Summer Lovin'

So today Katie and I were driving home with the kids and I asked Seamus if he knew what street we lived on and he said he didn't know. So I told him we lived at the corner of James and Finn - wasn't that funny. And he replied in a bit flustered tone "But I want to live at the middle of Seamus."

I wanted to say - "honey, sometimes it seems like we do..."

He's been working so hard to be good these last two days - he was crabby at bed time earlier this week and didn't get any stories. James tells he and Finn every morning that when he gets home he wants Mommy to say that the boys were a "Perfect 10" all day. When he does arrive home, he asks how they were and we usually cap out at about an 8 (you always have to leave room for improvement). Anyway, the night that Seamus didn't get a story, Finny decided he didn't need one either and promptly went to bed. But the next day, Seamus asked several times after being particularly good or brown nosing, "Is that acting like a 10, Mama?" Needless to say, sometimes we forget our own lessons that follow through is always worth it (especially when it's hardest) because bedtime has been a piece of cake ever since.

Finn has taken to sleeping in his toddler bed with an arsenal of stuffed animals - including, but not always limited to: Mr.Moo, Batman (Finn sized), Bear (from John and Maureen Dougherty), Dog (from Micheal and Elizabeth Dougherty - again not a small animal) as well as his star and moon "B". Trying to lay down and read to him is a little unsettling when you realize that you are rather low on the totem poll of bed mate accompaniment. The other night he woke up with a bad dream and after he went back to sleep I thinned out the stuffed animals so he wasn't so crowded. About 45 minutes later I hear him stumbling around his room and sure enough when I went in to check on him, all the animals were back in place. So funny.

Seamus has also been reading "adult" stories with Katie - so far they've knocked out the original versions of Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz and wait for it....Beowulf. They are currently reading Robin Hood and I've told her that after this one, we've got remove sword play from our reading materials for a while. She's bought Oliver Twist and Black Beauty...which I believe should cut down on the swashbuckling and still keep the literary interest. It's been such a fun thing watching the two of them together - Seamus has always loved books, but now he'd spend the entire day in Katie's lap reading anything and everything he can get his hands on if he could.