See that?  That’s me being funny.

I’m excited to be going back to work part-time in November (so soon!), although pumping breastmilk in anticipation of this event isn’t exactly how I want to be spending my free time.  I’ve been trying to do it every day during the week for 15 minutes.  I realize how busy I must be, when I find it challenging to get a nice 15-minute block to accomplish this.  But so far, I have a few bags of milk stored up in the freezer.  This week’s efforts will feed Emery for one work day.  One.  Holy hell, how I am going to do this?  I guess the blessing is that it’s only 2 days each week, and by the time I go back to work, E will be nearly 7 months and he will have started solid food by then.

Holden has started his new school year at the EJRP Preschool where he went last year.  There are some familiar faces and some new ones.  He even has some new teachers (we were heartbroken to find out that one of his preschool teachers who also doubles as our babysitter left the preschool to go back to college).  No more date nights for us:(  But so far, H seems to be having a great time at preschool, and he is loving the 3-day per week routine compared to the 2-day per week routine that he had last year.

Here he is on his first day of preschool for the year:

And of course we couldn’t resist a picture with his adoring little brother:

H is so much more mature this year than last.  I’m sure it will be a wonderful last year of preschool for him.  Then off to the elementary school next year for kindergarten!  Yikes!

Little E is 5 months old!  As of his 4-month check-up he weighed in at just over 19 lbs and is 27.5 inches tall, which puts him in the 99th and 93th percentiles for weight and height, respectively.  He’s a big dude!

He is babbling non-stop, starting to sit up on his own, and rolling from back to tummy effortlessly!  He is social and snuggly, and he may have shown us a glimpse of his budding sense of empathy already!  We had a playdate with some friends last week; they have 3 girls who are 4, 2.5, and 8 weeks.  We had propped Emery and the 8-week old up so that they were facing each other and checking each other out.  E just smiled and smiled at her, and wouldn’t stop studying her sweet face.  After a few minutes of this, the 8-week old’s middle sister bounded onto the couch and accidentally scratched her sister on the face.  The little 8-week old scrunched up her face and started crying.  E looked at her and stuck out his lower lip in the most pathetic pout ever, and started sobbing.  It was so clearly an empathic response to what happened, and I was so struck with how early this sort of thing emerges.  It truly is amazing.

Well, I successfully drove myself and my two little guys all the way from northern VT to WV and back again.  We have been back for 2.5 weeks already, and I am only now getting around to detailing our little trip.  The boys were AMAZING in the car.  Seriously, they couldn’t have been better.  They definitely were ready to be out of the car at the end of each leg of the trip, but who can blame them?  I tried to break up the driving as best I could—for instance, we stopped at a park in the Adirondacks and did some swinging and sliding at the playground.  We also had an impromptu picnic at a cemetery somewhere in Ohio.  Sounds morbid, but wow…it was a beautiful day and the cemetery was quiet and CLEAN, unlike the midwestern rest stops that peppered the interstate.  Plus, H got to learn a few things about where people’s bodies go after they are dead, and he even decided to talk to “Ralph” and “Edith,” who were interred next to our beach towel and veggie straws.  H offered them imaginary ice cream and told them stories.  I’m sure if they could hear him, it would have made their day.

We broke the driving up over two days.  We stayed overnight in Rochester, NY at a super cheap hotel, which for some reason, made H eager to the extreme.  He is kind of fascinated with sleeping at hotels.  Even cheap ones with crappy breakfasts, apparently.  When I told him that we’d be getting a free breakfast in the morning at the hotel, he responded matter-of-factly:  “Nothing is for free, Mommy.”

I stand corrected.

We had a really nice time at my parent’s house once we arrived.  And best of all, the visit gave me some much-needed peace.  I spent a lot of time with my dad, and after spending time with him and talking to him about it, I’m nearly 100% certain that he is absolutely fine.  Really.  I think I was given some bad intel about his health, and I am so so so relieved.  The visit was very special for him.  His grandsons are very important to him and he loves them both so much.  I know how much it meant to him to be able to spend that time with them.  I am so glad we were able to make the trek down there.

While we were in WV, we also got to visit my dear aunt and uncle.  Holden got completely spoiled with tractor rides with one of my favorite uncles:

My mom had a nice time with the boys, too.  She is definitely having a very hard time with her health, but there’s really nothing anybody can do to help.  We’re just waiting on pins and needles for November, when she’ll finally get a diagnosis.  Here she is loving baby time with Emery:

During our return trip to VT, we were coming up through the Adirondacks (which are BEAUTIFUL!), and I somehow took a wrong turn (or failed to make a right turn).  Either way, the directions had me confused because apparently 9-North is different from 9N, which is different still from 9N-North.  Confusing.  So we found ourselves WAY north of the bridge that would have allowed us to cross Lake Champlain and arrive safely again in VT.  Once I realized my error, we were getting closer to Plattsburgh, NY, and we were almost directly across from Burlington, VT—with Lake Champlain directly in our way.  The lake is enormous.  Driving around it isn’t really an option, and I wouldn’t have known where to go to even do that anyway.  We may have ended up in Canada, and I have neither a passport nor an enhanced VT license.  Here’s a picture of what kind of problem we were up against:

Luckily, some problems can more easily be turned into adventures than others.  I knew that there is a ferry that can get you across the lake from NY to VT, but I’d never taken it before, and I wasn’t quite sure where to pick it up.  Amazingly, we pretty much stumbled upon the ferry in Fort Kent, NY, paid $17.95, drove our little VW Rabbit onto the boat, and spent a full hour cruising across the lake on one of the most spectacular days of the summer.  Holden was so excited that we had driven our car onto a boat to cross the lake—I thought he was going to lose his shit.  Here’s our little car, getting ferried across the lake to the Green Mountain State:

Twenty minutes after disembarking the ferry, we were in our driveway, hugging our sweet Papa and regaling him with stories from our travels.  The trip was good for all of us.  It was good for the boys, it was good for my parents, and it was also good for me.  I feel some peace that I didn’t have before, and I think it was one solid step towards feeling whole again.