This ‘n That

— 1 —

Exciting news! Emma has a new cousin…which of course means I have a new nephew! Thomas was born on Sunday and joins his big brothers Daniel and Lucas. Three boys — better Brian and Cindy than me, right?? I can’t wait to meet him when we go to Charlotte in October!

— 2 —

It’s always nice when flex Friday aligns with a holiday, and I’m looking forward to my 4-day weekend! I do have to work a few hours this morning, so I guess I should call it a 3.5-day weekend…but close enough. We have no major plans so it should be a nice, calm few days.

— 3 —

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here, but Emma and I picked back up with swimming lessons at the beginning of July. (We did them last summer but then stopped.) It’s going really, really well! She had a couple rough classes in the first month because she hadn’t totally figured out how to hold her breath yet — as opposed to swallowing water. But since she got the hang of that, she’s been having a blast. While we’re waiting on her turn with the teacher, I sometimes let her stand on a step that’s only ~10 inches under water and jump off. She loves it!

Last year we stopped when fall rolled around, but this year I’m going to sign us up for the October-December session. The swim place allows kids to start solo lessons (i.e. with other kids, but not parent-kid) once they’re at least 2.5 and my hope is that by continuing through the winter, Emma will be ready for that next spring. (She’ll be 2.5 in February.)

— 4 —

In other Emma news, she moved up to a new room at daycare this week. Her daycare runs their schedule to coincide with the school district, so she wrapped up a whole year in Room 2 and is now in Room 4! There are 12 other kids in there with her and their birthdays are all between May and September 2012, so they are all really close in age. Last year the transition from Room 1 to Room 2 was a little rough so I wasn’t sure how it’d go this year. On the one hand, Emma’s older and more adaptable, but she’s still going to a new room with new teachers. I’m happy to report that the week has gone amazingly well! She seems to really like the new classroom.

— 5 —

After talking all about how I make it work as a mom yesterday, here’s the part where I admit to being “that mom” who still hasn’t gotten her daughter a birthday present…and her birthday was 3 weeks ago. I’m also “that mom” who hasn’t gotten her daughter a birthday present from her grandparents, who entrusted me to pick — and pick up — something. So maybe I can fix that over the long weekend also, eh?

— 6 —

I just finished this month’s book club book and can’t decide what to read next. What have you guys been reading lately? Anything I should check out?

— 7 —

And just to leave you with something cute, please enjoy this video of Emma “reading” her princess books last week. She basically is constantly talking these days, and it’s often a lot more intelligible than this video. (I actually have no idea what she was saying until she gets to “The End.”) I’m totally loving 2 years old so far. [iframe width=”640″ height=”480″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/aBiPGAK6Faw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]