GregoryBrand.com

These boys are changing, growing, unpredictable, but always lovely.

August was another amazing summer month… with one glaring annoyance – MOSQUITOS.  The gallinippers came in a huge swarm worthy of a bad sci-fi flick!   We would run to our cars and still get bitten at least five times each.   Lloyd spent a good portion of August looking like he had chicken pox.  I spent our free-time oscillating between applications of repellant and hydrocortisone cream and trimming the kids’ finger nails so they wouldn’t cause so much damage with their constant scratching.  It really was hideous!  Luckily things seem to be improving now that we’ve cooled off a little bit.

We had a couple celebrations here in town – the first being our local holiday called “Dexter Daze.”  There was a parade and craft booths in town.  I had my first garage sale, and it was a success!   The next week was Greg’s birthday!  We picked up Zingerman’s for a special dinner, baked peanut butter cookies, and gave Greg lots of presents including a new flip-cam and this fancy tool!

Then it was off to Pittsburgh to visit Aunt Alison, Uncle Paul, and Unkie Brent!  Grace and Jerry joined us, and entertained Lloyd for the entire car-ride- both ways, bless ’em (Greg and I took Henry)!  We continued celebrating Greg and we also went to multiple playgrounds, the zoo, some fun restaurants, and the Children’s Museum.  It was a busy, wonderful weekend!  We really had a great time.

Lloyd is doing very well.  There are a lot of “I can do it all by myself!”‘s around here : )  For a while we were making great progress on potty training, which was very exciting.  However, Lloyd has decided he’s not too into it anymore so progress has stalled.  I hope he gets back on board again soon, because he was really doing a great job.   It hard to remember that even though he is so smart (and so BIG) that he is still a really young dude and there’s no rush.  We’re still stuck in the “I’m SADDDD” phase that has been a big part of our summer (and spring? I don’t really remember life before this phase) and it’s been punctuated by asking us (everyday), “What makes YOU sad?  What makes you happy?”  I don’t know why this kid finds being fake-mopey so fun, but it’s just his favorite thing.  Luckily whenever he’s not saying “I’m just a sad boy” he is exuberant and full of joy, so I think we’ll keep him around.

Here’s a movie of him being his merry self.

Henry turned five-months-old on the 26th.

I can’t believe how fast it goes… This past month he perfected rolling over.

(Here’s a movie of him rolling at the beginning of August).

A great part of him rolling like a pro is that he gets to have more control over his sleep.  We had kept him in his bassinet at bedtime, where he doesn’t have room to roll, so as to keep him safely on his back for sleeping.  Now that he can roll over and back, he’s allowed to sleep on his stomach if he chooses, which meant it was time to get out of the bassinet and into his crib!   He’s still in our room, as the only other practical option is moving him into Lloyd’s space.  That’s the plan for the future, but not until Henry is better at sleeping through the night.   He was doing a great job sleeping straight through from 8ish to 6ish, but now we’ve regressed to a couple of nighttime wakes.  Not sure what’s going on there, but we’ll roll with it.

Henry has been eating rice cereal for almost the entire month and will soon be enjoying real baby foods.  This has been very fun and necessary, because – much like his big brother – this boy is HUNGRY.

What are we doing? Eating?

That was good... Is there more?

Food is my favorite!

Henry also loves to eat his feet and gets into fits of mirthful babbling.

And lastly, both of the boys had doctor’s appointments this past month.  They are both off-the-charts huge at 38 and 18lbs, although they remain perfectly proportional relative to their heights.   And of course they are both the visions of health and beauty.  Thanks for reading!