Is It Really Almost July?

It seems our summer has been busy. And I don’t really know how that happened, because I certainly didn’t plan it that way. I can’t believe it’s almost July already. It has been hot al blazes, though, so it really ought to be July already.

Anyway, the potty training is going pretty well. Caedmon rarely has an accident, but I’m still not sure if that’s because I’m making him go to the potty. So I plan on switching strategies this week. Instead of rewards each time he goes to the potty, I’m going to start rewarding him if he’s been dry for large chunks of the day. If he stays dry all morning, he gets rewarded at lunch. All afternoon, he’s rewarded at dinnertime. And from dinnertime to bedtime, rewarded again right before bed. And I say “rewarded” because I might switch from M&Ms at this point, but I’m just not sure yet. We’ll see how it goes.

Tuesday we went swimming at Mom’s, and I began to look for webbed feet on my child. Seriously, he loves the water, ya’ll. And I loved that Mom’s neighbors came down to swim with us. Caedmon had a blast and I was happy that he had some pint-sized entertainment.

Husband and I decided a few weeks ago that we wanted to go ahead and give Caedmon his birthday present a little early. I’d already bought it (on sale), and it was hidden in our closet. Husband has been complaining for weeks that our closet stunk and I couldn’t figure out what he was smelling. He has a nose like a pregnant woman, ya’ll. After we got the bike out and gave it to Caedmon, we figured out he’d been smelling the rubber from the tires on the bike.

But the bike? It was a hit. There aren’t many pictures because the boy would not be still and many of them turned out blurry. He was pretty excited about the whole getup.

But the helmet, he loves most of all. He randomly wears it around the house.

We took him up to the church where there’s a large, shaded sidewalk area, to try to teach him to ride. He’s never ridden anything he’s had to pedal, so the whole concept is pretty foreign to him. It still hasn’t quite clicked yet, but he had fun trying.

Saturday we took a little trip to a local state park. It was so hot. But we had planned on walking shaded trails and playing in the water, so we took Oz, our lunch, and lots of water to drink. It didn’t quite turn out that way. Amazingly enough, there wasn’t a lot of water to play in. And what was there was overtaken by two annoying kids having a mud fight, ruining the whole creek-wading experience for several families. And there was even less water to swim in. And it was so hot that we didn’t even attempt a trail.

I would just like to say that the car potty has already been worth the money.

But we did rent a paddle boat and put our legs to work. Caedmon wasn’t as impressed as I thought he’d be. He was dragging, too, and less than excited to be doing the things we were doing. Totally not like him. I realized something was wrong when we got back into the car, Husband cranked on the A/C, and Caedmon complained of being cold. Not good.

All the way home, Caedmon had chill bumps. And he was so exhausted and whiny that he fell asleep. I had hoped that he would continue to sleep once we got home, but when I discovered he had a temperature of 101, I didn’t blame him for not sleeping. He kept complaining of his head hurting, so I gave him some Tylenol. An hour later, he was back to his old self and getting into fever-free mischief. I expected it to come back during the night, but it didn’t. I have no idea what was going on, but he stayed fever-free and sassy all day Sunday. I was glad that it was short lived.

This week is supposed to be a little cooler and less humid. Maybe we can be a teensy bit less busy. We’ll see.