The title says it all. Yesterday, I had had it by 9 am and had given myself a time out in the basement to cool off. Not that the twins accepted that - they stood at the gate at the top of the steps, ripped the lids off their Color Wonder markers, and threw them down the steps at me. Adam had bad night the night before and was up for the day at 6 am, and I was up late addressing announcements, so I was tired and grouchy. And Alex and Avery were in full whiny, cranky, disagree for the sake of disagreeing mode. He hit her in the head with the stick part of the Sweeping Sam broom on purpose - like chased her around the living room with it until he made contact with her skull, and she insisted on doing her high pitched shriek every time Adam was almost asleep. They sat in Adam’s swing and bouncy seat, climbed the toilet and desk, slammed the porch slider open and closed a million times, threw food… you name it. We were all very much on one another’s nerves. I think the twins have figured out that I can’t be as on top of them, discipline wise, when I am nursing the baby, so they act up from jealousy and just because they know they can get away with more. Honestly, yesterday was the worst I’ve had since Adam was born and it all around sucked! Days like that make me question myself as a mother because I know I lose patience when I shouldn’t, and then I feel guilty.
But then we have days like today that are the polar opposite. I was able to go to bed a little earlier last night and Adam took a bottle from Don, and then this morning the twins slept until 8 and I was also able to get Adam to sleep til almost 8 as well. (Not like through the night, he’s still up every two hours at night, but 7 hours of non-consecutive sleep are still waaaay better than 4.) I decided this morning that we would take advantage of the nice weather and go to Green Meadows Petting Farm which is only about ten minutes from our house. Before Adam was born, I was afraid I’d never leave the house alone with all three, but we’ve done story time at the library successfully a few times, so I decided to give it a whirl. It ended up being AMAZING. Adam slept in the Bjorn the whole time we were there, and Alex and Avery had a blast petting pigs, a bull, and a zebra, chasing chickens, holding a duck, and feeding goats and sheep. There are lots of pics of all that in an album we setup. My kids have NO fear, apparently. Well except for milking cows, which they wouldn’t do, but I think they were weirded out by the guy who was supervising that, not the cow herself. Alex also greatly enjoyed the Purell dispenser stations. Too bad for him there aren’t public museums of just those. More than anything, it was just a really enjoyable day with lots of smiles and cooperation that made me feel like maybe I am doing alright with them. Then again, I did feed them Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies for lunch, but whatever. I thought the farm had a concession stand and it didn’t. Oh well.
They really are good kids. I’m so lucky. Alex is starting to talk in sentences and some of what he comes up with is just a riot. He was happy to tell Grandma Nancy his own version of the story of Daddy drilling his hand and getting a boo-boo a couple of weeks ago. He calls himself “Assa” these days and corrected Adam the other day for spitting up: “Adam, no pit muk (milk) Eeeew.” Avery’s favorite new words are “yestuhday” (anything that happened more than about 5 minutes ago in her world) and “maybe sumtin else” when you suggest something she doesn’t care for. Well, that or the shriek I spoke of above, depending on her mood. She likes to tell me things match, like if we wear the same color shirt. They both love their baby brother so much, and it makes me smile when I see them do caring things like rock his car seat and tell him not to cry when he’s upset. Avery accidentally fell on him today, I mean flattened him like a pancake, and I immediately had two crying babies on my hands. Adam stopped as soon as I picked him up, but she was sobbing. I asked her what hurt, and finally got out of her that nothing hurt - she was so upset because she thought she’d hurt baby Adam. And Adam is SUCH a sweet, easy baby. He gets pretty fussy for a couple of hours in early evening a few nights a week, and he screams bloody murder in the car seat, but other than that, he is a dream. He has been smiling for a couple of weeks, which just melts my heart. It seemed to take forever for the twins to smile, but Adam does it all the time when you talk to him. So cute. And even though he’s up often at night, he’s really good about going right back down after he eats and spends most of the night in his crib, from about 11 to 6 most nights.
All in all, there have been so many more good days than bad ones, and it helps to remember that and look forward to what’s to come.
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