Month 29, or Where did July go?

Dear Corbin,

This summer has continued with a heat wave that simply defies adjectives. It's been very disappointing. I was planning on spending lovely weekends playing outside in the yard. Instead, we've holed up in the house with the air conditioners on, sitting in front of fans and watching lots of episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba! on Netflix streaming. Our yard has turned into a buggy jungle dotted with toadstools. The dogs have been to the dog park once in four weeks. Our electric bill is higher than it's ever been before. Summer has never been my favorite season and this year I am definitely ready for fall.

At the same time, July seems to have flown past us. You came back from the trip to VA addicted to listening to a cd of Cat in the Hat stories to go to sleep. This is fine with me, since it means I don't have to stand in your room singing songs for half an hour anymore. You've also started saying, "Get more baby blankies," which I think is funny. I try to limit you to four, in case I want one to put over you later. Sometimes you lay down and say, "Put baby blankies on him," and sometimes you just smoosh them up under your face or under your pillow. You've also started asking me to leave the door open when I leave your room, which is only fine with me because you sleep through noise so well.

One of the interesting things that the trip taught you was about fire alarms. You noticed our smoke detector in the hallway upstairs and said, "Alarm makes noise." It took me a minute to remember that the fire alarm had gone off in one of the hotels on your trip and woken you all up early in the morning. So far, that's the one noise that I can think of that you haven't slept through.

We had our 4th of July party, which was really fun. You spent a long time kicking your little soccer ball around with Grandpa Lam and then clapping for yourself. Doug and Adrian brought over a scooter to lend to us, and you learned how to ride that in about a millisecond. The next week, Grandma Lam and I took you to Toys R Us to buy you a helmet. You very loudly refused to let me try it on your head in the store, but that afternoon when we were going to go down the block to a party at Kim and Andy's, I said, "Do you want to ride your scooter?" and you said, "Ride scooter! Put helmet on!" You barely waited for me to cut the tags off. Goodness knows what we would have done if it hadn't fit.

Your vocabulary is getting quite big, and you keep surprising us with things that you say and know. Today at the dinner table you counted all the way up to fourteen. This afternoon you said to Grandma Lam, "Flowers in Liz's yard," and she hadn't heard you use a possessive before that. You're starting to sort out your pronouns, too. You have started knowing the stories in the books that we read. The other day I stopped reading a Curious George book because I thought you weren't paying attention, but you looked at me and said, "Read rest of book." One of the funniest things that you've said recently had to do with the cat. You like to help scoop out the litter box in the basement. One morning I was filling up Laney's food dish, and you said, "Go down and scoop poop." I said, "There's no poop in the litter box right now." You said, "Go down and poop, Laney."

You've also gotten obsessed with puffer fish. I showed you one at the fish store one day, and now you make us draw puffer fish and puff up our cheeks and every time you see a picture of a large-ish fish it's automatically a puffer fish. I was in Chicago for a conference last week, and one of the museums that I got to visit was the Shedd Aquarium. I managed to get a couple of photos of a huge puffer fish at the aquarium. But your actual souvenir was a stuffed triceratops from the Field Museum. I had meant to see more of the Field, but the dinosaurs were so amazing that I totally lost of track of time and was in that gallery for at least an hour. I also got to see the U boat at the Museum of Science and Industry, and I got you one of the old-fashioned molded wax statues of it that you can do in the machine for two dollars. It's going to be a lot of fun when you're a little bit older and we can take some trips to Chicago to see those museums.

But now you're off on another trip with Grandma and Grandpa Lam. First to Madison, then to Menominee, and then way up north in the UP on the family camping trip. You've never been camping before, of course, and I'm hoping that all will go well and that you won't be miserable with bug bites or not able to sleep the whole time. I'm sure you'll be fine and have lots of fun, but I won't be able to call you on the cell phone, so that will be hard for me. Dad and I will meet you at the Cottage the next weekend so we can all go to my cousin Jenny's wedding. I'll be happy to see you! Hopefully, in the meantime, the weather in Minneapolis will be nice and we can finish painting the wall in the living room and the railing on the mud room roof. Having those chores done would feel good. The good part about missing you is that I try to fill up my time doing something useful. Of course, the longer you're gone, the more of your college education goes to Dad and I eating dinner out at restaurants, so you might want to keep that in mind.

Love,
Mom

We started redecorating a wall in the living room:


Mr "Where's my helmet?"

Party at Kim and Andy's house:

You creating a Zen car garden in your sand box: