Mourning summer

{A small housekeeping note - pardon the late photo additions as of late - Shutterfly seems to be down all the time. Bear with me.}

Anyway. For those of you who follow the comments I get (which I love to get, and which come all too infrequently given the number of people who claim to check in almost daily - maybe I should add a ticker to my screen so I can keep track of you), you will have noticed a comment I got yesterday from my cousin Kelly. Kelly has a beautiful and happy looking little daughter named Sydney who is roughly six or seven months older than Liam. And if you read her comments about sleeping, you'll remember that she was anxious for Sydney to have her nap so they could then go swimming.

Sigh.

In my BL life (before Liam - as opposed to AL), back when I thought babies came out of the womb ready to sing songs and play pat-a-cake, I had envisioned this wonderful summer for Liam and myself. We were going to go to the beach and visit flea markets and pick blueberries and swim in the municipal pool and go for walks and eat Dairy Queen and... and... and...

Well, the walking part is true. But only if I get out of the house before it turns hotter than hell at 10 a.m.

I am at the point now where Liam can come with me and do things for an extended time, as long as I can have some privacy every few hours to feed him. And now that I'm ready for them, I am realizing how few of my plans can actually materialize. He can't wear sunscreen or bug repellent which means staying out of the sun and bug-infested areas. He can't sit up (no shots of him building sandcastles this summer.) He can't eat ice cream (well, I was just kidding about that one, really), and he can't hold his head up enough to use the backpack carrier yet... So none of these plans are in the cards, at least for today.

Hopefully by the end of the summer, some of them will happen. Blueberry season is August so that still gives us a couple of months for him to work on that neck strength - maybe by then he will be able to go in the carrier. Maybe we'll take him for a dunk in Cory & Megan's pool sometime. Next week we are pseduo-camping in Bruce and Dana's trailer at Rondeau for a few nights, and then at the end of August we're planning to take him up to a cottage Steph and Mike are renting. So we will fit in a few summer-ish activities this year. He won't be flying off the tire swing into the lake, but maybe he can sit around a campfire with us...

He's the perfect baby who was born at the perfect time of year, don't get me wrong. I'm just figuring out that this summer will be fun in different ways than what I had originally expected. And by next summer, we'll be totally ready for all of that.

Enjoy the swimming, Kelly and Sydney... I'm jealous!!! For now we will stick with some more of our favourite indoor activities, like checking out our reflections in the mirror. That's a big one these days!...