the littlest carscadden: July/August/Hey, even a bit of September, why not?

The end of summer in Baltimore is like a cruel joke, where the pools and ice cream trucks all shut down September first, but it's still 90 degrees and unbearably humid out. "Open two weeks later in June!" I yell impotently at them as I trudge around soaking in sweat and pumpkin spice "No one wants to swim on Memorial Day! We need you now!" The pool has no answer. It knows I'm right.

Oh, yeah, Miles.

Miles started a couple classes at the local gym, soccer and gymnastics. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the only only one signed up for his soccer class. He's had two great solo soccer lessons with the coach, but we decided to move him to a class with, you know, some other kids. I mean, he should probably have someone to pass to. In his gymnastics class, his group was sharing the gym and his side was running a little course where they bounced across a long trampoline, walked a balance beam, and rolled down a padded slope. The other group, who were a couple years older were swinging on a trapeze on the other side of the gym. The parents watched from a balcony, under strict instructions not to distract or interact with the kids.

So, I stood up there and watched patiently as Miles pointed at the trapeze and said "I want to do that", and I watched while, as soon as the teacher's back was turned, he took off running all the way across the gym. I watched him get in line and wait patiently for "his" turn. He got up to the trapeze just as one gym teacher realized she had one extra and the other gym teacher realized she was one short. So, he got sent back with a promise that he'd get to do the trapeze next week.

His vocabulary is really exploding. Every few days he'll come out with a word that none of us can remember teaching him. He tells me that his play tent "collapsed", or he tells Colleen that he's a "predatory venus flytrap". He'll stand somewhere and declare himself to be "camouflaged". He says something silly and then follows up with "That's preposterous" (OK, I did specifically teach him that one.) It's a lot of fun.

We're pretty excited for fall. Colleen has started her fantastic work on Miles' halloween costume, and he's real excited about it too. Tonight, while getting ready for bed he ran into the room and told me "Mama's gonna read me some stories and then we're going to work on my costume for Christmastime". So, I guess he's getting two costumes or something, huh?