We’re at the start of what promises to be an extended heatwave, with temperatures in the mid-30s, so summer has officially arrived in the Okanagan. It’s way too hot to take the kids for a walk after supper, so we’ve been letting them just run around and play with water in the backyard (which gets plenty of shade in the evenings, thanks to the mountain right behind our house). That actually works out better anyway: Brayden can use up some energy instead of being strapped down in the stroller. He’s had better bedtimes since we started this, so we’ll definitely keep it up.

It’s amazing to me to see the size gap closing between our boys. At 14 months, Brayden already wears a size two (as in meant for a two-year-old) and is only about eight pounds lighter than his older brother. We call him a tank — he’s going to be one solid kid. He’s way more adventurous than Justin and has absolutely no fear, so keeping him out of trouble is a full-time job. We foresee many trips to the emergency room with this one.

Justin has always been tall and thin, but the best word to describe him these days is gangly. There’s not an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He’s currently obsessed with basketball hoops and loves to point out every single one in the area — you wouldn’t believe how much we used to walk around the neighborhood before the heat hit. But he still loves his books and is content to play by himself for long periods, which is very handy when I’m busy keeping Brayden from maiming himself.

We haven’t had to get up in the night with Brayden for almost a month now (knock on wood) and even though we still have some pretty early mornings, we do occasionally get to sleep past 6 a.m. There have been a few evenings lately when Brayden just wasn’t tired when it was time for bed, and he ended up staying up a bit later than we’d like, but since the whole burn-energy-in-the-evening campaign things have improved along those lines. So the sleep thing is going relatively well. And like I’ve always said, you can handle almost anything if you can get enough sleep.