![\"August](\"http:\/\/x42.xanga.com\/c0bf63e579d33271018993\/m216161075.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"August](\"http:\/\/x28.xanga.com\/4b7f6b1a56332271018995\/m216161077.jpg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\nYesterday we celebrated by doing a bit of last minute school clothes shopping. Somewhere many monsoons ago, someone chose to inflict school uniforms on the patrons of our school. I’m not a fan of uniforms in the first place, but the colors they chose make me roll my eyes every time I think about it. Light blue button down shirts and navy pants. Light blue dresses for the girls. Drum roll please. Suffice it to say, I should never teach at this school. Often when the boys are sick or particularly grumpy, I give them baths and find the cutest clothes they have. Somehow it makes it easier to be sweet to them. I’m thinking that seeing all that blue day after day after day topped with a child who hasn’t had his fingernails trimmed for a month, sporting a bad sinus infection, and struggling with a Math problem …. Well, I’m just thinking that come February I’d have a really hard time focusing on something positive.<\/p>\n
So anyway, we went school shopping. Because Adam’s closet isn’t exactly wealthy in the light blue button down shirt department. But we made it a super fun day to celebrate his coming of school age. David was doing a job run and working at the office so Liam stayed with him for an hour and a half while Adam and I went to the mall. It was so, so much fun to be with just him. We held hands and went quickly from store to store looking at children’s clothes. And since it was his special day of celebration, we skipped the dollar menu at McDonalds and ate pizza at Sbarro. He was perfectly quiet with delight at his huge piece of pepperoni pizza. We talked about school like we seem to do every other minute right now and he solemnly informed me that he is most excited about learning to read. And just because we never get the chance to do treats without Liam, we double-treated and got cinnamon pretzels at Auntie Annes. <\/p>\n Strangely enough, we did not find a single short-sleeved button down light blue shirt in town so I came home and ordered them on Lands End. <\/p>\n Liam cried and cried and cried heartbroken tears when he got back in the car with me. I think he could not believe his luck at having been with daddy because it is always Adam who gets to ride along, not him. He is going to be a very sad little boy next week when Adam goes to school. <\/p>\n ***********************************************************************************************<\/p>\n Why do viruses have to plague us in the summer? I got hit with a vicious sore throat, body aches, exhaustion, chest congestion & sniffly nose last night. This morning Liam joined me. Every time he sneezes (which happens about every five minutes), snot shoots down over his clothes and covers his hands. I had full intentions of starting the potty training process today. This was the perfect excuse to push it off for another few days. My body wants to do nothing but go back to bed for two more hours and when I wake, to sip hot tea or something else soothing. Somehow cleaning up streams of urine from the floor does not seem like a good idea. I think we’ll read a lot of stories instead and hope for long naps.<\/p>\n ************************************************************************************************<\/p>\n The boys are totally cracking me up when they talk right now. Liam is the funniest to listen to because his words are so twisted and mixed up and consonant missing he nearly creates a different language. He repeats ev-er-ything Adam says. Everything. And his favorite phrase is, “Oh, pi[t]y [s]akes.” Don’t ask me where that phrase came from. This morning he pulled off one small piece of his honey cake and said, “[l]ook. Oh, pi[t]y [s]akes.” <\/p>\n We all turn into bums because he can’t say the c sound yet. So he walks around saying, “Mo[mm]y bum (come).” He has always been a super daddy baby, but since I took so many trips this summer, I’ve become a little more important to him. Almost every day out of the blue he will run and wrap his arms around my legs and say with delight, “Mo[mm]y bum [h]ome [n]ow.” Home means wherever he is at the moment. It’s nice to feel loved.<\/p>\n Everything is big, big. His eyes got so wide they nearly went vertical when we drove into Virginia Beach and he saw the huge hotels. “Big, big [h]ouse, Mo[mm]y.” And whenever anyone asks him how old he is he says, [t]wo. A[d]am [s]ix.” But mostly I want to just squish him because he is so full of sweetness. <\/p>\n When we were shopping he touched everything from salt shakers to baby clothes and said, “duuuuute (cute) mo[mm]y. Dis duuuuuute. Mo[mm]y [l]ook. Duuuuute.” I gave him his bath at bedtime and he marched down the steps to get his blankie. “Da[dd]y, me dute.”<\/p>\n But cutest of all is the way he always says, “dank oo pees” (thank you please) every single time you give him something. I wish I could just attach a little video camera to him all day and memorialize the stage he is in. Because he is so much fun.<\/p>\n Adam’s funniest thing right now is the way he abbreviates things mistakenly. When we were in Harrisonburg awhile ago he saw a horse and buggy. I explained that there are Old Order Mennonites there who are similar to the Amish in some ways. Since then he always refers to them as “Older Mennonites.”<\/p>\n ***********************************************************************************************<\/p>\n![\"August](\"http:\/\/x88.xanga.com\/c27f941bd6332271018999\/m216161081.jpg\")
<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"August](\"http:\/\/x98.xanga.com\/7398537167739271019002\/z216161084.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"August](\"http:\/\/x2c.xanga.com\/d618216b67726271019000\/z216161082.jpg\")
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