My new motto is “I can do it, yes I can!”
:) Today I had five kids and it went relatively smoothly. I
handled things well anyway. Lex had a bit of a meltdown this
morning when I put our new toddler in his booster seat. Lex
said he didn’t want a snack so I put our new friend in his
chair and Lex came around the corner and lost it. It was rough.
I felt bad for him, but still had to handle four other kids
too. Luckily for me (very luckily!) they were all very sweet
while I dealt with Lex. Tomorrow it’s just us and the baby
again, which I consider a quiet day. I’ll try to do some extra
bonding with Lex. I’ve also been trying to help him assign
words to his feelings and help him understand that it’s ok to
be unhappy about sharing all of his stuff with these new kids,
but we have to come up with different ways to handle those
feelings. Anyway, I’m rambling here but my point is that I DID
IT! :)
Author Archives: admin
Yummy!
Growing up
These two are growing up, for better or for
worse :) We’ve decided that in the past few weeks Lex has
really become a kid. He is speaking in full sentences now,
using extra words like our names, “almost” and lots of
descriptive words. He has also had a physical burst and likes
to jump on one foot, jump off the coffee table, and get into
weird climbing contortions. All great things! On the down side,
the whining is annoying and he has a lot of emotional bursts.
It occurred to me yesterday that the emotional issues may be
age related, but it may also be daycare related. He definitely
doesn’t get the attention he used to and we don’t get out much
:( Our weekly grocery shopping is the highlight of his week.
Eve has decided to join in the emotional party and cries
randomly and for no apparent reason (I blame it on teething,
’cause, well, why not?) She’s also getting a little attitude
and working the manipulative cry. I put her in the high chair
and turn my back and she wails. But when I pull the box of
Cheerios out of the cabinet she’s all smiles. She’s also got
this little “hmff!” with a body nod (hard to explain) action
going on. I think Lex did it for awhile too. Sort of
emphasizing her “gack!” point. “Gack!” is her favorite word and
she uses it for just about everything. That and “gone” which
she uses for food, toys, people, etc. Instead of saying goodbye
to people she just says “gone” and does the matching baby sign.
So funny. Along with her new little attitude though has come a
lot of physical developments too. She can walk around the
kitchen, with just a hand on the cabinet for balance. She can
walk around the house holding on to someone’s finger. And
yesterday she took one tiny step. She was holding a box of
diaper wipes in her hands and she took one step towards me (1/2
step I suppose because only one foot moved) then let go of the
box with one hand and reached out for stabilization. Good first
step though :) She’s getting into reading and pulls books down,
flips through them, says “gack!” as she points to various
pictures, then tosses them aside and reaches for another. She
loves to dance and she’s also very friendly and says hi
whenever people come in. And her and our daycare baby love to
“talk” to each other. All in all they’re growing up pretty good
:)
On that note I should probably go. I
have five kids here tomorrow (my two and three others) and I’m
a little scared. Hopefully it’s not pandemonium! I had some
other thoughts to add to this post, but I can’t remember them
now. Maybe you’ll get a PS later. :)
Mentally motivated
During the 10 minutes I had both kids
napping today I was reading a magazine my mom left behind (no,
not the celebrity gossip rag… I finished that one yesterday!)
The magazine has an article about women entrepreneurs and I
found myself feeling so motivated. Thinking, I could do that!
There must be some skill or talent I have that someone would
pay for. I’m a college educated person, creative at times,
intelligent, etc. Then Lex wakes up, we spend some time
“discussing” the fact that we need to change his diaper so his
diaper rash doesn’t get worse (I also threw in a reminder that
you don’t get diaper rashes if you use the potty ;) ) and then
he needed a few stories and the dishes needed to get done and
the kitchen is still a mess from this morning… and I decided
to blog :) My problem is that I’m chock-full of mental
motivation but have trouble translating that to physical
motivation and actually accomplishing anything. Sigh. It would
be cool if I were an energetic, type-A person though. I can
definitely imagine the things I’d do :)
Movies
Here is a little movie Barney made while
they were watching the kids. Just everyone being silly. I like
the, “I’m getting tired.” line towards the end :)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ3DP6D6l9s]
Here is Lex swimming Goldfish into his and
Alan’s mouths. Towards the end it switches from individual fish
swimming to a fish frenzy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3yLPmJqtS8]
Date night
With family in town, Alan and I took
advantage of the free babysitting and went out on a date. It
was fantastic. We saw Juno and it was really good! Better
than I was expecting. Then we had Mexican for dinner. Yay! :)
And as great as the date was, it was equally good to come home
to two happy, not crying children. A good time was had by all!!
Thanks Mema, G’Tom, and Uncle B!
Mommy and Daddy
Lex has started using “mommy” and “daddy”
a lot more when he talks. It makes it extra cute when he says
things like “here you go mommy,” or “let’s go daddy.” On the
other hand, it makes it more difficult when he says things
like, “no daddy no, I don’t want to go!” He’s in the bathroom
now saying, “no daddy, I want to brush.” (they’re brushing
teeth now)
So redeeming
Can’t stay mad or annoyed with a toddler
for long. He finally asked, nicely, for some water and a
biscuit. I got him off the stairs and gave him a biscuit. He
said, “You got an F, for fox. I can spell fox!” and he jumped
out of his chair, ran over to the fridge, and put f-o-x into
the Word Whammer. So smart! Hopefully he learns quickly that
whining doesn’t work around here! :)
Whining
We’ve entered a fun new phase with Lex –
whining. Blah! He’s got his whiny voice down pat and his “I
want it, I want it, I want it” going strong. Very annoying.
He’s a persistent little bugger. This is the first time that
he’s really, clearly just being (or trying to be) manipulative.
And he gets no sympathy from us :) He has been sitting on the
stairs for about five minutes saying, “I want some milk, I want
some, I want some, I want some, I really really do.” He’s also
become anti-bath and we’re on day 3 of no bathing. Tonight he’s
going in the tub like it or not. Fun times :)
You spelled “box” and you have a box
This morning Lex was playing with a cardboard box, then went over to the refrigerator and sounded out the word “box” as he found the letters and put them together on the fridge. Then he very excitedly ran over to tell me, “you spelled box!!” (still some pronoun confusion) He showed me many times then decided to put the letters into the Word Whammer. I think it’s pretty cool that all on his own he thought of a word and spelled it. He’s such a smart boy!
Random notes: He kind of has mush mouth in these videos. Probably because it was first thing in the morning. In the second video, about half way through he says “inside outside upside down” which is a Berenstain Bears book about Brother Bear in a box. At the end of the 2nd video he says something about getting him with his eyes closed, because the other day I was commenting on how I always get him with his eyes closed in pictures these days. The kid has an amazing memory for random stuff like that. We used the potato masher today for the first time since last summer. Lex pulled it out of the drawer and said “this is how we mash blueberries for blueberry jam.” Ok, now I’m totally off
topic so I’ll stop typing. :)