My favorite thing about the summer is that Milly is with me a lot more than during the school year. She’s over here every Sunday through Thursday, and I love having her around even when we’re not really doing anything. She’s my baby girl and she’s a daddy’s girl. School starts next week, so today was it.
I mean, it’s not like I won’t see her. We still get every other weekend, plus I’m going to start getting her after school every Tuesday and Wednesday instead of every Tuesday plus every other Wednesday, so that’ll be nice. Still, those aren’t overnights and it’s just not the same.
The picture at the top here is actually from yesterday, but I think it captures the dynamic here pretty well, except for the fact that Fawkes is looking like he’s saying, “Can we be done now please?” Any time Milly walks into the room, the boys light up. They love their big sissy and she’s only gotten better with them over the past few months. She helps me entertain them when they’re fussy and I’m doing other things (like cleaning bottles or making formula). She plays with them and sings to them and will put diapers on them (though she abhors wiping and absolutely will not put any cream on their nethers).
Anyway, I always get a little mopey when the end of summer approaches because I know the time I have with my daughter is about to be cut. It was a little harder for me this year because I only got a partial last week with her. Amanda and I both have the option of getting a full week with Milly for trips or whatever, and Amanda took hers from the middle of last week through this past Monday to go to Pittsburgh to hang out with her boyfriend and his family.
And I’m totally fine with that. In fact, she didn’t even take the full week, so I’m really not complaining and it’s not like Amanda chose that time to cut into the end of my summer. I didn’t even know I’d feel the way I did until it came to pass.
We didn’t really do a lot the last few days, until today. I’ve got a few work deadlines coming up and it’s hard to plan to do a lot with two six-month-old babies.
We went for a walk Tuesday morning. Milly really didn’t want to go, but she did anyway. We stopped by Torrie’s to say hi, plus I remembered that Milly didn’t know Torrie had just gotten a new puppy. If I’d led with that, I think she would have been much more eager to go.
Torrie, Sebastian, and the puppy Freya joined me, Milly, Fawkes, Phoenix, and Duke on a walk (though the dogs ended up being held or in the stroller for the most part). We ended up going to a nearby gas station and I bought the kids a snack.
Milly spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in her room reading while listening to YouTube. She’s been working on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and has really torn through it. I think she’s about
Milly’s open house was yesterday. I normally would have taken her, but I let Amanda do it so I could stay home and get ahead a little on work so I could spend more time with Milly today. Laura and Torrie also came over to work on some things for Torrie’s upcoming baby shower.
I wanted to do a little more of something for Milly’s final day with us. Tristen took the day off for it, too. I made pancakes and bacon this morning for breakfast. Tristen had gone to an apartment she used to live in that her mom owns and is selling to pick up a stained glass window from Drew, our friend who is doing some work on the place. She picked up some Dunkin Donuts on the way home.
I was playing music no YouTube for Milly during breakfast and Phoenix woke up as we were finishing up. Bohemian Rhapsody, which Milly counts as her favorite song, came on, so I danced Phoenix to it in front of Milly, which they both seemed to find amusing.
Torrie and Sebastian came by to pick us all up sometime around 10 I think, and we all went to Summer Sands to have some pool time. I realized while we were there that it was the second, possibly third time (but I’m pretty sure the second) that we went to the pool for the last day of summer.
We had a mostly good time, although it started off on the wrong foot when, playing around, I threw Milly into the pool. She landed a little flat and kind of smacked her leg on the water. Then Tristen and I were talking to her about learning to really swim instead of just doggy paddling, which, for some reason, also upset her. She was just very sensitive. But we had a good time after that passed.
Fawkes fell asleep on the way there, but neither boy is a big fan of being in the water yet anyway (although they seem to enjoy showers since they both usually smile and laugh when they first get in one).
We left a little after 2:30 and dropped Milly off at Amanda’s work right about 2:45. Milly was scheduled to get a haircut at 4 and I asked her to make sure I got a picture.
I did some work after we got home. I didn’t realize that I’d only hadn’t about four hours and twenty minutes of sleepast night, and I was exhausted so I took a nap after catching up a little.
When I woke up we went to Torrie and Johnny’s for dinner. We fed the boys there too and got back around 8. We put the boys down then Tristen and I watched a little TV. She went to bed (although I can see from here that she didn’t turn her lamp off).
I hope Milly enjoyed the summer. When Laura’s friend Pam asked her about the summer, the only thing Milly remembered doing was going to Pennsylvania, which I guess makes some sense since that’s the last big thing she did and everything else was a month or more ago. We went to Rougemont for my family’s Fourth of July, as we do every year. She had two weeks of arts summer camps. Three, actually, since she spent a week with her maternal grandparents going to one in Richlands. Her cousin Jackson stayed with us for a week. She spent a lot of time playing with friends in the neighborhood. And hopefully she picked up a little Spanish since I had her doing daily lessons on Duolingo. (She hardly remembers any of it, but