Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, but it’s
been an emotionally draining week. As a few of you may know, we
have been struggling with the daycare and, since solid decision
making seems to be completely out of my range of capabilities
these days, I’ve been struggling trying to figure out what to
do. I’m fortunate to have found great daycare kids, all are
happy, funny, and very nice kids and I’ve been lucky. However,
having kids here all day, every day, has taken a toll on me and
my kids. I’m very stir crazy these days and as spring
approaches (though you’d never know it looking out the window!)
I can’t help thinking of all the things I want to do with the
kids that I won’t be able to since we’ll be confined to our
house (or at least our property) every day. I’ve been trying to
get them out on weekends, but Lex prefers to be home on
weekends because daddy is there and no extra kids. So that
leaves me struggling with him or staying him. During the week
my normally sweet boy has become a bit of a menace, jumping on
the girls, pushing them, taking toys, and generally making them
cry (which they are VERY quick to do). I feel like I’m spending
most of my days disciplining him and usually cranky with him.
Alan and I were talking about the fact that I need to
discipline the girls too, because tattling and bossiness aren’t
considered good social behavior. I guess I’m not real good with
discipline and especially not when there’s always someone who
needs a new diaper, new bottle, nose wipe, more food, etc. It
just seems like there’s never time. It’s frustrating. I know
Lex’s behavior issues are because he gets no alone time and no
mommy time. Eve has also turned into a fuss pot and spends her
time crawling around after me and crying a lot. We thought she
had an ear infection (I could have sworn!) but the doc says
she’s fine, so now it must be teething or attachment issues or
just too much activity all the time. It’s hard to tell with a
baby. So I’ve been thinking for awhile about whether or not
daycare is really the best option for my family. The money is
ok and we definitely need all the money we can get, but at what
cost? And when do you switch from “give it all you’ve got”
mentality to “it’s just not working and/or not worth the
effort.” I hate to be a quitter, but I also hate how I feel
every day these days.

So, I made the
decision to stop doing daycare. I told the parents this week
and everyone was understanding, but upset. It’s really hard to
find good childcare around here and almost impossible to find
infant care. I’ve given them two weeks notice, but I won’t be
locking the door in any one’s face either. My full-time toddler
will be going back to her previous daycare center this Monday
and I think the family is good with that. I think she’ll be
happier there too. I’m hoping that baby can find a good
alternative though. Like I said, infant care is hard to find
and I really feel the worst for her. That’s what made my
decision even harder. She’s also the sweetest baby on the
planet and if I had any way to get 3 car seats in my car I’d
keep her in a heartbeat! But, alas, I don’t. I may end up
keeping my T/TH toddler though. I’ve been talking with her mom
about it. That would still give us three days to get out or be
quiet at home, and then two days with her. I don’t know if that
will happen or not yet. See why I was struggling though? For my
own hopes at sanity and family peace I have to put a huge
burden on other families.

To put things
in perspective though, my friend emailed me last night that her
1yr old son has to have abdominal surgery. The little guy had
kidney problems before birth and now needs surgery for a
bladder problem. Let’s all keep him in our thoughts and
prayers.

Alan hooked a Windows laptop up to the
computer so we can watch Netflix from their site. It’s pretty
cool. Now he’s teaching Lex how to use the computer. Lex loves
a reading site called Starfall and he loves to sit with
Alan or I and read the stories. Alan set it up on the TV and
gave Lex a mouse and he’s learning to work it himself. Crazy,
huh? He’s doing really well though. Alan set the mouse speed to
slow so it’s easier to control. (don’t worry, we know all about
screen time limits and Lex won’t be sitting in front of the
tv/computer for too long) He’s so cute!

Some days I feel like I just can’t keep
up, especially on those rare occasions (like last weekend) that
we take a day off from the household chores. There is always
sooo much to do (cleaning, laundry, baby food, bills, daycare
prep, grocery shopping, etc… ya know – LIFE!) and by the end
of the day I’m just exhausted but there’s still so much more to
do. I’m by no means an overly meticulous person or anything, it
just seems impossible to keep up. During the day I’m always
torn between sitting down and playing with the kids, or trying
to get dishes done and the table cleared so when they all start
clambering for more food I can be somewhat prepared. Sigh. Last
night folded six loads of laundry and it took me almost two
hours! Tonight I asked Alan to do bath/bed for the kids so I
could pay bills (and bitch on the blog ;) ) and he said fine
but he’d need an hour or two to do datdec stuff afterwards. I
agreed since I’ll need an hour or two to do everything else
anyway. Life is exhausting these days. Ok, enough gripping, off
to pay some bills now (without Quicken ’cause we had a sad SAD
data loss *sniff*).

We had a very busy weekend. Drove down to
Alan’s parents yesterday so Alan could help his dad home from
the hospital. Lex and I and Grammy Lynn dyed Easter eggs. I
wasn’t sure what to expect, but Lex loved it! He also was super
eager to eat one, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what they
really were :) I made him wait until Alan got home (so they
could dry) and he kept running to the door to check if daddy is
here yet. “Oh, I think daddy is here now!” he said about a
thousand times. When Alan got back he peeled an egg for Lex,
who proceeded to poke at it, look a bit confused, then flat out
reject it. That was the reation I was expecting.

As I said in an earlier post, I made them
little Easter baskets. Alan and I went to bed wondering how Lex
would react when he saw it. Would he bring it in to our room
with a “and you got an Easter basket!” type comment? Or would
he sit down and play in his room for awhile (thus allowing us a
bit more sleep)? What really happened was he woke up at 4am
(very dark) and crawled in bed with us, thus completely missing
the basket all together. I got up with Eve at 6:30 and when Lex
woke up 1/2 hr later I said something about a little Easter
surprise in their room and we went to find it. Lex liked the
little toys and books I put in it. Eve was intrigued by hers,
but she really didn’t like the feel of the fake grass. Each
time she reached for something the grass would brush her hand
and she’d pull back. I ended up taking everything out of the
basket for her :) She learned the sign for bunny this week and
has been pointing out bunnies everywhere, conveniently we have
a lot of bunnies around these days!

After showers and breakfast I hid the eggs for them. They
seemed to enjoy the little Easter egg hunt well enough. When
they found them all (I cheated a bit for Eve ;) ) I asked if we
should do it again and Lex said no. So that was the end of
that. He put them back in the egg carton and back in the
fridge. (Here are two movies of their egg hunt. I didn’t want
the file to get too big to upload, so I broke it into two
parts.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXbBGVFOb0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRM6TPpaVbE]

This afternoon we went to visit my grandparents. Grandma
is just home from the hospital after having knee surgery so I
thought it best to bring small kids and a bunch of little toys
over to make her walking even more precarious :) We had fun,
though it was a short visit because Lex didn’t take a nap and
Eve was ready for her evening nap. Around this house there’s
always someone who’s tired!

Anyway,
hope the rest of you had a wonderful, sunny Easter. I’ve been
telling the kids that Easter is to celebrate spring and new
growth and new life, all the while looking out the window and
hoping that someday we’ll actually see spring and new growth!
Someday.

I added a few new videos over in the
YouTube bar. These are from the past few weeks. “Thank you
mema” is Lex and our daycare girl playing with the Easter
basket we got from Mema and G’Tom. It was a huge hit :) “Jump
baby jump” is Eve on the trampoline. She crawled over, climbed
up, and started jumping all by herself. She was so proud, and
funny. “Falling baby” is a short movie at Eve at our local
science museum. She was standing on a stool and banging on an
air cannon and LOVING it! I let go of her for a second to make
a little movie, she spun around to grab me (as she tends to do)
and the rest you can see for yourself. “Running in puddles” is
Lex and our daycare girl. They are cute in their little pink
and blue outfits. “Self feeding” is pretty obvious. It was last
week sometime and Eve’s first attempt at feeding herself. She
seems to be a natural :) And finally, “Baby fight” is the two
of them (with help from daddy) wrestling. Alan calls it KungFu
Baby and has been doing it since Eve was born. Actually, when
Lex was a baby he was the KungFu Baby and attacked me! Just
before this video Lex ran up to Alan and said “wanna have a
baby fight!” :) So they did. Silly family. Last, but not least,
is a video of Eve not attempting to walk. She was doing good
walking between Alan and I one day, so I turned on the camera.
She apparently did not want to perform on demand :) It’s a
funny video anyway. Enjoy!

Who needs sand when you have rice
and Cheerios. The rice was quite successful (messy, but good),
but when I threw in the Cheerios the younger two thought I was
offering up a hefty snack!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yU-TpUw5qU]

Happy Spring!

Lex and Eve got a lovely
Easter basket in the mail this morning (thanks Mema!), with a
very popular stuffed bunny. Lex and I went grocery shopping
tonight and bunny came along. I learned that bunnies do not eat
blueberry bagels, but they do like bunny food (which we looked
for at every store). When we were getting out of the car at the
last stop we had the following exchange:

Lex: “The bunny says ribbit, ribbit.”
Me:
“Actually frogs say ribbit, bunnies don’t really say anything.”

Lex: “Oh no mommy! I need a frog! We need to buy a
frog at the store!”

He cracks me up. I
said we’d try, but I coudn’t find any frogs at the grocery
store. I was, of course, looking in the toy areas, not the food
areas ;)