One more day of vacation...

Tomorrow is my last day of vacation. I'm pretty bummed, but it's been a nice break! I got to sleep a lot, and Roxanne and I got to see what it would be like if I was a stay at home mom. It's not that different from my job now, but it's nice to be able to get out of the house and drive places. I can't do that with three little ones. Roxanne has asked about "Josh" a few times, so I know she will be happy to see him and Ben on Wednesday. She might have asked about Ben, but her word for Ben is kind of like "beh," so it's easy to miss. She's using more and more sentences lately (if you don't believe me, ask my mom, she's gotten to witness some of the jibber jabber) but it's definitely not easy to understand her all the time. But she is definitely sure of what she's saying. The funniest is when she gets on a roll and gets very earnest and uses her arms and nods and opens her eyes a little wider. It's like she trying to tell you something very serious, but it's very hard not to laugh. Justin and I are both getting better at understanding her. She often uses the structure "it's a ___" like "it's a baby" or "it's a ball." She also says "nother ___" when she wants more of something. I guess I say "another ____?" often. Usually she's asking for "bob bob." She's becoming a total Sponge Bob Square Pants fanatic, so we are trying to limit her viewing of it a little.

My mom gave us one of Leah's old Sponge Bob pillow cases and fleece blankets, and I had distant hopes that they would help her want to stay in bed, but no such luck. She still wakes up in the middle of the night. It's frustrating because I'm fairly sure now that a fair amount of her waking is from our loud neighborhood. I'll come in her room at 2:00am and she will instantly say "choo-choo!" or "car!" and sure enough, I can hear either a train or a car going by noisily. Hopefully we will be moving to the new house soon, and it's very very very quiet over there. We turned in the last of the second set of conditions this afternoon, so hopefully they won't come back with more... What a nightmare that would be. Our landlord told us this evening that he rented the apartment to one of his "buddies." Apparently he's a musician with a pregnant wife. At least we won't have to have any more "showings," but we both feel almost guilty that we can't tell the woman how noisy it is over here and how tough it is to keep a baby asleep through bachelor-pad parties every other week. I guess if they are good friends, he won't mind coming out and asking them to keep it down. Or maybe they will just join in the festivities!

Justin is starting to feel a little better, although he's still got a lot of muscle soreness and a swollen throat. This seems like a really weird virus that he's got. We've been wondering if it's swine flu, but he's never had a fever. Hopefully he'll get better soon. He stayed home today from work, and Roxanne and I enjoyed spending a 3 day weekend with him. We went over to Centennial Park and let Roxanne play in the fountain. A nice (and short) outing, but definitely something I wouldn't have wanted to do alone. I hate driving downtown. Somehow I always get lost and end up in parts of downtown that look an awful lot like the USSR. We also ambled around Richard's Variety Store in midtown for a while. That place is so bizarre, but really fun. We let Roxanne ride the coin-operated horses they have up front and she started out terrified, and gradually warmed up enough to hold onto the saddle with one hand and clutch Daddy's arm with the other. But she was smiling and hooting while she did it. It was a nice day.