Count to thirteen

We're slowly recovering from the last two weeks of being away from home and having visitors and running back and forth. The boys need a bit more sleep (I think we all do), but this week is proving to be pretty quiet so far and that's good. The weekend is going to be another busy one, but we have a day or two before we have to start gearing up for that.

Grady is doing very well. He's talking a lot more--more new words, longer phrases, and he's becoming easier to understand. I noticed over the holiday how tuned in I am to my own toddler though. I couldn't understand my nephew (a few months older than Grady) about half the time, even though he speaks perfectly well. My ears are just trained to a different two year old dialect I guess!

We're finding out that G's also a big fan of summer fruits. He eats blueberries by the handful, and he can't get enough of the raspberries right off the bush in our backyard. Sadly, those bushes have a serious Japanese beetle problem, and I'm afraid he's as likely to eat a beetle as a berry. G also put a hurting on the watermelon at my brother's house on the 4th of July--he must have eaten five slices. I bought another whole one today that I'm looking forward to sharing with him.

Evan is doing fine too. He was at the emergency room on the morning of the 5th--he woke up with a swollen finger that he got from playing baseball with my brothers at the picnic the day before. Luckily, it's only a sprain, and a few days of a splint seem to have taken care of that completely. I'm glad too, because we didn't want anything to stand in the way of him going to day camp next week. He's really looking forward to it, and I think it will be a lot of fun for him.

The sky is darkening, and it looks like another summer storm is headed our way. I feel like I'm regularly racing around the house to shut the windows before it rains. I always wait until the last minute.