More Coffee and Cartwheels

Cartwheels and Coffee Play Area

Spanish!

More video of the LFM, this time in Spanish!

Counting

He can count to 10 in both English and Spanish but he doesn't like to perform for the camera so this was the best I could get.

Techno Fancypants Family

So I've figured out how to post from my awesome new fancypants DROID phone (verizon's version of the iphone but with better cell phone service), which means I will probably start posting more frequently again, and my aunt in France will not have to abandon all hope of seeing current LFM photos (I'm a horrible neice, I know...). It also means the posts will be ostensibly shorter, so you will all be spared the excessive rambling I may have indulged in in the past. Then again...I am getting the hang of typing with my thumbs rather quickly on this miniscule keyboard. Rambling or not, I'm glad to be back. I missed you, you cute little blog, you.

Well rested Mama

So we've started night weaning, which essentially means that for now, WB does all of the night time parenting and I, for the first time in over 2 years, get to sleep. Holy cow, batman! I never knew sleep could be so fantabulous! I feel like a completely different person! I'm actually nice! And sometimes funny! And can complete a full thought or maybe even two!

I had no idea I was in such dire sleep straights. Thank you, WB, you have saved us all. Your superhero status is now official. Also, I love you.

The LFM, luckily, does not seem to be showing any daytime stress or behavioral effects from this major change, and its been 3 nights now. We'll break open the champagne once I stop hiding in the guest bedroom and all still goes well.

Summer Loving and Loving Summer

Whoever invented the camping tent, I love you. No, seriously, I LOVE YOU. You and Shenandoah National Park have saved my sanity and my relationship and probably my suddenly tantrum-prone toddler's life. This has been the summer of the mini-vacay, and we've been running away as many weekends as we possibly can. Somehow, even with all the work of setting up camp, cooking, cleaning, making sure the LFM doesn't attract bears when he throws his food all over the ground, etc, its still ultimately so incredibly peaceful at the end of the night sitting by the campfire with the man I love that its worth the rough car ride and the challenge of putting up a tent with a toddler strapped to my back. We get to speak to eachother in complete sentences! With no housework, no working from home, no to-do list looming over our heads! We are allowed to simply be. In a place where I feel the most whole, the most myself, the most connected and grounded and at peace. And of course the LFM loves getting to run around and see all the wildlife. Now whenever we see woods, he asks excitedly "bunny? bunny? bunny?". I am so passionately in love with these stolen weekends, with this us time. I feel like our little family is pure love in these moments.

The LFM and I have also been taken full advantage of the beautiful mild summer we've been having and trying our best to spend every possible second outside. Between playdates at various parks, the botanical gardens (where they have an awesome little water park for kids to play in), and mooching off of everyone else's pool memberships (the joining fees alone for most outdoor pools are astronomical!) we spend far more time away from home than we do at home. I think that's the way summer should be, don't you?