That is what it felt like as we left the park today! I was walking to the swings with four of my dear mama friends and right in front of all of us Tyler bites the hell out of a boy we didn’t know who was standing at the toddler swings (Tyler was wanting to swing). And then the spotlight shone on me - “what are you doing to do?? Go!”

I reacted and thank God I think I reacted okay. I comforted the little boy and found his mama. Then I told Tyler we were going home. In this process I required him to relinquish a truck he had recently traded for after waiting for quite some time. Well that action caused all hell to break loose and I ended up carrying my screaming child with Quinn in the other arm and backpack and all back to the car.

In the name of laziness, I will post the email I sent to my friends as I do not feel like re-writing everything that happpened. Once we got home though, all calmed down and went well. Tyler played a lot this afternoon and we had a pretty good rest of the day. Never a dull moment around here though - that is for sure!!

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I feel the need to give you the rest of the story so that your last mental image is not of me hauling off my screaming child in a huff. First of all, Tyler bit the hell out of that boy. I mean every tooth in Tyler’s mouth made its imprint on that wrist - that little boy will have quite a bruise. My initial reaction was we need to go. If Tyler was feeling that much energy/stress that his only reaction was to bite with that much intensity - he needed a chance of pace/environment.

His reaction had more to do with surrendering River’s truck and trailer than with leaving. He felt he had been waiting patiently…if by patiently you mean stalking River waiting for the moment he lost interest in the toy. I think he felt finally he had the opportunity to play with it and he was so frustrated to have to give it back so soon.

When we got the car, he crawled in and actually surprisingly to me slowly made his way into his car seat still quite upset. I changed Quinn’s diaper and got her comfortable and happy in her car seat. I then buckled Tyler in his. I that got in the car and we chatted. I first empathized with his having to relinquish the truck and trailer letting him know that I got that is why he was so mad. After a while we also talked about biting the boy.

He was calmer on the way home although he let out a few more hard cries. While in the past I would get punchy and upset with him for doing this, I am getting better about allowing his the space to express that frustration and cry if he needs to. And also because sometimes he will flat out tell me that he wants to “cry a little bit about it”. He also brought up biting the boy again when we got home so we talked a little more.

I was pleased with myself because the “conventional” way would have been to yell and shame him and say not so nice things to him. With Tyler - a change always helps - I have to take him to another room, another place, another environment and THEN we can process about what happened. I was tired and cranky anyway, it was a good time to leave. We got home and Tyler went right to the couch to lay down to watch Mr. Roger’s and Quinn fell asleep about 8 minutes later.

I just overheard Tyler tell Quinn, “Hapopy Birthday Quinn!  You’re gonna be 1!”  I was telling Tyler that there were two important things happening this weekend - her birthday and Father’s Day.  I thought that was so cute!!

Later, Tyler was searching for a story in this Disney Stories Collection book.  He was telling me, “I’m looking for the lock.  The lock and the bunny.  The story about the bunny…and she was chasing and chasing the bunny and then he got away..”  Finally, I figured it out.. Alice in Wonderland!

Quinn is already starting to imitate words.  Today she pointed to something and I said flowers.. she repeated “flowers”!  So, so cool!  We swear she repreated “burrito” the other day when we kept asking Tyler if he wanted one!!

Oh, and looking at this picture I just now noticed the chalk scribbles on the wall behind them..{sigh}  Gotta go get that cleaned up.

While writing this, Tyler was playing so delicately on the piano and singing music class songs.  He just told me that he prefers the guitar which is good because his sister prefers the piano. 

Pictures Soon!

Chris is fixing the computer tonight, so very soon you will once again get fun images of the kiddos and our adventures. Hmmm - maybe this will encourage me to remember to take pictures!!

A Surprisingly Good Day

Hehehe - I am watching a show called “Born Country” - kind of where city clickers confess to friends and family that they are turning country and line dance. Funny. Where was I? So I had two crankpots this morning - so I decided to finally take Tyler to the Austin airport’s family viewing area to watch planese take off. Well, I was dissapointed as I thought we would be much closer to the planes where we could see the full take-off. Tyler still thought it was fairly cool. We hung out there for about 40 minutes. It was 9:30am - what to do? So we drove around the airport and I thought - what the hell? Let’s go in!

It was great! There were very few people, but enough to satisfy people-watching desires. We rode escalators, elevators and watched the baggage claim conveyors. We have a snack at a cafe and then did it all over again. At the end we headed out and gave our special ticket to the parking lady. It was really fun! It isn’t something I would do regularly, but given that we will be taking Tyler on his 1st plane ride in less than two weeks, it was nice to talk to him about it while at the airport.

He is getting really excited. I was telling him that he would have his own backpack to hold his toys and snacks. He told my Mom today that “I wonder if I could have bag to hold all my luggage, toys, snacks and it would go down [the belt] and round and round. And I will go on plane with my Daddy” It was so cute!

This afternoon we went over to my folks and played and swam. We got home at 6pm and Chris was home, so it was a nice, fast day. Given how it started out with two very fussy children - it went great and I handled the stress pretty good if I do say so myself.

Oh and i got a ton of laundry done and the house cleaned up a bit.  Oh, and not just laundry done, but put away people!!  Ask any Mom…and they will know why that is so damn nice!  After a while clean laundry just lives in the laundry basket some weeks.  So I had a nice day and got stuff done.

Oh, but then I put cream of tartar in the stir-fry sauce instead of arrowroot powder - yuck!  It was so salty and so gross.  My sweet son didn’t like it but was eating some.  And then mimicking what I had just said - “what did you put in the food, mama?”.  Even thogh he was repeating me - it sounded so cute coming from him.

My New Goals

So I have a few new goals I am working on for my time with the kids: be more spontaneous, be silly, be flexible, have a good attitude, use my imagination, be prepared and do more storytelling. I am trying to be more present and in the moment and to enjoy it more. It is hard because this is a job and there are always choices - like when to do the laundry, when to start dinner, when to make this phone call, when to run that errand. There is a balance. So if Tyler is getting engrossed in play, I can folk laundry nearby. It allows to complete my chores while being near my children without being too intrusive in their play. And I am trying to take situations thay would typically end up with my being angry, frustrated, or cranky and turn ‘em around. Make lemonade from lemons (which we have been doing actually - yum!).

Reality Slapping me in the Face

There is so much I want to do and for a while there I think I had it in my head that these things were possible, but now I wonder. I still have a one year-old who isn’t even in the thick of teething yet. My point is that I am tired a lot of the time and if she has worse nights with teething it won’t get better. When I am tired, things move slowly and I have no motivation to be productive. I am more or less a zombie trying to get the bare minimum taken care of. I don’t know if I can start my certificate program in October or not.

I have not yet been able to run consistently. Mornings for me are very unpredictable. The kids wake-up times are all over the place and that makes it difficult. So, if Quinn is up and Tyler is asleep - should I go ahead and catch that much needed shower or see if he wakes up in 10 minutes so I will be able to run before we go to the park? The afternoons are hot as hell and I am not going to run then. I don’t know. Oddly, I am slighly annoyed, but not uber frustrated. I guess I figure I am pretty much moving in some capacity all day - not like working in an office.

At this time, I am just going with the flow. I just decided to paint my kitchen blue. See - another thing I am SURE about. So all of the sudden I have two months of painting projects in front of me. I still want to redo the upstairs, but I haven’t a clear vision for that room yet, so I am not rushing it. I act on what I feel sure about! Now it is just finding the energy to paint at night. I need to take before pictures, I have been bad about that.

Thinking, Thinking, Thinking

Lord, my brain has been working overtime lately. I bought a spiral notebook so I can start to write more down. There was a week or two where it would take my brain forever to wind down - I would go to bed at 10 and at 11 was still up thinking about stuff. Will all the sugar I ingested today - I will probably be a mess tonight. Let’s see - brownies, banan cake (many pieces), a glass of chocolate milk and a milk chocolate ghiradelly bar. Ick! I am going to be feeling sick later.

Ending the Day

Another random thought, here. You would think that after a long day rocking my baby girl to sleep would be so nice. And it would be if I could only SIT DOWN!! She can’t get comfortable in the chair these days. Or she will notice the fabric and start playing with that and then see the curtain and grab that and play peek-a-boo with the outside world. Which of course at 7pm these days is bathed in bright sunlight which doesn’t help the “it is nigh-night time” mood. She will then notice the cool red numbers on the clock and head over to climb on the nightstand.

With all that craziness, I simply stand up, hold her in cradle position to nurse, and rock her back and forth until she is asleep. Most nights it is about 10 minutes although that number is starting to creep up a bit to 15 and 25.

Another big difference between her and Tyler. I could always have him in the rocking chair - of course, it took me 45 minutes to get him to sleep. Even when Chris was putting him to sleep at 15 months, it was in the rocking chair - and this kid was much bigger than Quinn.

Anyway, some nights I am just wanting her to crash so I can sit down and rest my feet and back. I even notice nights that I try to keep moving, my body wants a break. I can feel that ache in my feet. I need to get some Dr. Sholl’s (however you spell that) or something!! I always wanted to waitress for a while - now I have a sense of how they feel at the end of their shift!

With that, I should really go to bed - I need the rest!

Oh, c’mon Alyssa! It is summer - shirk bedtime for your kids once every so often and get out and have some fun!! Folks think I am crazy for strictly enforcing our kids bedtimes of 7/7:15pm for Quinn and 7:45pm for Tyler. Last night, we decided to be lazy and all four of us hung out in our bed playing and being silly. At one point we had made a tent with the sheet and all 4 of us were under it. Quinn thought this was just hilarious. It was fun and I think we should make more time to spend together like that. However, as a result - both kids were down at 9pm. It took me 40 minutes to get Quinn to sleep.

…and here is the kicker. BOTH kids were up EARLIER at 6:15am. They didn’t sleep in, they didn’t even sleep to their more normal 6:45 (for her) and 7/7:15am (Tyler) wake-up times - they were both up early. Oh, and they were crankpots. I mean he was minus one hour…which isn’t good when there is no nap to make it up. She was minus 2 hours. Of course she napped today from 11:45am to 2:30pm. No surprise there.

Lately, Tyler has handled a late bedtime okay - he goes down in about the same amount of time - but he doesn’t sleep in. This is why I am such a stickler - they don’t sleep in, so I end up with two cranky kids which makes me cranky.

Mom says that Bryan and I were the same way. We woke up at the same time no matter when we went to bed. Anyway, I am trying to head out the door to swim, but Tyler keeps telling me that he is “busy playing”. :-p  Now he and Quinn are playing…I should be viedoing this - they are both giggling their heads off… they are just so cute together

I painted my toenails for the first time in over six months the other day.  That next morning, as I was making breakfast, Tyler comes in and looks at my feet.  He says, “You got new feet, Mommy!”  Yes, yes I did Tyler.  That afternoon at the pool, my Mom was asking what color I had painted them?  I responded, “some summer color”.  Tyler then says, “Mommy has summer feet, summer toes!”  It made me giggle…

“I love you” treats

I made him a smoothie the other day and told him it was an “I love you” treat. I don’t think it came out right. We were watching Mister Rogers and he was talking about all the ways that Mommies and Daddies showed us they love us. There was some cooking stuff that day, so he was talking about making your favorite food, etc. We had some leftover smoothie, so the next day, I poured some into a glass for Tyler. He looked at it and said, “I love you treat!” Then he said something that warmed my heart and made me want to cry - “I like you when you are happy, I like you when you are frustrated”. I think he was remembering that from this book called “I love you”. Anyway, he and I had a really rough two days and it was cool to hear him tell me that.
I was tired, hormonal from my once a month visitor who has been coming sporadically, and didn’t have solid plans for the day. I was to focused on what I was trying to do. At any rate, he got into mischief and I was really upset with him. I really got after him. Thank goodness for my calming corner. When I am super-pissed, it is nice to know where to send him. As opposed to just pacing and getting more angry. I went down the low road Tuesday - it was like the last straw. Hearing him say those words was like a relief, like he doesn’t just seem me as this angry Mommy.

Hugs from My Baby!

He has started to throw his arms around me and give me kiss after kiss and squeeze me so tight. I love those hugs soo much. And I am trying to make sure we hug a lot more. We always snuggle after Quinn is asleep and read books together. It is nice to have a little quiet, still time with each other. It is kind of my break. I need to focus on filling his cup and filling mine.

Child Prodigy

Look - he HAS to be! My theory is that we are going through all this now so that come 3.5 he is easy forever! Yeah, right! Tyler is the only 2.5 year old I know that has a firm grip on consumerism. He is obsessed with it. Every day he talks about going to the train store to get this and that. When we are headed to the park and talk about our plan - “we are going to get gas and then go to the park to play”, he will try to scheme a trip in there saying, “we get gas, go to train store, and then go to park and play!” He talkes about Christmas as “that one time a year, Christmas, when Tyler gets BIG trucks!” Are you kidding me? He has meltdowns about it. I swear, we do NOT buy this kid stuff all the time. We go to Target and he comes home with nothing, he goes to the train store and comes home with nothing. I don’t know whether we need to avoid those places all together or keep going and let him have these experiences - the pain of going somewhere with cool stuff and not taking any of it home. I think we are like any normal parents - sometimes we get toys and most of the time we don’t. Tantrums about it may yield some empathy, but will not net him a toy.

He does have his piggy bank. We counted his money the other day to see where he was at and he proclaims, “Now we go buy something!” We were at Ikea the other day and he took an immediate liking to this stuffed frog. He was hugging the frog and talking to it and being uber cute. As much as I wanted him to have it, we couldn’t do that. We told him that he could take it home, but that he would have to use his piggy bank money to buy it and that money would be all gone. In the end, he left the frog. We did come home with an easel for him though. I don’t know if that contradicted the lesson - although I think he had way more interest in the frog.

Of course, he just had his half birthday, so I don’t want to get him too much stuff. New toys are great for a plane trip which we are about to take in two weeks. We have bought him some new trucks in a set, but I think that is it. We are going to try books and playdough and current toys. I don’t think he is spoiled, but I just want to make sure that we aren’t creating any expectations.

See - this is the hard parenting right here. I don’t want to lean too far in any one direction - I want balance. I am trying to figure out why it is that my child is the only one of like a dozen 2.5 yr olds I know who is obsessed with this concept. Do I have a Donald Trump in the making or something? I just prefer the “he is really smart” reason - it is an easier pill to swallow.

Words!

She says, “hi, Tyler” and “bye, Daddy”! She says duck, doggie, and I think fish.

Assertive One
She has started PUSHING Tyler out of my lap if they are both in it!! Today at music class another Mom’s 4 year-old wanted to sit in my lap, so I had her on one leg and Quinn on the other. Quinn was kicking her out of my lap with her feet!!! I about died! I couldn’t believe it! She has also started to push Tyler away from her if he is close and she doesn’t want him there.

SHe is starting to do this as Tyler has crossed back over to the non-bonking side of life for a spell. He now just wants to pat, kiss, hug and hold or even carry Quinn. These days though, she just isn’t having it!!

Into Everything!

This daughter of mine is a mess!! In the bathtub her favorite thing to do is pull the plug and let all the water out!! Not much of a bath. Of course, I am finally having some success diverting her away from that..why? Because now she wants to pull up to standing in the bathtub holding the water faucet and reaching for the water handle. Or she is reaching over the side pulling up. Scares the hell out of me - she is going to fall one day when I don’t have a hand on her and have a nasty bonk!! Just today her hands slipped out from under her while holding onto the side of the tub and she alsmost flipped right over the side.  Thankfully I hand a hand on her.  What does she then do?  Go right back to standing up holdin gthe side of the tub! No fear in this child!

She is climbing up stairs when she has the chance and HAS to be in the bathroom when Tyler is pooing. It is a miracle to keep her out of there while I am wiping his butt. I leterally have a foot trying to shield the direct path to the potty. I have been trying to just put the potty in the bathtub when he is done. I have to move fast to get the toddler’s butt clean while he actually standing there before he escapes into the house and keep curious almost-toddler from getting into icky mischief.

Gravity so rules!

She loves to drop things - she thinks it is so cool!  She also loves to throw things out of laundry bsakets and empty the dishwasher by grabbing sliverware and tossing it wherever.  When she doesn’t want her paci, she pops it out of her mouth and flings it away!  As if it will find her when she wants it again.  She is such a silly girl!

She loves to roll balls and crawl after them and loves to roll balls back and forth with someone.  She loves to play games!

Fussy! Missing Daddy!

We have tears now in the morning when Daddy leaves. That door shuts and she gets to upset! She also gets uber pissed if you put her down and she doesn’t want down. Alternatively. she will squirm right our of your arms if she wants down. She makes no bones about telling you what she wants!!

Iscicle Legs!

I wake up in the middle of the night cold. She is clearly cold because her legs feel like isicles! So I put covers on both of us. “no, no, no Mom!!” She will immediately kick them all off - she despises covers - even when I *think* she is cold! Crazy girl!
Nighwaking

It was going to start in earnest sometime. Last night was actually decent, but she has been waking at least 5 times a night and on a bad night it is more like 10. Hey, I almost got a year of good sleep - can’t beat that. At least for now, she will nurse or take the paci and snuggle back to sleep. REcently, I think it was her tummy bugging her - too many weird new foods MOM!!! Maybe those teeth will FINALLY get here! For now it is what it is. It does make my grumpier and that sucks. Tyler probably bears the brunt of it, although, Miss “I can’t-sit-still-for-a-diaper-change” can push those buttons too. I also have had trouble getting in bed before 11pm. When my life is kids for 13 hours and then I am back on duty when I go to bed, those precious 3 hours are well, precious. Now that Little Missy is waking so much, I am nervous about leaving the house, so I just make a ruckus at the house. Let’s tear down the wallpaper, let’s paint, let’s watch Celebrity Fit Club and a documentary on Tony Blair! :-p