I'm thinking of giving blogging another shot....I need to take a college class to understand blogger.com. I have been clicking around on here for half an hour trying to find out how to change the name of this album so that it's no longer "Back from Alaska." That was five years ago!
I have so many things about my kids that I don't want to forget, and that is my reason for this second attempt!
Can I just say the difference between boys and girls has thrown me for a loop! Or quite possibly it's just the difference between these two particular children! K is a climber...dancing on the kitchen table every time we turn around and climbing on the bathroom counter to eat toothpaste. He will be two in less than three weeks, and fortunately seems to be outgrowing the climbing phase and entering the "destructive" phase. His favorite thing is to drive cars on the walls/cabinets/furniture, and we ask him every day to stop. Sometimes we take his car away, and then he lays on the ground and throws a tantrum. Yesterday he stuck his hands down his pants...okay, well, when doesn't he stick his hands down his pants? The difference yesterday was that he had a poopy diaper, and before I realized it, he had yuckiness spread all over his body and clothes. Bath time! (During which he screamed the whole time!)
Then, he decided to get crayons and decorate the door to his bedroom and the walls in the hall. It was my first time as a parent having the delightful experience of finding crayon on the wall, because C just didn't do that. She also didn't climb, and she didn't stick her hands in her pants, and she didn't play with toy cars OR drive them on the wall! She was the sweetest, happiest, most well-behaved little baby and toddler...until K came along and turned her world upside down! Her brother, on the other hand, has been a crier and a screamer since he was born, demanding to be held by mommy (or daddy!) and making it hard to get anything done at all. Just in the last few months has he started to calm down and has actually become quite fun (in addition to being destructive!) I find myself falling in love with him every time he gives me sweet kisses, or smiles his adorable little smile, or snuggles up close to me and sings with me "I Am a Child of God." His vocabulary is starting to explode, and he does this cute little thing where he cuts off the beginnings of words or phrases and just says the last part. He used to say, "I love you TOO," and now he's reduced it to "TOO!" (My heart melts just to think of hearing him say it!) It is clear that he understands EVERYTHING! Today I asked him what he was chewing, and he walked up to me and opened his mouth and said, "Crahhh-kuhr!" (Apparently he can say the whole word!)
As for my little C....ah....such a darling and such a challenge! I sometimes wonder if all kids are as strong and independent as she is. She INSISTS on doing things her way, and there is no helping her at all! Everything must be on her terms, and I find myself wondering, "Does she feel powerless at home? Do we not allow her to make enough choices? Why does she fight us on everything?" The other day I was getting in the shower, and I got her clothes out and said, "I need you to get yourself dressed while I'm in the shower. Put your panties on and then your shirt." (It was a multiple-pieced outfit...I figured if I didn't instruct her, she would wind up with her sleeveless dress on without her shirt underneath...) So she comes up to me while I'm in the shower and shows me that she got her panties and shirt on. I said, "Good job! Thank you for doing what I asked you to do!" And she had to make sure that I knew she had put her shirt on first and THEN her panties. This example, for me, illustrates the personality of my little darling C. She can be so very sweet, and so very maddening. I guess that comes along with parenting? I just find myself hoping it is the age, and not an indication that she is going to grow up and be rebellious! Let's get this defiance out right here and now!
I realized just this week that I have to be careful what I say because "Ears" hear it all. I was telling a woman at Costco how beautiful her children were and that I loved their dark hair and their olive skin. I told her my children wound up being "whiteys." Later that night I found Corelle twisting her baby fine hair in knots. I told her I would have to cut her hair off if I couldn't get all the knots out, and she said, "I hate my hair!" I had to reassure her that I love her hair, and that I think she is the most beautiful girl in the world. (I do love dark brown hair on young children, but that's not taking anything away from the beauty of children who aren't!) Sometimes she seems super thick-skinned, but I'm realizing there is a really sensitive side to her that needs praise and attention (yeah, yeah, I know that goes for all of us and all kids, but sometimes as parents I think we just have these moments of realization about our own kids!)
I do love my sweet little darlings. I get to stay home with them at least three days nearly each week, and that is such a blessing. I am grateful for a job that allows me to set my own hours, to do something I enjoy, and that allows me to totally miss my kids and long to get back home to them when we're apart! But that's it for now. More sagas of the C children next time!
