And, of course there was Old Forge, the beach, and Sesame Place. We felt awful that we couldn’t see our friends in Massachusetts as we’d planned, but Hadley and I both got sick, then his turned into pneumonia. By the end of the summer, we were just glad not to have to use a nebulizer and to be generally back to our own selves. I’d still like to call it a productive yet relaxing time…for the most part.

Big changes – Oh, yeah. And talk about transitions!

We struggled, succeeded, and struggled again with potty training. I’m pretty sure that I waited too long to start, so that by the time we made a concerted effort, his heels were dug rather deeply. He’ll still occasionally whine, “But I don’t HAFTA go potty!!!” and has the occasional accident, but he’s finally started feeling a sense of urgency about the thing. About two or three times a week, he’ll have an accident on the way to the potty (which he urgently runs to), but the fact that he’s not just sitting there in his pee with no regard to the wetness is a HUGE deal. So, I’d say we’re *almost* there; I’d call him mostly trained and 100% in his “big boy underwear” (actually those cloth Gerber trainers that give a bit of extra protection that feel totally like underwear). Oh, and #1 is our only problem; we’ve never had issues with him as far as #2 is concerned. I’m sure you can sleep well knowing that tidbit of information.
  
We ALSO threw at the little man a shift in his sleeping situation. Since we’re slowly-but-surely transitioning the office to ALSO house the nursery space, we finally moved my old DIY desk to the basement (it was nothing but a landing pad, I swear; I almost never sat at the thing! Works much better near our laundry area) and, eep, scooched Hadley’s crib into the office. So, I sanded, primed, painted, and reassembled an awesome hand-me-down toddler bed for the little man. Verdict? He’s done pretty damn great with it. Some days he wants two pillows, some days not, and he lets you KNOW about it. Little stuff like that. But, he knows not to leave the bed on his own (we’ve got stairs that, for a few days, we used our baby gate on…not really necessary, though), and we’ve got the added peace of mind that we’re still using the monitor with a motion sensor under his mattress, so we know if he gets up immediately.

I was melancholy, but I think Dave took it even harder. Here’s his two cents on the whole “big boy bed” change. I can’t blame him. I just wanted to try to keep the shift as positive and Hadley-centric (rather than baby-centric) as possible, regardless of my “he’s not our baby anymore!” emotions. And, as it was, the little man seemed to fully understand that he’d need to share it whenever the baby comes along, anyway. (And, as it is, we’ll probably use a cradle in our room for the first couple of months, just like we did with Hadman, so things won’t shift so dramatically, anyway.)    

Home searching – And, then, there was another shift. We checked out numerous (the word “crapload” comes to mind) houses throughout the summer and all were either a) too small, b) out of our price range (particularly with work that needed to be done on some), or c) just…no. I like to think that we’re not picky, but maybe it’s simply not true. Given the fact that we’re busy with a 3-year-old (and an infant shortly!), jobs and side gigs, we’re trying to be realistic about the sheer amount of energy, time, and effort we can put into a house. We’re simply not as young as we used to be, either. *hips creak*
But, seriously, we’re not one of those HGTV couples who poo-poo wallpaper or completely outdated furnishings. I even completely planned on refinishing any wood floors before moving in, should they need it, as well as painting plenty of walls and doing general updating over time. It’s expected. But, a full bathroom or kitchen gut might be difficult, even down the road, and would often put it as a price point that we simply couldn’t reach. And, we also wanted to make sure that we didn’t get a house that would juuuuuust squeeze our 3+ people and 3 cats in; we’d like to be able to spread out and grow a bit (without having too much space to take care of). Okay, maybe we are picky. 
We finally reached a point where, sure, I get daily Zillow updates and check out some new listings once in awhile, but our active search has gone dormant. No more “let’s just see what it’s like on the inside” if we’re not positive it’s for us. We’re trying to slow down a lot of our activities in preparation for the new baby (and in hopes of getting some fun time in with our “only child” while the title still fits), so the overwhelming rollercoaster emotions of “is this THE house???” have been put to rest. Yes, we’ll continue the search at some point, but for now? We’re hibernating.