I did this little “cartoon” in 2005 when Tim had just been deployed. Things were a little different then, but I still think that it applies to my life which has become a delicate balancing act between kids/family, work, play and trying to find a little bit of time each day for myself. It’s getting easier every day (especially now that Logan is falling into a more regular nap schedule) and I keep hoping that by the time school starts in September I’ll have my act a bit more together and be able to move forward with all of the things that I have planned for the Fall.

Logan is growing up so fast! I don’t remember Hunter getting so big so quickly (though I know that he did) and I feel as though we have new milestones every single day. For weeks now, Logan has been pulling himself up on the furniture and “cruising” around the living room and yesterday he started to test out his balance (there’s that word again) a little more and let go…. and tried to take his first little wobbly steps. He fell flat on his face, but I suspect that he’ll keep practicing over the next couple of days and that before the month ends I’ll have another early walker. I can’t decide if that’s making me happy or stressing me out…. There are wonderful things about little ones that are walking, but at the same time it is possible that they get in more trouble than the ones that decide to stay on the floor until after they hit their first birthdays.

Hunter was also an early walker… which lead to him being an early climber… which lead to him being an early “stunt baby”… which lead to him being accident prone. At 9 months Hunter climbed up on our coffee table and decided that he would jump off of it. Well, that jump turned into a belly flop which helped him to put one of his little teeth right through his lip. Hunter still bears the scar from that belly flop and it makes me wonder what kind of scars Logan will have come his first birthday. (Hunter also bears a scar on his cheek from an early tangle with our (sadly, departed) cat Thor. We crack up when we look at all of Hunter’s little scars and tell ourselves that they just make him look extra tough.

Hunter is also doing wonderfully this summer. He’s beginning to read (and I’m hoping that he’ll be reading well by the time we go back to school), enjoying his TBall team, building tons of Lego structures and playing lots of football with his Daddy. I love sitting out in the back yard after dinner and watching the two of them throw the football around… and tackle each other! The two of them crack me up and they are indeed two peas in a pod.

Last Friday Hunter, Logan and I went to the zoo with my friend Jen and her kids, Ella and Mari. We had such a nice time! We only stayed for a couple of hours (the beauty of membership is that we can go as often as we please and don’t need to feel as though we have to see everything to make it worth the money) but managed to see a lot of fun things and take a ride on the train.

Jen’s husband works in the Primate House, so our first stop was there. I love the Primates/Monkeys so much… I could stay in there for hours just watching them… but though I love them, they also make me really really sad… especially the Gorillas.

After the Primates we went to visit with the small mammals and then on to see the new (summer only) shark and sting ray exhibit. It’s a really neat exhibit and you can feed/touch both types of animals. I had three children under 6 with me (Jen stayed outside with Logan who was asleep in his stroller) and the idea of leaning over the shark tank with them made me nervous, so we only peeked at the sharks and then went on to visit with the sting rays. I have to admit that part of the sting ray visit was “therapy” for me. I had not yet forgiven the species for the death of “The Crocodile Hunter”… and I figured that they would make that possible for me. I bought three little cups of tiny dead fish so that we could all feed the Rays and we had so much fun! They’re kind of freaky, but so so cool… and they feel a little bit like wet velvet when you touch them. We walked out of the exhibit about 20 minutes later and all was forgiven between me and the Sting Rays.

The train was really fun and though I was worried that Logan would freak out over the noise he proved me wrong and just smiled and giggled the whole time.

Man!  Time sure does fly when you’re blabbing away like a fool!  Logan’s nap is more than half over and I need to get some chores done so that we can venture out of the house and get some stuff done.  I’ll be back though with that catalog find and perhaps the freebie that I have been working on.  Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone and keep your eyes out for that freebie!!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 9:28 am and is filed under Misc, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.