Happy 3rd Birthday, Will!

I can't believe my baby is 3! We had a really nice birthday. On his actual birthday he tried out his new bike, went and played at a new park that opened downtown that has fountains to play in, and ate lunch at Skyline (his favorite) where he got to pick out some ice cream from the cooler since it was his birthday.  After his nap we went to the train park, ate pizza for dinner, and played some more.

Playing in the water at Washington Park

The next day we had a little party with family and close friends. I was a "digger" party, and I think he had a good time.  Here are some pics:

Ready to blow out his candles

Here are some updates on the little man:

- He still has no interest in potty training.  sigh
- We've started working on what sounds all of the letters make.  He can pretty much tell you what letter any consonant word begins with.
- I'm working with him on learning to write letters, but we haven't gotten very far.
- He still loves reading and books. He memorizes most of the books we get from the library within the first week or so that we start reading them.  He can pretty much recite them verbatim, which I think is pretty crazy.
- He can count to 20.   He can get all the way to 100, but you have to help him with 30, 40, 50, etc,. along the way because he forgets some of them.
- He's hesitant to try new things a lot, and when he does, he wants to give up quickly if he doesn't get it right away.  He's having a lot of trouble with pedaling the bike we got him for his birthday and it's hard to keep him motivated to keep trying.  I think maybe that's also part of the problem we're having with potty training.  Maybe it's just the age he's at??  I'm trying hard to make things fun and help him be more confident about them.
- He really likes organizing things.  That's most of what he likes to do with all of his trains.  Tim teases me that he gets it from me.  Tim's dad and step-mom got him a toy golf set for his birthday and all he wants to do is organize the balls instead of try to hit them.
- He's trying to be more independent.  He wants to put his own shoes on, take his shirt off at night, etc.  I get a lot of "I'll do it!" from him.  Yet he still wants us to spoon-feed him applesauce at dinner time...
- He loves to sing.  He sings a lot of songs from Thomas, especially when he's playing trains.  He also makes up his own words to melodies he knows.  He definitely got that from me.  Guilty.
- He's pretty good at sharing with Charlie and playing with him.  He's still a little too rough with him sometimes or will try to scold him for things that he thinks he shouldn't be doing.

Charlie is 9 Months

I've been horrible about posting lately because I've been soooooo busy.  With the two boys and trying to start this business I have virtually no downtime anymore.  Every minute that I'm not running errands, trying to take the boys to do something fun (pool, museum, zoo, park, etc.), playing with or caring for them, cooking, or taking care of the house, is spent doing work.  I'm trying to get workouts in 3-4 days a week, but those mostly occur after the kids are in bed at like 8:30.  By the time I finish that, wrap up housekeeping stuff, and maybe do some work I'm beat and it's time for bed.  I still feel like I can't get to sleep until 10:30 or 11 every night.  Then I'm up with Charlie at 5 the next morning.  If I'm lucky I get another hour of sleep after I'm done feeding him, but lately he's been waking up for good around 6 so I haven't been getting that either.  Ugh.

Anyway, this post isn't supposed to be a pity party for me.  It's supposed to be about my little cutie who is 9 months old today.  There's not a whole lot new to report.  I'm still anxiously awaiting the arrival of his bottom front teeth, which have been threatening to erupt for months now.  I wish they'd hurry up because he really wants in on the table food!  He's a good eater.  He's eating the gamut of fruits, veggies, cereal, yogurt now.  He's still very happy and laid back.  Up until this week he was doing a great job sleeping through the night.  This week, not so much.  He still is insisting on waking up to eat at 5am, though, which is not fun.  He's definitely old enough now that he shouldn't need to be doing that.  I think it's habit, and I think I'm going to have to force the issue soon.  No real signs of crawling yet.  He's constantly leaning WAY far forward to reach things, but that hasn't translated to crawling yet.  When I put him on his belly he'll stay on all fours for a bit, but doesn't try to go anywhere and hasn't gotten himself up on all fours yet.  

It's been unbearably hot here for the last month or so.  We've been trying to get out and enjoy the summer when we can.  We usually do our outings in the morning anyway so it hasn't been too bad.  I can't believe July is almost over!  We only have a month or so until will starts back to school.

I decided not to do a half marathon this fall.  The Columbus race is on Charlie's birthday so it was out anyway.  There is one in Indianapolis that is a few weekends after that, though, that would have been good.  Nobody else really seemed that interested, though.  And I decided to give the family a break on the running thing.  It really is a big time suck, and I don't like missing out on Saturday mornings with the boys during the summer when we could be going out and doing fun stuff.  Of course we never actually do any of that fun stuff, but that's a whole other rant...  Anyway, so I'm trying to focus on building up some muscle mass and stay on top of the running a bit.  I'll probably do the Thanksgiving day 10K.  At least that's some kind of goal.  And plan to do the Pig in the spring.  Although I'm actually getting pretty bored with that race.  Maybe something else might be fun.  I'll have to think about it.

My business is growing a bit, albeit slowly.  I'm getting a fair amount of business with helping people get set up.  I've only gotten one new actual bookkeeping client, though, and that's what I really need to be able to get a stable income going.  I'm sinking A LOT of time into this networking group I've joined.  I'm definitely seeing some results from it, they just don't seem commensurate with the time that I'm putting in.  I realize it's not going to happen overnight, though, so I'm trying to be patient.  Luckily the boys have really settled in well with the sitter.  She's great with them and very reliable.  Hopefully she sticks around!

Next up is Will's 3rd birthday next weekend.  Party planning is underway and we're on the hunt for a new bike for his gift!