Shortly after my last post I got fed up with Brayden staying awake until 9 or 10 p.m., so I finally caved to the inevitable and let him give up the nap. We tried this a couple months ago, but he would get really strung out in the afternoons, so we went back to a daily nap. This time around, things are much better: he goes down hard at 7:30 p.m. and sleeps for almost 12 hours (nice!) plus he’s more than happy to have an hour of quiet time in his room watching Diego on the iPod just after lunch. Justin will still occasionally have a nap, but even when he doesn’t he knows he has to stay in bed until 1:30 p.m. The bottom line is I still get a little break during the day and a much, much better evening. I’m loving this.

Brayden has also made phenomenal progress with his speech over the past month. I don’t know whether I should tell his speech therapist that the key seems to be to let him watch lots of TV. He loves identifying the characters and wants to tell us all about whatever show he’s been watching, so it’s been a real motivator for him. The boys’ current favorite movie is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which is enjoyable even for Chris and I (I laugh every time I see it cause the main character reminds me so much of my older brother), and that got Brayden saying words like “cheeseburger” and “tornado”, so I have no problem with his media exposure.

I’m pretty sure we’re one of the last people in our neighborhood to get a trampoline, but we finally did, and it’s been amazing. It’s a springless trampoline with a safety enclosure, so there’s no way for them to fall off or pinch fingers or whatever, which is cool, and yesterday I even managed to get some weeding done while they were jumping. We used to have a play structure with a slide and a tunnel and so on in the backyard, which they loved, but if it rained or the sprinklers ran overnight the kids would get wet or muddy while they played, and that drove me insane — but the trampoline is off the ground, it dries quickly and they stay clean. A good deal all around.

Four more weeks until Chris and I leave for Europe…not that I’m counting…