Update 061310

I can't believe it's been over two weeks. I'm so ashamed.
Okay, not really. But it just shows how time flies when you're having fun. Or just... Time flies, with or without the fun.
I don't even know what all I've been up to that's kept me from posting. This weekend has kind of blurred everything else from my memory. Let me give you a rundown of the last several days:
Tuesday - gone most of the day doing errands, visiting Paul at work, and Grandpa in the hospital.
Wednesday - Paul worked in the morning. After he got home in the afternoon, we got the boys put down for naps then I went in to town to set up for a garage sale at Lurenda's mother in law's.
Thursday - Normal-ish morning. Put boys down for naps, then left to set up for garage sale, left there to practice music for a wedding, then went immediately to wedding rehearsal, then home to eat and put the boys to bed, then back in to set up for the garage sale. Got home at 12:30.
Friday - up at 6:30, first day of the garage sale. Left at 1:30 to take Jacob home for his nap. After nursing him to sleep, I realized that resistance was futile, and I crashed myself for an hour. Which meant I had to scramble to get myself dressed and out the door to be on time for the wedding.
Saturday - up at 6:30 again, met Paul for breakfast at Burger King, back to garage sale. Massive rain out. We sorted stuff for donations (we have a staunch "no returns" policy - if we were willing to sell it to a stranger for a quarter, we can part with it to Goodwill or LifeCare), then I went to church to copy off the bulletins. I got home about 2, and once again fell asleep nursing Jacob. I took a nap under the pretense I'd clean that night.
So yeah - now it's Sunday night and the house looks no better. Not only was I gone for pretty much 3 solid days, I also have the piles of stuff I "bought" (ahem) at the garage sale... One of the families (we had 7) has two boys that are a couple years older than Nathan, so I grab up any of their hand-me-downs I can. And then there's also the clothes, books, movies, and other things siblings have borrowed for so long they think it's their own and try to sell it.
So what am I doing? Sitting in front of the computer avoiding housework. My excuse is that I could get shocked by lightening while doing dishes, since it's rumbling and flashing outside. (Before you laugh - that just happened to a local guy this week.... Lighening struck outside and traveled up the pipes and shocked him while he was washing dishes! He was dazed for over a half an hour.)
Jacob is 7 1/2 months now. He has four teeth. Four very sharp teeth. His favorite thing to try them out on is me. My hands, my legs, my shoulder, my other parts...... OUCH. He's crawling, pulling up, and experimenting with "free-handing" - where he's pulled up holding on to something, and then lets go and teeters there before plopping onto his tush. He is SUCH a happy guy! He smiles all the time, and also doesn't mind cuddling, which is something Nathan never really liked, even when he was little. He's usually content with anyone, which makes getting stuff done much easier. He hates baby food. You know how they say "try a new food 10 times"? Yeah. We've tried like 30 times, and still he spits it out. He starts spitting before it even gets in his mouth. He prefers food he can pick up and chew, but he doesn't chew it well enough and he gags. So we tried mashed up whatever-we're-having. Tonight I made grilled marinated chicken and tomato spaghetti, and he seemed to like it, so.... We'll see.
Nathan is talking, talking, talking. His vocabulary expands constantly - he's always saying new words and phrases that leave us laughing or shaking our heads. New this week are "allright", "yee-haw", and "just a minute". A couple weeks ago he said, "Good gracious" - and I have NO idea where that came from. He's starting to act out things with his toys - mostly his cars and tractors, talking to each other. And I've noticed that the main characters are "Daddy" and "Mommy". Tonight I was the big red firetruck, and Paul was the green tractor. Nathan hasn't had a potty accident in several weeks. He's dry I'd say 50% of the time after naps. We still are a long ways away from being dry at night, though.
Both of the boys love being outside. I can take them out to the sand pile and they'll entertain themselves for an hour. But rather than being able to relax on a blanket, I have to be on the lookout for Jacob eating handfuls of sand, and any "poop cat" (Nathan's term) landmines. I hate cats.
I broke out the bike and trailer and have hauled the boys around the neighborhood several times in the last month. I discovered we have a badger family living in a den right next to the road about a half mile from the house. Lovely. That means either I have to lock up the dog or go another way. (Badgers are very mean, and can kill a dog in a fight.)
My garden is so-so this year. Because of the unusually cool and wet spring, only about half of my seeds germinated. The only crop that did great is my lettuce. I have a blend of four types of lettuce, along with a mesculn greens mix that makes an amazing salad. I have much more than we can consume ourselves. Our corn is loving the hot humid weather and has really sprung up the last week or so. It's fast approaching time to put a fence around it.
Well, this post has taken me about 8 hours to complete, by the time I get distracted, and then have an internet failure. I'd better just go ahead and publish it.