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Henry started off the month engaging in extreme jealousy. At first, this meant that no one could touch me except him – resulting in mini-tantrums whenever Lloyd cuddled me, or Greg gave me a hug. Thankfully, that has ebbed a little bit with the kids still fighting for who gets to sit in Mommy or Daddy’s laps, but hugs being allowed all around.

Henry had a check-up at the Doctor’s office. He was 26 lbs and 34 inches long, which put him in the 70% for weight and the 99% for length. Developmentally he is doing great, with his variety of tricks and “words”. Henry has started saying “Ow” when he’s slightly hurt and “ha-oo” when he needs help. Says “Book” (almost – it’s more like “Boo-OO”) and calls Lloyd “Da” (you know – like half a “Dada” ; ) )

Lloyd and Henry continue to develop a lovely relationship. They playfully wrestle with each other and give each other unsolicited hugs. They’ve taken baths together for most of the month and make each other laugh. When nap schedules get screwed up and Lloyd has to nap without Henry in the room, Lloyd gets upset: “I need Henry to sleep!” We’ve been playing epic games of catch between the three of us where Lloyd throws me the ball, I hand it off to Henry, who throws/delivers the ball to Lloyd – repeat while laughing for 30 minutes.

Lloyd has almost slept through June. He’s still taking naps during the afternoon, which I’ve had to wake-him up from after about the third hour! And he’s sleeping through the night for about 11 hours. We’ve recently had to move up his bedtime back to 7:30, seeing a drastic change in his behavior if we post-pone bedtime too long.

Lloyd’s favorite activity nowadays has been to pretend he’s a ferocious “man lion with a mane who snarls.” Sometimes we “fight” together as lions (meaning slow-motion, growly wrestling). Other times we act out scenes from The Lion King. It’s a lot of fun, and a hardy work-out.

“Dinosaur A to Z” has taken the backseat to “Fifty Nifty United States” as far as Lloyd’s singing repertoire goes. Still trying to capture a movie of the performance, but trust me – it’s impressive. The song involves listing all of the 50 states in alphabetical order and Lloyd almost has it down pat.

Lloyd makes up songs and stories all of the time. Because he’s making up the story as he’s telling it, you often have to give him a lot of time to spit out what he’s trying to say. For example, when we were on a playmate at a friend’s house who has a dog Lloyd dug into a story: “When I was a man… or, right now… at my house… I had a dog with rainbow eyes… and black… and black fur… and… his name was FUMP!” Lloyd has also carried this story-telling ability over into lying territory. When I told Lloyd we had to get ready to go to Busch’s, he told me, “Dad said we could never go to Busch’s because it is under construction.”

Lloyd has been doing so much better at playdates. We’ve recently seen a fellow three-and-a-half year-old boy named Micaihah (who also has a baby younger brother), an almost-three-year-old named Pheobe (who has a baby sister named Penelope), and Lloyd’s best friend is dear Libby – who is a month younger than Lloyd and who has been playing with us since the kids were about 9 months old. Lloyd and Libby are really hitting it off – holding conversations between just the two of them, asking each other to play in various activities (or asking for the other through the proxy of the moms), and willingly touching and hugging each other. Lloyd is also getting closer to some kids at preschool, although there is a summer vacation from school throughout July. In June, preschool had soccer school with a local 18-year-old wunderkind. At first Lloyd was reluctant, but by the second week he was playing for the whole time and liked scoring goals.

Greg is still working in Ann Arbor and had a big win this month selling his company on the idea of using a iPad app Greg jiggered to help maintain punch-lists. For me, work is going well with the variety of investment banking scandals keeping me busy. I’ve also been active with my sewing clubs and learned how to make t-shirts from scratch this month – including learning how to draft patterns from pre-existing t-shirts. Greg is very excited for me to master this skill so I can make him custom under-shirts.

Wishing you a lovely summer. Stay cool!