The whole weekend was sunny and absolutely beautiful. Mid 70’s and perfect for anything outdoors. My entire futurecast on my phone tells me that it will be this way for a while, so I decided to drag my family out to the greenhouse and buy some plants for my pots. As I was sitting on the front stoop covered in dirt, I remembered feeling so excited this time last year that I was going to be on maternity leave in the summer and I would be able to enjoy my flowers while sitting out with my new baby watching Sylas play in the yard. Of course, last year was tsunami season or something because it poured day after day in the Midwest and completely waterlogged my flowers, so they were pretty well dead when maternity leave finally rolled around. Oh well, I still got to sit out and enjoy my kiddos even if I didn’t have any flowers in my pots.

Being beautiful outside, and Sylas needing a good summer cut, we decided to walk to the barber and get his ears lowered. I’m pretty sure it’s tradition to stop by Dollar Tree and let him choose a dollar toy for being good in the chair for his haircut. We do it every time he gets a trim.

We rode our bikes in an empty parking lot near our house for quite a while. I love riding my bike. I got a child seat for Sylas when he was little so that I could go ride around town with him. He really enjoyed it. I was kind of worried that I wouldn’t be able to ride anymore with two kids and nowhere to put one of them. But the parking lot worked out well. Ivan rode in the baby seat while Sylas rode his bike around with me. Granted, there wasn’t much scenery to look at, but it was nice to just get out. I used my fitness tracker while doing that because I get free Walgreens rewards for exercising. I found out that I had ridden three and a half miles just doing loops in the parking lot for thirty to forty minutes.

Sylas wanted ice cream so I took him to sonic for a cone. When we got home, he took a huge bite and soon realized it was too cold to eat that way. And what logical toddler thing is there to do but spit it out in your hand. I told him to throw his handful of soft serve in the trash before it got really messy. So he did. Only he wasn’t paying attention and his whole cone slid from the paper holder and flopped on the floor from his hand. So I cleaned that up and gave him some of mine in a bowl. He had the bowl sitting on the end table of the couch, melting away of course, and Ivan crawled over to investigate. He dumped some out onto the table and I had to clean that up. Not ten minutes later, Sylas was watching TV while simultaneously doing acrobats on the arm of the couch when suddenly his foot connected with the bowl of ice cream. Melted ice cream flew everywhere. I turned into a mom-ster after that and promised to ban all ice cream from ever being eaten inside the house again.

Ivan started to babble today! Finally, after worrying that he was never going to talk. He is saying papa and baba. Of course, all that time I spent repeating mamamama while spooning food into his mouth, and I have nothing to show for it. Haha. He has also started to make a funny face at people when they say hello. It’s super cute. He wrinkles his nose and shows off his only two pearly whites while snorting with his eyes closed making his cheeks look even chubbier than they are. I love that I can finally see past that crying fussy baby and see the little boy that he is going to be someday.

Sylas is growing more and more each day. He is getting to be such a little man. He is so polite, saying please and thank you to everyone. He even thanks them for specific things, like “Thank you for give me a sucker,” sort of thing. He is such a sweetheart. I bought those Willow tree figurines to make a “family” for the shelf that hangs below our family portrait. Sylas’ figurine just so happens to be called “heart of gold” and that is such a fitting representation of him.

I am so excited for summer time. This weekend was just a glimpse of what this season could bring and I can’t wait to spend these fleeting moments with my boys.