Not Perfect-Day Four

Today I decided to take a slightly different approach to parenting; it was basically the same as yesterday, except I paid even less attention to my kids, which could be why The Boy hit The Baby in the head with a screw driver.
I guess it's back to the drawing board...

To even it out, The Boy spent nearly the entire day singing "The wise man built his house upon a rock" over and over and over... repeatedly. I kinda don't think he knows what this song is about, because in his version, the foolish man also builds his house upon a rock. I believe this relates directly to The Boy's love of pounding his fist into his palm while singing the word 'rock', not that The Boy believes in relative morality.

The Baby and I got to practice letters while The Boy was sleeping. She's pretty good at 'T' but everything else is fair game. You're just as likely to hear 'B' for 'A' as for 'B'. The REAL fun part of play time was putting everything in the toy bucket, taking it out again, putting it away, well you get the idea.

The Baby spent the day caring for her baby. She told the doll that she (Zsa Zsa) was the momma, and the doll was a baby and here was her "han" (hand) and "no" (nose) and wrapping the doll in a blanket. She alternated all this cuteness with yelling "NO!" at the kitty, which I think was supposed to be the doll's big brother. I'm pretty sure this counts as a parenting fail.

When my mom got home she discovered that The Boy had found another use for her brand new Christmas decoration blocks that spell out the word "PEACE". He used them to trace his letters. At least it was with pencil, right? And how could we get mad when we ask him to trace letters once or twice a week? Blocks...paper, they're both wood products.

***

I didn't make dinner tonight. I told my family it was because our fridge was absolutely full of left overs and we needed to eat what was in there, but really, I just wanted Peanut Butter Puffins for dinner. The Hubs roasted some veggies, but I think only he and my mom ate any because by the time I felt guilty enough about not making dinner and got around to making sure the kids got at least one serving of vegetables today, they were gone. Ah well, there's always tomorrow. Assuming we've fixed the glass top stove we cracked yesterday, that is.

Following "dinner" we took everyone on a walk. Afterward you'd think we were trying to send our kids to the gas chamber, but really, we were just trying to get them to bed. Our son was SO upset by the injustice of not drinking a gallon of water right before bed that he wet his pants while crying. Yeah. This would be later on the same day he wet the bed during naps. The Hubs is so frustrated with all the night time wetting that he's threatened to go out tomorrow and buy actual diapers. Honestly, because it's EVERY FLIPPIN NIGHT, I'm leaning toward agreeing. He used to be dry 5 out of 7 nights.

Honestly though, my kids have their moments. Today The Boy took the front half of my jogging stroller, basically a wheel and two metal polls, and was running around the yard pushing it in front of him and calling it "riding my motorcycle". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a motorcycle OR riding, but he was having such a good time. Both the kids came in covered head to toe in mud. The Baby had mud in her ear. I think that takes talent. Want to know what else takes talent? Writing about how awful your day was, when really it was pretty fantastic. I got to spend most of it with my kiddos, and the parts I was away from home were short and filled with exercise. Not a bad day, really

THE TRIP

Where to start. Ah yes. The Parental Units Joint Decision to travel from Idaho to Arizona in a single day...with two small children.


In a word: insane.
We didn't leave Idaho until mid-morning. Arrived in Las Vegas about dinner time, and the in-laws house at 2am the next day. 17 hours after departure. Can you really call it "driving there in one day" if the trip actually spans TWO days?

Anyway, on to pictures!

The Boy, "helping" with irrigation

The Baby, trying on Mom's running shoes

The Boy LOVES Grandma's house. What's not to love? There are cows to feed (moo), a ditch with tad poles, cousins at all hours of the day, a riding lawn mower, a barn to play in, and quads. He was in Heaven.

The Baby just loves being with Mom.

The Hubs mostly worked, and I did WAY too much, like usual.

The kids and I went out to lunch, rode a carousel,

and watched a movie (How to Train Your Dragon) with The Boy's friend, E.

For a frame of reference, E is only 3 weeks older than The Boy. Yeah.

We found out first hand why you should always put the sun shade up in the car, even when parking away from the sun. The car seats, including mine, were literally too hot to sit in until the A/C had been going a good 10 minutes AND I had spread out the clothes we'd just bought to go between seats and bottoms. It was OK, because in the mean time The Boy had to water my tires. Don't judge, it was an emergency. I simply couldn't handle walking BACK across the mall parking lot in the mid afternoon with two cranky kids. Did I mention it was 115 degrees? See? Emergency. Heaven help The Baby. I have no idea what I'll do when she has potty emergencies. (thanks for the idea, S. Truly, life saving)

Is that ALL you ask? Oh no. There is more. Much more. Stay tuned!

Angsty Motherhood

Angst is: Nursing the baby to sleep and being ALMOST THERE, when the 2-year-old you've been begging and bribing through toilet training announces loudly from the next room, "I go potty Momma! Use my froggy! PLEASE!" Oh the dilemmas of motherhood. What's a mommy to do? Stop nursing and give up that precious 20 minute early morning nap, or ignore the toddler who, for once, is excited about using his potty?

What would YOU have done?