My goodness, it's been way too long. A lot has happened in the past month, much of which I can't even remember. Seems I'm remembering less and less these days and even my mass of sticky note reminders stuck in various, should-be obvious places, are being overlooked. I can't remember to look at my reminders. I blame it partly on starting school and being in a new position, of which I love by the way. I blame it more-than-partly on my eight-month old and nearing three-year old which have been draining every last brain cell that I have...and they are already few and far between. And lastly I guess I blame it on forgettful genes...my dad, not my mom. Life has been...busy and not allowing for much of anything extra.

Back to the kids. Cale has started Noah's Ark which has been an experience. Mostly a good experience, except that Cale has chosen this time in his life to become clingy and unsure of himself. So, many mornings have resulted in me prying him off of my legs as I quickly shut the door while he screams. Great way to start the day. (And it's not just at preschool. It's church, bedtime, naptime, etc.) But, he has been doing better the past week or so at Noah's Ark. Nothing that a little candy-bag-for-not-crying bribe each afternoon and having his best bud and cousin Kenzie ride with us to school, couldn't fix. It's shameful that I've resorted to bribing with candy, but I'll take shameful bribery over screaming and clinging any day. Each morning Kenzie and Cale walk in holding hands and stay that way for the first few minutes of being at school. It's pretty sweet.

Since my last post, Cale had a two-week long monster transformation. I don't mean monster as in "big", I mean he literally became a monster. He screamed and cried a constantly throughout the day, didn't want to go to school, woke up screaming and kicking several times a night, and just completely wasn't himself. I kept trying to get him to tell me what was wrong, but all I got was wailing. Finally we took him in to the doctor and found out he had a bad throat infection. After being on medicine for several days, his behavior did not get better. In fact, he got worse. I was beginning to think this was a phase he was in, and that disturbed me. Each day at school Cale's teachers were telling me that he cried a lot, refused to eat lunch (for about a week), and just wasn't himself. He was even sent home one day because he wouldn't stop crying. Finally he began telling us his teeth hurt. I looked inside his mouth and sure enough...it was the King-Kong of teeth...the two-year molars. I guess I thought those had already come in. I should've known better. There's not a tooth in that boys head that didn't come with pain and torture (yeah, I'm sure it hurt Cale, too) ;) So, we loaded him up on Tylenol and Ibuprofen for several days and he finally got past it, for the most part. He's still pretty clingy and almost impossible to get to sleep..."Lay with me...I want a drink...I'm scared...I think there's a tiger in my bedroom." One of my favorite excuses came about 11:00 one night. He woke up screaming and crying and when I finally calmed him down he said he wanted a drink. I told him no and he said, "...But I want milk. My bones are hurting and they are about to break". Back story...he hasn't been wanting to drink milk lately so I've been trying to coax him into drinking it by telling him how strong it makes his bones. So, what could I do but give him some milk. This boy is killing me.

Keaton is crawling all over the place now and pulling up on everything. He's been caught eating the toilet brush at least two times now. So that's where we are right now. I would move the brush, but there's just no good, handy place to put a nasty toilet brush and I feel like the best place is beside an equally nasty thing...the toilet. I just can't bring myself to put it on the counter or even on top of the toilet. I have issues about toilets and the tools we use to clean them, I guess. Keaton has also had ear infections for about a month and a half now. We have had four doctor visits and are now on our fourth different medicine. Next step will be a visit to the ENT, if his ears haven't cleared in about another week. Poor little guy has definitely been fussier than normal and not sleeping too well, but overall he's still a trooper.

Mr. Keaton has developed a temper in the last few weeks. He goes into a full-on screaming fit when things don't go his way. My sister said she read that at eight months you can start to really see a baby's personality. Up until then, you can't really tell. Darn it...he hit the eight month mark about 6 days ago. Hope there's not a correlation! But, in his defense his ears have been hurting for far too long now and he's cutting his second tooth. Those two things would be enough to make any of us have a temper, I suppose.

I can't believe how fast time is flying. It's almost October, Cale will be three in a few months and before long Keaton will be a year old. And I can barely keep up already. But, we are beginning my favorite time of year: Fall! So, I am going to try to slow down and enjoy it, one pumpkin at a time.