End Days

Summer is now officially in its end days. S. has returned to the classroom to clean up, the tomatoes are starting to come in hard and heavy, which means canning them is inevitably right around the corner. And I've had a nervous lump in my stomach for the past few days, as my first back-to-school anxiety dream has seemed to set off waves of anticipation of the coming school year. This will be my 9th year teaching high school, a feat that was occasionally unimaginable when I started this profession, but am now proud of. It seems like I have myself a little career--so strange.

We had an amazing Rhode Island vacation this year. We went down there with a baby and came back with--a different baby, one that crawls everywhere, pulls himself up to standing, and has 5 (!) teeth already. Seriously kid--well, at least he's not attempting to take any steps yet. You can imagine that the last month has been full of fun with all these chompers breaking through, but we seem now to finally be getting settled down. Sleeping though--still for the birds, thinks Max. For that matter, Theo also rose at a sunny 6:30 every day of vacation--lordy. They were just getting us ready for the school year, I suppose.

Another amazing development? Theo actually started playing with Max! Well, kinda. But it is adorably amusing to watch them together now. If Theo's in the mood, he'll scramble all over the floor on hands and knees and let Max scamper after him. They'll sit on the floor playing (Max chewing on) with Matchbox cars together--which is just fine and dandy until Max crashes an intricate parking set-up that Theo has been working hard on. I love watching these brothers interact and grow and change with each other.

Now, vacation, a fleeting memory now as summer is dwindling:

Up a tree

By the end it became futile to try to keep him on the blanket, so in the sand he went!

Goofball

T. swimming at sunset

Twinsies--which is like, really ironic, right?