July, where did you go?

Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be capable of limiting the spread of disease in our family. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the kids are always taking drinks out of our cups, chewing our toothbrushes, and putting their mouths on all sorts of unlikely surfaces. In any case, we all wound up with the stomach flu at some point over the last week. I was the last to get it and I’m feeling fine now, so I’m declaring the epidemic officially over. Thank heaven.

 

Our piggies have been so cute lately. I took Thor to a baseball game over the 4^th of July weekend, and he is still inexplicably spouting off “baseball game!”  here and there for no apparent reason. He also continues to ask for fireworks and whenever he hears any loud noise outside (thunder, gunfire) he excitedly shouts “Fy-erks! Fy-erks!” Since the whole outing was such a hit, we’ve scheduled a repeat outing for the 24^th of July. Jared missed the last game, so this one will be even more of a treat. Thor’s also started saying, “Mama? Mama?” and when I say, “What, bub?” replying “I love you, Mama,” in a very disarming fashion. And, in a sign that he definitely takes after me, when Jared asks him what he wants for dinner, he invariably says “Ice cream!” (Well, sometimes he says “Ice cream cone!”)

 

In Winnie news, she is now ready for a cell phone. She picked up my Blackberry the other day and (using both hands) held it to her ear. At times she still gets confused and plasters it to her nose instead. She is taking a few steps at a time now, but inevitably loses steam and plops down on her bottom if she has to go any further than that. The kids’ play room has a lower shelf with crates of toys and she loves nothing more than to pull several of them out, dump toys all over the floor, and spend an hour or so sorting through them and chewing each one in turn. Fortunately she keeps herself quite entertained and I can actually get some reading done if I lie in there with both kids milling around and occasionally sitting or stepping on me.