I should be making a shopping list or
cleaning the kitchen or doing something equally productive, but
instead I’ll sit here and type for a few minutes. We had a
really nice day yesterday. The weekend was fun but crazy busy
(in-laws on Saturday and a balloon festival on Sunday) and we
were all exhausted by Monday. What’s new, huh? :) I had to stay
home on Monday to wait for the Sears guy (I love Sears service
repair!) I was a little annoyed, at first, but then realized
that it’s good to have forced down days sometimes. I got a lot
of cleaning done, Lex just chilled, and Eve slept. It was
really nice and low-key. Eve is approaching the age where she
can’t nurse and sleep just anywhere. Kind of a bummer because
it’s convenient when she can… but I knew the time would come.
She definitely nurses and sleeps better in quiet areas. Soon we
are going to be back in a morning nap routine and it will be
interesting to see how Lex and I handle that :) We typically
try to get out most mornings…

Lex is
awake and crying. More some other day…

The
poor kids were seriously overdressed. It was 55 when we left
and 70 when we got back, just 45 minutes later!

It hit me yesterday how much I miss my
one-on-one time with Lex sometimes. I miss our breakfast
routine and I miss going places with just him. Maybe I’ll have
to try and arrange an outing with just him soon. We went to the
farmers market yesterday. It was so nice. He played in the
fountain and at the little playground. Then we walked around
the booths and bought a cookie and some lemonade and sat down
to watch a guy playing the fiddle. It was really nice. Then Eve
woke up (as expected) and was hungry (also as expected) and
that was the end of our nice afternoon. I tried to get Lex to
stay in one place for awhile, explaining that Eve needed to eat
and it was dangerous for him to run away from me. The farmers
market is in a lovely little park which happens to be right in
the middle of a traffic circle – not the safest of places to
let a kid roam. Not surprisingly, he wouldn’t stay in one area
(we tried the fountain and the playground both and he kept
running away) so I ended up carrying him, kicking and crying,
back to the car and Eve cried on the way home because she was
still hungry. Kind of a crappy ending to a nice afternoon.
Nobody’s fault, of course, just life with two little ones, I
guess.

I had a nice evening with her later though. Lex
was long asleep and Eve was wide awake, talking and grinning. I
tried to get some on video, but she was fascinated and silenced
by the camera’s blinking light :) She cooed and gooed for me
while I folded laundry. It was nice.

But first, today we had a day of first.
One fun, one less fun. This morning, for the first time, Lex
got out of his bed and came into our room. I woke up to him
saying “good morning” :) Not so good, at the playgroup we went
to today, Lex very intentionally pushed a kid and made him cry
– several times! The first time I’ll call an accident. They
were in the bouncy tent and Lex fell against the kid and made
him cry. (for what it’s worth the kid was probably 3yrs and
definitely bigger than Lex.) But later they were in the tent
again and Lex went over and deliberately pushed the kid. The
boy started to cry and got out of the tent. Lex followed him
out and pushed him again, knocking him over! Needless to say he
was not allowed back in the tent. He has been in quite the mood
today. He spent most of the morning crying for no particular
reason, then was just rowdy and mean at the playgroup.
Definitely a first for him :/ There was some bad energy at the
playgroup anyway, so maybe that was part of the problem. He’s
napping now and hopefully will wake up a little happier.

Anyway, the point of this post is that life
(or me anyway) seems so up and down lately. I’m permanently
exhausted (why aren’t I napping now??) and can so easily go
from happier to cranky at the drop of a hat. Lex is the same
way. I’m not sure who’s feeding off of who here, but it kind of
sucks. He will be driving me crazy then turn suddenly sweet on
me… leaving me feeling guilty for being cranky. Or we’ll be
having a great day and suddenly, of the out blue, he whack me
across the face and dissolve into a crying fit. I know this is
the classic definition of “terrible twos”… two years old and
two kids two years apart. All normal, but man am I
tired!

Process developed and illustrated by Lex
Johnson (patent pending).

Step 1: fill a truck with
bunnies and fish.
Step 2: eat the fish and bunnies.

Nice and quite, so I thought we was
probably asleep. Went upstairs to return doggie to him and find
him sitting in his bed covered in Purel. He climbed on top of
the dresser, brought it back to his bed, and soaked everything.
Sooo angry! I changed him and all of his bed stuff (bye bye
blanket) and he screamed and kicked. I put him back in bed and
walked out. He screamed some more. I sat outside his door
listening to him throw his toys and started reminding myself
that anger breeds anger. After I calmed myself down I went back
in and he ran over saying “hurt self. kiss it make it better.”
So I kissed him all over and hugged him and told him that the
sooner he takes a nap the sooner he can come downstairs. We
cuddled and chatted for a few minutes and he laid down in his
bed with a new toy and blanket and closed his eyes. I came down
and turned the monitor off for awhile. And I’m forever grateful
that Eve is an easy, peaceful baby!

Some days are great, others…. I had to
confiscate doggie today in an effort to get Lex to settle down
and take a nap. He stood at his door crying “doggie, want
doggie” for about 5 minutes. It sucked. Then he started playing
with his toys again!! I just went up now to warn him that his
blanket is next. I’m such a mean mommy!! But it’s 2:15 and he
is overtired and still awake… and noisy!! Always noisy these
days. If he’s not asking questions, which is good from a
developmental standpoint and usually fun and cute, but when
he’s not asking questions he usually just making noise. Blah,
blah, alala, ohohloo, etc. Also good developmentally, I know,
but sometimes you just wanna say “shut up for a minute!” I know
this is payback ’cause I’m pretty sure I did the same thing to
my mom. Sorry mom!!!

The
Farmer in the Dell
Ok, not a change,
but fun anyway. Lex likes signing The Farmer in the
Dell. This morning I sang it and Lex did his
little dance thing and Eve grinned. At the end I said, “I think
Eve likes that song.” Lex said, “Do it again.” So I did. This
time Lex sang with me (so cute) and Eve cooed a few times, like
she was trying to sing along. We sing it a lot and often I make
up funny words (for example: daddy goes to work, mommy stays at
home, lex stays with mommy, eve stays with lex). One day I was
singing “daddy takes a shower” (we were all upstairs) and then
Lex sang “shower takes a wife” :)

Now
that he is two years and she is two months, we decided to make
a few changes around here. Two worth mentioning:

Back to
Bed
Friday afternoon we rearranged his nursery with
several goals in mind (1) get climb-on-able furniture away from
the skylight, (2) move the crib so it’s easily seen from the
door, and (3) make the room “new” in an effort to get Lex back
into the toddler bed. The whole time we told him that Eve needs
the crib now and he gets to sleep in a fancy big bed. Oddly
enough, it seems to have worked. We don’t put him in the crib
anymore (not for bed, naps, or so-sads) and it takes him awhile
to fall asleep (and several trips up on our part) but he
eventually does. Not surprisingly he has emptied his drawers
several times and frequently gets up to bring a toy into his
bed, but he eventually falls asleep. Very surprisingly… he’s
fallen out of the bed several times! He never did that before
and I don’t know why he’s doing it now. When he falls out he
cries and we go put him back in the bed, but there’s really no
harm done since he’s only falling about 6″! Today I put Eve in
the crib when Lex took his nap and asked him to be very quiet
so she could sleep. It was cute and he did a good job of being
quiet. They are both up there now too and he’s still awake but
being mostly quiet :)

New Me
I
decided that after two months of my free-wheeling “eat too much
and move not enough” lifestyle it was time to get serious about
baby weight. It’s amazing how little baby
weight you loose when baby is born. I don’t think I even lost
8lbs when I delivered an 8lb 3oz baby! Since I was still
carrying baby weight from Lex when I got pregnant with Eve I
think I’m now carrying more baby fat than both of my babies put
together. Blah!! So I decided to reel things in a bit and move
towards a “controlled eating and exercise” lifestyle. As you
all know, there’s really no fun in that! Friday went well,
Saturday sucked and I was starving (not literally, of course)
all day, but today has been ok. I’m sure (I hope!) it will get
easier as my brain and body adjust to less snacking and smaller
portion sizes. The snacking is the hardest part really,
especially with kids, because it’s so easy and tempting to grab
a handful of Goldfish when I’m getting some out for Lex, or to
finish a bagel that he didn’t eat, or whatever. I also busted
out the Tae-bo videos again. Lex loved doing (sort of) yoga
with me when I was pregnant so I thought he’d like Tae-bo even
more… but no such luck. Not sure why but it kind of freaks
him out. Maybe the louder music or more bouncing around or
something. I don’t know. He keeps asking to do yoga though :)
When I finished Tae-bo this morning I put in the yoga DVD and
we did that for awhile. He was much happier then :) Silly
yoga-boy!