at half time than the arena football game, but he had fun regardless. He also experienced the joy of… *drumroll, please*… cotton candy! Ohmigoodness, was it ever a blast to share some new experiences with him. Jonathan and I are being frugal and neither of us are particularly sporty, so getting free tickets to an event that we’d never seen was a fun way for all of us to try something new!

Then we took Gavi to the zoo on his own while Caleb stayed at Grandma’s. It was such a blast to be able to stay at the zoo longer than two hours! We saw parts of the zoo that I’d never seen before, and it was awesome. Plus, Gavi got to take little naps whenever he wanted, but we didn’t have to deal with temper tantrums when we chose not to stay at the hippos for forty-five minutes.

Caleb has started being brave in the pool – FINALLY! He’s got his little lifejacket, but he was still clinging to me like he was terrified he was going to drown. Since he was tall enough to touch the bottom – of the pool! – I convinced him to finally walk around. And once he understood that his head wasn’t going under water even when he lifted his feet up, that was it for Mommy. It’s so gratifying to have him discover that he can do something on his own. Now he’s a doggy-paddling fool! (And when he’s telling someone about it, he describes the arm motion as “the wheels on the bus go round and round.”) I’m getting really confident in his stability. Yesterday, I took Gavi in his new lifejacket out to the deep end, and Caleb followed us without any assistance. It’s a blast!

When we have pennies and nickels, we've always given them to Caleb to put in his bank. But now there are two banks - one for Caleb and one for Gavi. When I put money in, I usually put it in Gavi's since Caleb is able to put money in his own. But I have to stop that now, because I watched him last time. He put a penny in his, said "For Caleb," then a penny in Gavi's and said, "For Gavi." He can't share a monster truck with his brother, but when it comes to money, he's splitting it right down the middle. Maybe because he has the concept of the clink, but not of the money itself.

Ah, and now, the story that smacked my ego into oblivion: Caleb, Gavi and I went to Sam’s with Grandma a few weeks ago. Of course, Grandma bought Caleb some ice cream, and surprisingly enough, a couple of Disney movies found their way into our cart as well. When we were getting ready to leave, Grandma went to get a hot dog for Grandpa, and said she’d meet us at the car. So we headed to the door with our receipt. The lady at the door commented on Caleb’s face covered with ice-cream, and Caleb said, “Grandma bought me ice cream and I got it ALL OVER!” Then she pointed out the awesome videos and said someone had good taste. Caleb said, “Grandma bought me movies!”

The lady looked right at me and said, “Do you just have them for the weekend?”

SHE THOUGHT I WAS THE GRANDMA! The smile froze on my face and I just kept walking. Seriously, my brain got a little stuck. It was TERRIBLE! So, after buying stock in an eye cream company, I’ve decided to start taking action. Grr…