Sweet darling angel babies

For two nights and a row, both my children have slept through the night. Meg slept both nights from about 7 p.m. until around 6 a.m., which is a welcome relief. Andy has been struggling with a cold this week, but even he managed to sleep uninterrupted from about midnight until 7:30. I hope I'm not jinxing anything, I just figured they need some credit where credit is due. And certainly sleeping better makes us all like each other more.

Andy's language has really been taking off. He just sounds so grown up sometimes.
"Would you like some dinner?"
"No thanks. Not just yet. I'm not hungry right now."
"?"
I know. How do you argue with that?

He's also getting closer to reading, which amazes me. We now talk about what letters words start with and he's good at most of them. Inexplicably, he confuses M and N. I say inexplicably because there is an N in his name and he knows how to spell it, he just somehow thinks the two are the same somehow (in his defense, they do look alike). They tested his letters and number comprehension at school and that was the one letter he confused out of the whole uppercase alphabet. Lowercase, he's about 60 percent. He also now knows all his numbers and can easily count to probably 25 although after about 13, he tends to drop a number here and there. "11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20."

Meg is really rolling over and it's precious and adorable. She can easily flip from her stomach to her back although it still seems to surprise her a little. She could easily get from her back to her stomach if she wanted to and she can get from her back to her side, but so far, she doesn't seem to have any need to get back to her belly. She's also sitting up pretty well on her own. Although I'm usually right there to catch her, she has figure out how to fall forward and avoid face-planting by falling on a shoulder or onto her stomach. I know the days of being able to leave her on the floor and know where she'll be when I come back is short and I can't believe I'm looking forward to it. She's also eating like a champ, and can easily chow through at least one stage-2 jar at a sitting without blinking (or, more likely, smearing it all over everything).

As for me, I'm getting better and better getting these kids up and out of the house. I am using the Hotsling my mother gave me and using it to carry her on my hip without killing my arm. It's pretty handy, but I don't always remember to use it.

Turns out with a little bit of sleep, life is pretty good.

Summer colds

We have had a bad run of summer colds this summer and I'm starting to get paranoid about fall and winter. If summer is supposed to be a time of good health, the latest batch of colds does not bode well for us. Andy started with a cold on Friday (sadly, I noticed it during the very cool Steve Songs concert at Wolf Trap). It didn't help that we had a weird schedule all weekend and stayed out and up too late Friday and Saturday. Meg has been flirting with a cough herself and each little cough fills me with dread for fear it will lead to more of the nastiness of last month where she couldn't cough without coughing up her dinner. Blech. Knock wood, cross your fingers, cross your legs -- whatever you like to cross, that these kids finally get back to a healthy place.

Oh, and they can start sleeping again, too, please. Pretty please! With this bout of not sleeping, I have been too tired to stay up and watch much of the Olympics. And I love the Olympics, even if I can't stand Bob Costas.

Meanwhile, Meg is now on solid foods and seems quite taken with them. She's at the cute stage where I can still cram pears and sweet potatoes into her mouth and she hasn't quite gotten coordinated enough to spit them out on purpose and/or grab the spoon and flail it around the room. It's coming, I'm sure. Not to be left out, Andy has taken to Dinobites. Yes, chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs are better than regular chicken nuggets. He even contends that they're not chicken. He doesn't think they're dinosaurs either, "That would be silly, Mommy!" I never did figure out what he thinks they are though.

Today was Monday, which means it was Moonbounce Monday at Andy's school, which is close to being heaven for a 3 1/2 year old. It's a nice way to start the week since he's usually very excited to go. I wonder how it's going to be come September when Monday is just Monday again.

The cleanest car ever

I am in heaven. It turns out my local car wash can shampoo my car mats and floor, thus removing the smell of dirty diaper, baby vomit and curdled chocolate milk. Well worth the $29.99 price tag. I might become addicted to this. It turns out they also have a detailing service also for $29.99 when they'll clean the inside, including wiping out the cup holders and that kind of stuff. I think I'm going to do that next time. This could become an expensive addiction.

Andy has come quite bossy lately. Well, scratch that. He's been quite bossy for a while now. What's interesting is that he's totally obsessed with being the "line leader" meaning he has to go first wherever we go, even if he's going slower than everyone else. He's learning what winning and losing means so he's always saying, "I win!" regardless of what game we're playing or if he's actually winning. Good thing the Olympic games start next week. We'll have fun watching and talking about who is winning.

Tonight I thought we had a breakthrough on him sleeping with his binky. He announced that he was a big boy and didn't need it anymore. Of course, when time came for bed, he wanted it back, but I'm hopeful this is a step in the right direction. Over the weekend, he slept both nights without it and didn't ask or even seem to need it so clearly he can do it. When we got back, I had in my head that I just wouldn't let him have it anymore, but the weekend had been long and I didn't have the stamina. Soon. Maybe.

Meg is seriously this close to pulling together the whole rolling over, rolling everywhere business. She can easily roll from her back to her side and from her stomach to her side. Those are the hard parts -- once on her side, she can easily go one way or the other, she just doesn't really seem to see a need for it. She can also sit unassisted for a little bit at a time and is putting together going from sitting to her stomach or side. I think it's just a matter of minutes before the light bulb goes off and she puts all the pieces together.

She's also making progress on eating solid foods. She didn't seem interested around 4-5 months and then with three weeks of throwing up and coughing, it didn't make sense to work on it. But now, she's had a week of apple sauce and rice cereal and this week we're moving on to sweet potatoes (of course, this has subsequently led to some stinky diapers. I had forgotten how generally unoffensive milk-only diapers are).

It's been hot and humid here. Fortunately, we've had a ton of rain in Washington so my garden is busting at the seams with squash and tomatoes. It's been a nice summer, but I'm about ready for it to cool down.