Smiling Mom

Anyone? Can you help me… I know I heard something about a day where you send your kids back from whence they came? Know when that day is? I hope I haven’t mis­sed it this year.…hmm.

Lately, eClaire throws a colos­sal fit when she wants to be held, but you refuse. Which she wants con­ti­nually, and I refuse often.

BC, on the other hand, has been oh so much bet­ter. I hope you caught my sar­casm. He has been unu­sually aggres­sive, and hos­tile this week. He growls when angry, which isn’t terribly unu­sual, but always lands him straight to time out. This grow­ling thing, that has ear­ned him the nick­name Ebay, has now morphed into a growl–phpppbh. Oh, lets talk about disrespect!

Today in Costco, BC took my cell phone, the sole item kee­ping eClaire from mel­ting down com­ple­tely, away from eClaire, and when I asked him to give it back to her, he tur­ned the oppo­site direc­tion and chuc­ked it out of the cart.

If anyone tur­ned and saw my reac­tion, but not his warran­ting action, they must have thought I was one of those moms who should be shop­ping at Wal­mart. You know the ones! They scream at their kids, call them bad names and make very public sce­nes? Well, all I did was grab BC, sit him in the cart very firmly, and lea­ned close to his face, telling him that his actions were not accep­ta­ble and he was not to dis­res­pect his sis­ter, or me that way.

Oh, you should have heard the wails! “And the award for best Dra­ma­tic Moment goes to… BC.”

When we got home neither one of them would eat the din­ner I made, baked chic­ken with feta and red bell pep­pers on top. It was pretty good! But alas, my sweet dar­lings wan­ted to go to bed hungry instead.

eClaire, for the past two nights, has taken to screa­ming, hys­te­ri­cally, on the top of her lungs. She, who is the easiest baby to get to go to sleep, now refu­ses to go to sleep. She usually goes down early, like 6:30 p.m. early. But now won;t to go to sleep until her brother is in the room with her. Tonight she screa­med for just under an hour before I finally caved and took her out of her room. When I put her back in twenty minu­tes later, with BC, she cried for maybe 30 seconds, and went to sleep. Grr.

Like in the movie, Bad Boys 2, I rub­bed my ear­lo­bes with my fin­ger­tips and chan­ted, “Woo­saw, Woo­saw”

So when is that natio­nal give back day again?

Yes­ter­day BC got a new Razor scoo­ter (video below) and he took it for a spin. It abso­lu­tely blows my mind how quickly kids pick up new skills! BC had been riding the scoo­ter for no more than 5 minu­tes when I took the poorly shot video. Amazing!

BC and Scooter

BC, Dad and Scooter

Today we spent a good por­tion of our day at our friend’s son’s first birth­day party. Actually it was tit­led, “Mikey’s Day”. He tur­ned 1 mid February, but today we cele­bra­ted his one year of health. Mikey was born as a 9 pound-er. It tur­ned out, howe­ver, that he somehow got pneu­mo­nia in utero. His first few weeks of life were spent in the NICU, and all par­ties were unc­lear of Mikey’s future due to this dif­fi­cult beginning.

Mikey, by the grace of God (and some good medi­cine) and very strong family mem­bers, pulled through and was sent home from the hos­pi­tal as a healthy baby one year ago. As a result we cele­bra­ted his life today.

We live on the other side of the bay from our dear friends, so we don’t get to see them nearly enough. Each time is a treat!

Mom to Mikey, and Mikey

Dad to Mikey, funny as usual!

Hubby’s sis­ter, brother-in-law, and our nie­ces also were at the party. BC and JADO got their faces pain­ted. It’s crazy how simi­lar these cou­sins look. I often am asked if they are brother and sis­ter. The family resem­blance runs deep!

BC, or should we call him by his Superhero name…Tiger

Tiger and But­terfly (aka BC & JADO)

Shortly follo­wing BC and JADO, ARDO and eClaire (cou­sins 4 months apart in age) got but­ter­flies pain­ted on their faces as well.

ARDO, eClaire, and Aunt L
ARDO fee­ding eClaire-so sweet!

“No sweety, I don’t think Daddy would like for you to flash the world…”

You can’t beat good friends and family!

Now the video.…“pre­sen­ting BC on the scoo­ter for the very first time, pre­for­ming what most other 2.5 year olds only dream of!” Ok, seriously, here’s the video.

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Sun­day was such a dif­fi­cult day. eClaire cried for just about the whole. When she wasn’t crying, she was taking unu­sually long naps. I sus­pect that she is either teething, still, or gro­wing. Either way, it was hell. We also had the plea­sure of atten­ding my friend’s daughter’s 4th birth­day party at Chuck E Chee­ses, a fun kid spot. The com­bi­na­tion of eClaire’s dif­fi­cult day and all the exci­te­ment and amount of peo­ple left her tur­ned upside down.

eClaire gene­rally is quite clingy in new situa­tions. I always, now that I’ve figu­red out her per­so­na­lity, hold onto her for at least 10 minu­tes or so before pas­sing her off to anyone else. She gene­rally warms up if I res­pect her time­ta­ble. Well, Sun­day was a dif­fe­rent story. eClaire threw a tan­trum that las­ted 20 minu­tes or so, arched back, head flin­ging back­wards, screams like I was attemp­ting to abduct her… It was awful! She didn’t want up, she didn’t want down, she didn’t want her blan­ket. I was temp­ted to reins­tate the “nur­sing game” right there on the spot! The looks I got from the parents who didn’t know me or eClaire were priceless.

Ove­rall, I think I tried to do too much with eClaire on Sun­day. She, when fee­ling down, simply does not like large loud set­tings. Now I know.

After get­ting the kids to bed, I sat down with sha­king extre­mi­ties overwhel­med and glad the day was over. How do I manage two kids 18 months apart? I pray to God that one of them is obe­ying while the other one melts down. Sun­day I was lucky. BC was being a great hel­per through this whole ordeal. Today was a new day!

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(For the record, Hubby loo­ked at my com­pu­ter while I was wri­ting this and gave a HUGE eye roll at the title. I guess he just doesn’t appre­ciate my sense of humor. I thought it was hila­rious! )

The title of this post just about says it all. Today is my and eClaire’s first day without nur­sing. It’s bit­ter sweet. We’re loo­sing our spe­cial time together, yet gai­ning inde­pen­dence. My last baby, my last time nur­sing. It was a won­der­ful expe­rience, but on many levels, I’m glad it’s over. I have to con­ti­nue to remind my heart that my head belie­ves, strongly, in allo­wing my chil­dren to grow up and not have them tread water in a cer­tain stage that I am so fond of. Next steps: tal­king, eating with little adult help, and stan­ding up to her big brother BC (for­mally Bro). who loves to play rough with her and take her toys.

eClaire is a wal­king, tal­king machine. Well, almost. She mimics all the sounds she hears these days. She whis­pers the first let­ter of most everything I say to her so it’s only a mat­ter of time now before I have two todd­lers telling me what to do, and how to do it.

The most exci­ting thing that BC and eClaire are doing this week that is new from last, is their inte­rac­tion. BC still gets frus­tra­ted if eClaire crowds his space, he is two and a half, you know. The mood of our day is often deter­mi­ned by how well BC woke up that mor­ning, and whether of not he took a nap. Two is exci­ting, but that’s for another post.

eClaire and BC have been pla­ying behind Hubby’s han­ging clothes in the clo­set. They tic­kle, do peek-a-boo and laugh con­ti­nually. It is so much fun to see them finally pla­ying, really pla­ying. These are the moments when you know why it is so good for chil­dren to have siblings!

BC and eClaire pla­ying at Christ­maseClaire today at din­ner. Check out those blue eyes!! Isn’t she beautiful?

Non­nie (visi­ting from San Diego) and BC wor­king on a stic­ker book.

Non­nie and the kids. More on her visit tomorrow.

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