Many random thoughts

Padraic enjoyed watching a football game tonight. I have to laugh because it's adorable to hear him yelling commands at the players, even though he knows nothing about the game. Are boys just born knowing how to watch a football game? It's like watching him play with cars before he was 1yo and noticing that he already knew what noise they should make.

One thing I have had to teach him lately reminded me that the whole world is new to kids. We had gone to DQ the night of the almost-accident, and Padraic's chocolate-dipped cone was too big to let him eat at once. So we put the leftover half upside down into an empty paper cup and tucked it into the freezer when we got home. We pulled it out the next day after he'd been good and earned a treat, and when I pulled it from the cup, the ice cream that had been above the cone stayed stuck in the cup. I figured, no big deal, it's still too much ice cream for a 3yo anyway, and I handed him the cone that had ice cream level with the top. He looked at me with confusion and muttered something ending with "...small." It took me a minute, but I realized he didn't know you can eat the cone. Once I explained that, he lit up in a nanosecond and dove right in. It was neat to think that I just taught him one of life's great joys: you can eat the cone and all the creamy goodness inside at the same time!

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Our weekends are packed to the gills from now until late October, and I'm going batty just thinking about it. Two weddings (on the same day, oy), two christenings, Ken's canoe trip, my business trip to DC, a crabfest with neighbors, a consignment sale where I'm moving some of the boys' clothes along to new owners, the list goes on. This weekend is the crabfest on Saturday and one of the christenings on Sunday. It's supposed to pour on Saturday so we tried to convince the host of the crabfest to postpone to another weekend (not that we're really free on another weekend, but we'd figure something out), but he insists, even if it means cracking open messy crabs at their dining room table, instead of outside. It could be a real disaster, but we can only wait to see.

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Henry is getting closer to taking his first steps. He at least knows now that when someone holds his hands to help him stand, he can move his feet to make forward progress. Maybe this weekend we can convince him to let go and take a step or two. My neck and shoulder will be ever so grateful when I no longer have to schlep this 22lb child everywhere. Of course, my lower back will get a big workout with all the bending over to help him keep vertical. Darn that gravity, anyway.