Things didn’t work out quite the way they were supposed to for my birthday this past weekend, but it ended up being fun nonetheless. Most of my friends bailed on the celebrations due to lack of babysitters, which was tough, but we had a good dinner with the one person who did show up (you rock Teri!) We ended up back at the house playing ‘80s trivia with her and our own babysitter once the kids were in bed. (Apparently Chris spent the better part of the ‘80s watching TV…how else could he know so many pop culture answers?) A good night overall.

Justin is so engrossed with the alphabet that he spells out every sign he sees, which was cute the first few times but is increasingly becoming annoying. He also seems to have an impressive memory – we read him a short book two or three times and he can then recite it back to us. He can count up to 40, he knows all his colors and shapes…and it makes me wonder if he’ll be bored in preschool or kindergarten. (Not that he’s heading for preschool anytime soon, as we are exactly nowhere with potty training, but still.) In the last few weeks he’s become a lot more social with the kids in his play group, which is good to see, and he rarely plays shy with new people for long anymore. Our baby is growing up!

Our other baby is doing well too. He’s amazing us with his ability to feed himself with a spoon. I put some food on the spoon and put the spoon on Brayden’s tray, and he picks it up and uses it exactly the way it’s supposed to be used. I just can’t get over that. Brayden’s had some challenging nights lately, where he wakes up at 2 or 3 a.m. and has to be rocked back to sleep, but hey: this too shall pass, right?