The cactus incident

I've been pretty tired lately, so it's been harder to put my thoughts in order enough to write a blog post. But this is me, making an effort. A for effort?

About a week ago, Justin decided to take off work early on a Friday so he could go check out a camp site he was planning to take the boy scouts to the following weekend. We decided to make it a family affair, so Jeremy and I, and even Lacie, came along.

Lacie wasn't too sure about the car ride, but once we got there, she was in doggie heaven. She does really well staying by us and not bolting off, so we kept the leash off to begin with. She loved being able to roam around the desert and explore! Jeremy thought it was great fun having Lacie there, too.

It was all going swimmingly, until Lacie started sniffing around a cactus. She's not the brightest dog, so despite my efforts to call her away, she ended up with a nose full of cactus. Boy, let me tell you, Jeremy learned a lesson he will never forget, that we should always stay away from cactus!

We were able to get it out with some work. It was tricky, and involved me trying to keep Lacie's head still, and keep her from pawing at her nose, while Justin used a bit of moleskin to try to pull the cactus off. Because apparently his first aid kit is useless, and doesn't have tweezers. That will be changing.

But we got it off, and Jeremy and Lacie both learned a valuable lesson. Lacie didn't go sniffing around off the path anymore, and Jeremy kept talking about how we should stay away from cactus.

Even with that incident, we all had a great time being out in nature. Lacie didn't seem at all traumatized by the experience, once the cactus was out. She went right back to being happy to explore with her boy. She was just better at staying on the path. :)

In other news, Jeremy is slowly getting used to being in sunbeams. He's had a pretty hard transition, I think largely because of how young he is. Note to self, have babies in the first half of the year to make sunbeams a smoother transition! But the last two weeks have each been a step in the right direction, so hopefully, within about a month, he'll be good to just go sit with his class without any meltdowns. Fingers crossed!

We also recently transitioned Jeremy out of his toddler bed (since it's also the crib) and into a twin bed. He has not had any problems with the change, and absolutely loves his new big boy bed. We also took away his night time diapers, the last stage of potty training. He probably would have been fine to lose those even sooner, but I wasn't quite ready. But he has been sleeping in undies for 2 weeks now, and hasn't had a single accident. He even woke up at 1am to go potty last night.

Saturday morning, when Jeremy was first starting to make noises in his room, I suddenly here him say, "Pop! The baby's here now!" He is convinced that's how it works. My belly will get bigger and bigger and pop! The baby will be here. So I hear him say that, and when I go in to get him, he is holding his stuffed dog like a baby, and tells me his baby is here! He then spent the whole morning pretending his dog was a baby: feeding it pretend milk, putting it down for a nap, telling me when the "baby" was crying. It was pretty adorable. I don't know how much he really understands how life will change when we have the baby, but it makes me happy to see him already trying to understand and simulate what it will be like. And any time he talks about baby Wesley, it's usually to say something he's going to share with him, or how he'll help when he's crying. I love that he's already showing compassion for his little brother. Hopefully those feelings stick around once Wesley is actually here!

That's about it for updates for now. As usual, enjoy the onslaught of pictures! I wish I could intersperse them through the post, but I use the blogger app, and for whatever reason, it will only let me attach a bunch at the end. So, here you go!