This weekend was more my speed. We took Stephen to the real pool for the first time yesterday. There was no one there despite the weather being perfect for swimming. Stephen can stand in the kiddie pool but struggles to walk. We actually spent most of the time in the regular pool, alternating between holding Stephen and swimming around for pleasure. There was shade from a tree in the late day. It was nice. By the time we got out, Stephen was dunking his face in the pool over and over and loving it. Jaime was standing in three feet of water and he kept holding his breath and bobbing into the water.

Today Stephen's Grandparents did some babysitting while Jaime and I had a mid-day date. It's nice to get babysitting in your own home. It simplifies the whole thing. We had a good 4.5 hours out of the house at a movie and lunch at Don Pablo's. Of course, during all this relaxing (never more than 3.5mi from the house), we failed to go back to the swimming pool today or go grocery shopping. Jaime's car is getting some body work done this week so I do not have a car. This means I/we have to go grocery shopping tomorrow after Jaime gets home from work. Blech.

In a month, I will be on vacation.

Manassas actually has a pretty decent fireworks display on the 4th of July. We have seen it a couple times before under different circumstances, and we decided to try to take Stephen down there this year. We let him sleep about an hour, woke him up, and headed out to try to make the fireworks at the last second.

We parked in a nearby neighborhood and plunked Stephen in his stroller, walking the rest of the way. We felt like idiots as we walked passed dozens of empty parking spaces at commercial buildings, but our timing was still perfect. We took a left on Center St. and walked a little further. We started to see hordes of people in lawn chairs on either side of the street. We found an open spot in the grass, parked the stroller, and sat down. We also failed to bring blankets or chairs, but Stephen sat on a jacket and we sat in the grass.

Our spot was pretty good once the fireworks started, but not as good as we had previously thought/hoped. The show was going along nicely and it was a nice, large operation, but the fireworks stopped after 5 mins. After about 12 minutes of waiting, we decided to head back to our car with our tired baby. We got about halfway to the car, and at a very fortunate spot, the fireworks started back up after 15 or 16 minutes of downtime. We found a little side street and took turns holding Stephen while we watched the rest of the fireworks. It wasn't a very bad vantage point, and we were close to our car. We were able to get out of there without any traffic at all (because, let's face it, we parked too far away).

A great experience. Stephen was not interested in the fireworks, but he was not scared of them either. He just wished he was at home in his crib.

Stephen is now officially off of formula. He drinks around 25oz of milk per day (half soy / half whole) and 15oz of juice. He eats three solid meals a day and all of his snacks are solid food (cheerios, nutri-grain bars, cookies, other finger foods). He can eat pretty much anything that we are eating and enjoys taking bites. Yesterday I gave him two small pieces of my grilled cheese sandwich. Took him a bit, but he ate it. Wheat bread, crust and all.

His ability to cause trouble has increased quite a bit. When he began to walk around, he was still okay, but now his curiosity has increased and he gets into everything (and I mean everything). We are also experiencing our first tantrums these days. The sort of thing where.... he wants something, we don't let him have/do it, and he gets very angry. He tries to escape from his high chair and needs to be restrained with the shoulder straps on the the chair.

He is also shifting towards one nap per day. I shoot for a nap from 10am-1pm and don't waste any time trying to get him to nap in the afternoon. That still puts him at 14hrs of sleep every day. I can not remember the last time either of us had to get up at night. It's been months since we heard even the slightest peep from Stephen before 6am.

We have been attending Race for the Cure in Washington DC for about five years now (Jaime and her family have a couple more years on me). We were not able to make it last year because we had Stephen, who was still a newborn. This year we resolved to make it downtown with Stephen and participate. Due to a family emergency, Jaime's parents had to drive to New Hampshire at the last second. We had initially planned to drive down to the METRO with them and all ride together.

Now it was up to us. As usual, we were worried about Stephen experiencing all this new stuff and possibly not getting a nap all morning. The METRO had some of the track on our line shut down for new construction, so we had to drive to a different station that did not have a parking garage. We ended up parking on the street and walking to the station. We got on a train with plenty of time. and even got some seats.

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What a day. Got up at 6am, made our way down to DC. Did the entire 5k walk with Jaime and Stephen. It was quite humid and in the mid-80's, but the clouds were covering the sun for most of the walk. Stephen didn't get any naps. He slept about 45 minutes on the drive home, but that was it. We tried a couple times to get him to take a nap in the afternoon (we got home before 1pm), but he just refused. He was in an awful mood and couldn't be satisfied.

We couldn't take it any more and put him to bed at 6:30pm. Even if he sleeps an amazing 12 hours, that means we are getting up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. I have some pictures that I will post tomorrow.

Then, since Stephen went to bed far earlier than normal, we watched a very long movie (Benjamin Button). Now I'm still having trouble winding down. Night.