Chris and I are leaving on a kid-free holiday next week, so naturally the boys came down with colds this week (and have now passed their germs to me). There’s been lots of sneezing, coughing and wiping of noses, but at least everyone’s sleeping all right. We were on a pretty good run of no illness in the house all summer, but that streak has come to an end — and with Justin in preschool, I’m sure we’ll have all kinds of new germs going around.

Brayden has his own version of a bunch of different words now, although no one but us would be able to identify them (most of them are animal sounds anyway, although he can also imitate the honking of a car horn and the “vroom vroom” sound). He has even said “mama” occasionally like he really means it. He has an appointment with the speech pathologist next week but he has made significant progress in the last two weeks, so I’m not really worried. Justin was a late talker but an early reader, so hey. All in due course…

Brayden is on the verge of talking — at last! Yesterday while I was making dinner he picked out a couple E’s from the magnetic letters on the fridge, looked at me, and said very clearly, “Eee!” He’s been able to recognize letters for a long time (whenever Sesame Street announces the letter of the day he goes and finds it in his alphabet puzzle and holds on to it for the rest of the show) but he could never pronounce any of them, so this is a big deal. He’s pretty good with Z and D but the others aren’t so clear. Still, it’s progress, and we’re excited.

We’re also impressed with how Justin has adapted to preschool. Not once has he played shy or tried to cling to us, and whenever I pick him up he’s always busy playing with the other kids. The teacher tells me they even managed to get him to go on the potty, which is awesome. Maybe kindergarten won’t be the traumatic experience I keep envisioning it to be.

Three weeks until Chris and I leave for Florida. The weather around here has actually been astoundingly nice, so the warm weather down south won’t be that big a deal (the humidity might be another story). But I can’t wait to have five straight days with no child care responsibilities. Tick tock…

Deep down, I really believed this day would never come: Justin is regularly using the potty (although never on his own initiative) and Brayden is putting himself to sleep at night. I hope I haven’t just jinxed it.

For the past few months we’ve had to stay with Brayden until he falls asleep, which on a good day took 10 minutes but on most days took the better part of an hour. If you tried to leave while he was still awake, he’d scream and pound on his door. But last week we discovered that if you give him a book to look at while he’s in bed, you can leave the room and he will eventually conk out on his own without making a peep. It’s a beautiful thing.

As for Justin…he’s pretty good about staying dry while he’s at home, but only if someone forcibly instructs him to head for the potty when he looks like he has to go. We’re trying to get him to do this on his own, but this is a kid who’s mighty reluctant to do ANYTHING for himself, so I suspect we’ve got a long way to go. But at least we’re making progress.

The long weekend had lots of highlights, but I’m in need of a nap, so I’ll do this as a quickie list:

– My dad arrived Friday night, much to the delight of his grandsons. Justin took a minute or two to warm up to the new guy in the house, but then he and Brayden had a blast knocking Grandpa over and wrestling on the floor. Boys.

– Dad and I played two rounds of golf: the first was quite possibly the worst I’ve ever had, and the second was much improved. If I only had a golf buddy in town, I could get a lot more practice…but I’m not bitter.

– The fire across the lake flared up in a big way Saturday night, so we’ve been choking on smoke while we watch charred pine needles rain down on the house. Temperatures have cooled somewhat (we didn’t even break 30 yesterday, which is about 10 degrees down from what it had been) but still no rain, so who knows when things will calm down. I’m just thankful the flames are on the other side of the lake.

– We’ve had a wasp problem in our backyard, so we finally put out some “natural” traps, which are really just a plastic cage with some apple juice and sugar inside. Apparently wasps are not that bright, cause those traps get so full that we have to empty them every single night. There’s no way we had that many wasps in the yard. I’m convinced we’re importing them from other neighborhoods. Where are these things coming from?

– Chris and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary on Monday by going out to dinner and a movie (I was pleased he ignored our rule about no gifts and bought me some roses — they’re beautiful!) Dinner was bad, but the movie was great, and we came home with the warm fuzzy feeling you’re supposed to get after a romantic comedy, so all was well. Uncle Greg came over to help Grandpa with the babysitting and I hear things were OK, although Brayden was not at all happy that Mom and Dad weren’t around for the bedtime routine. He was asleep when we got home, though, which was the main thing.

So that’s the story. This is technically a short workweek, but it feels pretty long to me, although that could just be holiday letdown. And on with the summer…

Hell hath no heat like an Okanagan summer, I tell ya. The thermometer on our deck read 40 degrees last night even before I started the BBQ, and we were up to 44 by the time I finished cooking. It’s mighty warm. The good news is that all the fires are under control and we haven’t noticed significant smoke for quite a few days. We even had a couple serious rainstorms last week that helped cool things off a bit. But the heat is on once again. Thank God for air conditioning.

The long weekend is almost upon us, and that means my dad is coming for a visit. That means I get to go golfing, which is awesome. Sometimes it really bugs me that I live in a golfing paradise but have no one to golf with, since neither Chris nor any of my friends enjoy the game. So I’m looking forward to playing a few rounds. Chris and I are also celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary this weekend, so I’m REALLY looking forward to an evening out with my hubby sans kids. Good stuff.

The city’s on fire once again, although thankfully the flames aren’t anywhere near our house. You could choke on the smoke in the air and the sun seems to have turned orange, but that’s nothing. During the last major fire six years ago, we had ashes and pieces of charred pine trees falling on our yard, but fortunately the fire never got anywhere near us, and this time it’s on the other side of the lake. We’ve been lucky, knock on wood. But we’re all hoping they get this thing under control soon.

On a happier note, we’re getting new windows installed in our house this week. Our current windows have busted seals, rotting frames and in some cases so much condensation that you can’t even see out of them, so the new ones are very welcome. Now so long as the house doesn’t burn down, we’re good to go.

I often wish I had more witty or insightful things to say on this blog, but fatigue and lack of time have a way of messing with my concentration. So I’ll stick to the basics.

Justin has now given up his nap (hey, he’s almost four and a half…it had to happen sometime) but seems to be making up for it by sleeping a tiny bit later in the morning. Actually, I don’t really know what time he gets up in the morning, cause he now reads his books or colors in his room until he hears us get up. We still go through the motions of putting him down for a nap, but we tell him he can stay in his room and just color or read and BE QUIET until we say he can come out. So even though he doesn’t nap, I can still slip downstairs and jog on the treadmill for a few minutes. Yay!

Brayden had a tough weekend: he threw up Friday night, was feverish for three days and seemed to re-injure his right leg, causing him to limp (that leg has been a problem on and off for months now…he goes for X-rays on Friday). But the spring is back in his step and he seems to be feeling like himself again. He even slept well last night, which was a major relief after three nights of being awake for hours. So we’re all friends again.

Which is important, cause Chris is once again out of town for a few days. This time around it hasn’t been too bad, since we’re busy during the day and Uncle Greg’s been helping me with bedtimes. But I’ll be happy to hand over the night shift when Chris gets home tonight.

I kind of feel like I’m under house arrest. We’re finally making some good progress with Justin’s potty training, but it means we have to stick pretty close to home for now, and I’m going stir crazy from staring at these same four walls 24/7. Plus yesterday was not our best day: Justin had lots of accidents, Brayden wouldn’t nap when I wanted him to and Justin didn’t nap at all. Then the worst part of all came at bedtime. Every time it’s Chris’s turn to put Brayden to bed, he spends an hour in there with no luck, then storms out leaving Brayden screaming. I then have to go in and rock the little guy for 20 minutes or so. EVERY TIME. So basically, every other night I end up putting both kids to bed. IT SUCKS.

So Brayden didn’t settle until 9 p.m., and Justin woke up screaming at 5:30 a.m., and if we have another day of no naps Mommy’s going to go postal. God, I need to get out of here…