Archives for October 2005

What No One Tells You – Edition 1

No one tells you, until you’re in the midst of it that three years old is worse than two. At that point, you really don’t need anyone to tell you – it’s like someone telling you when you’re standing in a torrential downpour that it’s raining a bit. The terrible two’s? Really not at all that bad compared to three!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my little Princess… But, goodness, what an attitude that one can get at times. If she’s hungry, if she’s over-tired, if the wind blows the wrong way, you can almost predict when she’s going to melt down and turn into this being that looks like a scary version of the kid you know and love.

For example, yesterday The Princess and I were baking cookies. I enjoy baking, and she enjoys helping, so everyone wins, right? Sort of. The Princess wanted to lick her spatula, but I had moved it to a plate (heaven forbid) to avoid putting the doughy mess on the counter, and then because I wouldn’t trade spatulas with her (I think that’s what she was upset about) she just freaked out on me. She started wailing and screeching and just getting all worked up. Over a FREAKIN’ SPATULA! Good gracious. Was glad to see that storm blow over.

At the end of every day, The Princess and I do “High – Low”, where I ask her to tell me the best and worst part of her day. Yesterday, the best part for her was gymnastics. And the worst part? Even five plus hours after this little debacle, the worst part of her day was apparently when I wouldn’t give her my spatula. Kid holds a grudge! Oh well, what can ya do? Kids will be kids.

Today, we stayed relatively tantrum-free. Before bed, I tucked her in and asked the best and worst parts of her day. The best was getting a set of paper dolls from grandma (my mom picked them up at the Smithsonian on a recent trip to Washington DC). The worst? The Princess got this look on her face, then smiled and said, “Nothing. I guess I had a pretty good day, didn’t I, mom?”

Moments like that make you (almost) forget the rough ones!

A Weekend "Off"

I love my weekends. I love them more than I do when I worked outside the home, because on my weekends BEFORE, I felt so much pressure to cram in as much time as possible with my oldest kiddo (known from here on as The Princess – because Hey, this is the internet, and safety first!). I was at work all week and she was in daycare all day, and the guilt that someone else was raising my kid really hit me hard.

Since Pumpkin was born (by the way, their nicknames are based on their Halloween costumes, because we’ve got that on the brain lately since The Princess had her first Halloween party of the year at “school” yesterday), I’ve been working from home. The Princess goes to daycare two days a week so I can get my work done, and Pumpkin stays home. I don’t have that guilt anymore. I get lots of time with them daily during the week.

So — that’s why the weekends are kind of nice. Mom gets a bit o’ down time, and my husband gets to take over a little. Granted, he does a lot with The Princess these days, because I’m tending to a three month old’s needs a lot of the time, but on the weekends, he changes a lot more diapers!

Today is Gymnastics day for The Princess, and it’s one of her favorite things to do each week. Imagine if you will, a bunch of high strung three-year-olds running around and jumping around for 45 minutes straight. I don’t know how the teacher does it! We don’t have to leave the house for another hour and a half, but we’ll start our struggle soon to get her ready to go. It seems like it can take that long just to get her into a leotard and sweatpants. The joys of having a three year old!

Here I Am…

New to this blogging stuff and I’m already off to a rip-roaring start. I changed my template to something more green (my favorite color) and lost my first post! Argh!

Anyway – to those of you who know and love me (or the ones who know and tolerate me, anyway), I thought this would be a great way for me to share what’s going on in our world — without having to send 50 emails every time – truth be told, I forget. When I have spare time these days, it’s always hard to figure out what to do – a toss up between reading a few pages of a book, sleeping, or actually going to the bathroom by myself!