park play, pool fun and poop.

Today has been a pretty good day. The weather is beautiful so we have been taking advantage of it as much as we can (rumor has it that it will be cloudy and cold again tomorrow). I started off the morning reconnecting with an old friend on Facebook. I have to say that I love Facebook much more than I ever liked Myspace. I found a friend who I went to undergrad with and had a lot of my religion classes with (and also our classical Greek class). We chatted a bit this morning and I found out that he graduated from Seminary, got married and already has two kids. All in the past five years. He's also working at a church in Iowa. It was fun to chat with him because I got to remember the good times I had my last year in undergrad in spite of the stress and junk that was going on in my personal life (dad being sick and passing away and friend committing suicide).

We met a friend at the park for a couple of hours which was nice for Nathaniel. He ate his lunch and ran around, burning off some energy (and the cake and ice cream from yesterday's birthday party) and then we went home for "rest" time.

Nathaniel has stopped napping most of the time. I don't mind it too much because he is really very good at staying in his room and in his bed playing quietly for about an hour and a half. I can hear him playing with his stuffed animals, but he isn't crying or whining. Sometimes he falls asleep, but most of the time he doesn't.

After nap I took the boys down to the pool because it's been pretty hot the last few days and I thought it wouldn't be too bad. HOLY CRAP!! It was so cold! I merely sat on the edge with Aaron on in the shade in his car seat while Nathaniel jumped in over and over again (he wears a swim vest so he can go under if he jumps in, but he pops right back up to the surface). After about 20 minutes Nathaniel could hardly form words he was shivering so hard and I still had to drag him inside promising him popcorn as a treat.

We restarted potty training this week. So far, it's going pretty well. Nathaniel really likes peeing in the toilet but I can't get him to poop. He has a terrible rash again because his poops are so gross. He screams and cries when I change those diapers and I feel really bad, but half the time we are out playing when he poops and he just doesn't tell me about it until it starts to bother him (and I can't smell him when we are outside). I am half hoping that the rash will help him start pooping in the toilet more. I don't know. I am just tired of changing two sets of diapers. It's maddening. Add the cat box and I am literally shoveling poop a quarter of the day.

That's about it here. I have been taking pictures and will update with some new ones. Aaron is thriving greatly (I realize I should write about him too!). I had to take him to the dr. last week to fix his belly button because it never fully healed. When they weighed him he weighed in at a whopping 14 pounds 9 ounces. That is nearly five pounds gained in 6 1/2 weeks! I have a Moby wrap that I like to carry him around in and one of the holds is called the "Lotus" hold where the baby sits facing forward with his legs brought up in front of him and held in place by the wrap. I put him in that hold and he really looks like a white Buddha. He is so round and bald. He really is a happy baby though. He adores Nathaniel and will usually stop crying when Nathaniel talks to him. He has started sleeping longer at night too. I can usually go until about 1 or 2 before he wakes up (and that's from about 9pm). I'll take what I can get.

Hope people are doing well!