August Recap

Bye-bye, summer. We had fun.

The adventures!

More good times at the various state parks. Z loves going swimming. We went to a park with a beach area without his swim suit one day and it was a tragedy on par with Romeo and Juliet (according to Z).

We very much enjoyed a visit from Joe's grandma and Uncle John. It was nice to see friendly faces in town.

We celebrated another year of Joe in a considerably more low-key way than last year, (sniff... we miss our friends!) with blizzards at DQ and dinner out at our favorite local place, The Dish and Spoon.

We were thrilled to get to rendezvous with Tim and Leigh and the rest of the Hill clan for a delightful lunch and coffee break for a few hours in Minneapolis before they had to hop on a plane. Mr. Hill has the magic touch for soothing a suffering Z. (He had been sick).

The parents!

The biggest news this last month was my new job, which I already wrote about so I will not bore your further. I'm excited/scared to start and have a lot of work coming my way this semester.

Joe is thriving at work, but busy.

The boy!

Z had his first big illness since we've lived here. He had Fifth's Disease (nothing like getting a call from daycare telling you that your son's whole torso has a rash. Yikes!). It was a rough few days of high fever and no sleep for anyone.

On the bright side, he has gotten much more proficient at walking and toddles adorably around with reckless abandon. He's a bit of a daredevil when it comes to the playground, (which is strange since he's so cautious most of the time) trying to climb things, leap from heights, and sliding down big slides. He refuses to talk even though I think he secretly might know how. The other day on a walk he was holding our hands and said, "One, two, three" so we would do the whole, "One, two, three, whee!" and swing him. We stared at each other in confusion. Now I am suspicious. What else does he secretly know how to say?

Not to say he is ever quiet. The child literally wakes up and starts immediately babbling the second he is upright. He went through a horrible screaming phase which, thank God, seems to be losing its charm. Beside that he just likes to babble all the time, so fluently that he legitimately sounds like he's just speaking a foreign language and if I could crack the code I would know what was going on.

He's also really big into testing limits right now. He loves to do things he knows are naughty with a huge grin on his face. We're working on that. (grimaces) His favorites include touching the television and trying to run into the road. I know. Sigh. Telling him that running into the street might result in his death has no effect and taking him back inside usually results in a full blown tantrum. Pray for us.

In all reality, we are doing well. Still feeling the pains of adjustment, definitely missing our friends a LOT, and certainly feeling the overwhelming confusion of parenting a toddler, BUT! Push comes to shove we're loving River Falls and our life here.