Kids, kids, kids

Time for a somewhat off-topic post as I brag about my kids. My baby is now six months old, and already he's commando crawling like a madman. (Commando crawling is when they drag themselves along on their stomachs by pulling with their arms.) I've never had a baby that was so mobile at this age. Today the kids and I cleaned out the living room-- kid #3 had to take all his toys up to his own room, much to his disgust, but now the baby has a clear, and mostly safe, space to crawl in. (I say "mostly safe" because with other kids in the house, nothing ever stays clean for long.) It's funny to watch the baby crawling around inspecting things. He spots something, zooms over to it, looks at it thoughtfully, sticks it in his mouth, then spots something else and zooms over to it. He possesses the attention span of a gnat:-).

He also has two teeth on the bottom. They are razor sharp. When he's nursing, he sometimes suddenly bites down on me for no apparent reason. When I say, "No, no!" he gives me this baffled expression, like he's saying, "Why did you stick it in my mouth if you didn't want me to bite it?" I sincerely hope this phase will be over with quickly! He just started on rice cereal, and likes it a lot.

I know a lot of you with kids have already sent them back to school. Here in Virginia we have the "Kings Dominion" law. Tourism is important here, so we hold our kids out of school till after Labor Day so our tourist attractions have a cheap source of labor. Really... I'm not making this up. So my little darlings won't go back to school till after Labor Day. I think they're really looking forward to it... child #1 started studying history of her own accord last week because she was bored. She's been reading a book on the Renaissance and saying, "Mom! Did you know..." every five minutes. She's also studying math, not of her own accord but because we're making her. It's her weakest subject, but she's improved a lot over the summer.

But right now the baby's in bed and the kids are outside and I'm going to sit down and do some writing!