Crabby

Ugh. What a day. I had yet another yucky day with Carson. I know a good chunk of this is teething, but his hitting/biting/kicking is truly getting out of control. Today’s highlights include, but are not limited to:

1. Carson dumping out his box of crayons and throwing them like missiles at me…doing his angry scream while throwing. [Positive: It looks like my baseball blood has been passed down to him. He has a helluva arm!]
2. He (apparently) intentionally hurt our dog Schatzie. When she cried in pain, he yanked her hair harder.
3. He bit my knee cap (yes, my freakin’ knee cap!) because I wouldn’t pick him up at that very moment (I was washing dishes).
4. He got mad at Kate and attacked the first object he could get his hands on. Unfortunately, it was the floor lamp in the living room that my mom gave us (sorry Mom!).
5. And, finally, during a tantrum, he scooted his body into position to hit me in the face with the heel of his foot. I am very surprised that I don’t have a black eye from that because it hurt like hell.

And this was my day. It was so bad at time that I had to put myself in Time Out for a few minutes. I went into our bedroom, shut the door, and looked at the ceiling for about 3 minutes until I was no longer upset. When moms put themselves in Time Out, that’s a very bad day.

The excuse of teething only goes so far. I gave him Tylenol and that did not phase him a bit. Miss Jennifer told me yesterday that he was a perfect angel for her all day. What could be going on with him? It’s all directed at me, and I have no clue as to why.

The only times of the day that he was truly happy and content were when I was walking around carrying him. If I sat down, he would throw a fit. If I even walked near the bean bag (where we usually put them for bottles or when we are done holding them), he would whine. There is only so much that I can walk around with a 24 lbs tot on my hip especially since I have another little tot who needs me to.

So, I am a bit crabby tonight. Mark is on a business trip, and I have my fingers crossed that they kiddos sleep through the night and don’t want to get up at 5 AM.

To end on a happier note, here are some photos from today…

Here is Carson with his new lawn mower. I bought them 3 new toys yesterday (after seeing what Colin had in Dallas), and this was one of them. Look at that sour-puss look on his face. That look is the “I hate the camera” expression. Despite that look, he loves the lawn mower. He walked all over the house for the longest time with the new mower.

 

I am done with the sippy cup battle. For months and months, I have tried to get them into sippy cups. It’s never really worked well. So we found an alternative…cups with straws! They LOVE drinking from straws and they work and travel just as well has traditional sippy cups.

Carson at lunch time. On the menu today…green beans, slice of cheese, hot dog weiner, and ice water. (They only drink water if it’s icy cold. I’m the same way.)

Visiting Cousins

We got an extra special treat this morning when my Aunt Cindy and cousin Jil brought my cousin Cody’s kids over to see the twins before nap time. I don’t think we’ve seen them since Christmas, and it’s hard to believe how much older and bigger they are now.

Cousin Brylee (almost 3 years old) and Kate.

The girls had a fun time together.

Ahh, the joys of trying to get four kids to sit for a photo! That’s cousin Brayden on the right. He is Brylee’s big brother.

 

Brylee and Brayden are in town visit their grandparents (my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Gil) for the whole week, so we might get the kiddos together later in the week to go swimming.

Once again, Mr. Carson was freaked out with new people around. He clung on to me, and he ended up going down for his nap 20 minutes early. Is there anything I can do for him?

Things I Don’t Want to Forget, Part 1

• Kate is always the first one I take out to the car when we are going out-and-about or to Miss Jennifer’s. As soon as we are in the garage and Kate sees the car, she starts to clap and say, “Yay!” She also claps and says “Yay” when we are returning home and pulling into the garage. I will say, “We’re home,” and Kate starts cheering.
• Kate is the first into the car and the last one out…every time. Carson is less likely to fuss if he sees me leave the room, so Kate always goes first.
• Carson always wakes up from naps and bedtime earlier than Kate — 1 + hours usually. The time we have alone together before Kate wakes up from her nap is my favorite time of the day with Carson. We cuddle on the couch, I carry him around, we play and talk on the floor. When he hears Kate start to wake up on the monitor, he starts to fuss and whine because he knows his time is up.
• They hate traditional sippy cups, but love drinking from straws instead.
• Carson gradually wakes up from sleep. I can hear him chirping, “talking” and softly calling out “dada” over the monitor. Kate wakes up in a full scream every time. So I run up the stairs and I always find her smiling.
• Kate is hot and cold on hair bows. There are some days that she will wear one and not mess with it; other days she instantly pulls it out and refuses to wear it.
• Carson likes to sit at the back of the bath tub and hoard all of the toys back there. Kate likes to sit in front and play with the water coming out of the faucet.
• Carson hates having his teeth brushed, and Kate doesn’t seem to mind at all.
• Both are struggling with the concept of shoes.

Kate was so exhausted on Sunday night after returning from Dallas, that she passed out (with our dog Maggie) at 6 PM.

King of the Mountain

I had a ROUGH day with Carson.

I don’t know if this was some kind of toddler pay-back for this past weekend when he was so clingy, fussy and insecure with all the new people and places, but he was just downright horrible all day. He was highly aggressive, mad, defiant, tantrumy (yes, it’s my new word), and at times mean. He has never had a day like this before.

Strangely enough, he didn’t take it out on Kate. He saved it all for his unsuspecting mama!

Let’s see…he threw his breakfast and lunch on the floor and when I told him to stop he screamed “NO!” and then dumped it all. (I made Mark handle dinner because I wasn’t up for another fight with him.) He shut me out of my own office, and screamed “NO!” at me while banging on the glass French doors. He turned off the satellite box at least ten times today, and each time I got on to him about it he screamed “NO!” Two of those times he also hit our flat screen TV — once with his hands and then with a large plastic toy. He got into the kitchen trash can more times than I can remember. When I would catch him, he would scream at me and then take off through the house with whatever prize he had gotten out of the can. He figured out how to open the back door (which, by the way, we have the kind of handles that cannot be child-proofed) and explored the patio while I frantically searched the house for him. He has never before opened a door before, and I had just let the dogs go outside which is why I had not locked the door.

But the big highlight of the day was when he started to get into a mini fight with Kate over by the toy bin. She refused to let him have a toy he was trying to steal from her. So he started angrily screaming and then crawled as fast as he could to me and started hitting me! I was sitting on the floor looking at a magazine and thought he was coming to me for comfort. Nope. If he could get Kate, I guess he would get me. When I stopped him from hitting me, he had a melt down. Once I thought he had calmed down, I reached out and picked him up and hugged him while he sat in my lap. He suddenly turned and started hitting me in the face and grunting/screaming at me. So I walked away from him and let him throw his fit on the floor. Kate just looked on with this ‘what’s going on?’ expression on her face.

Sigh.

Bad day with Mr. Carson.

The good part is that he slept until 7:30 AM and then took a 2 1/2 hour nap this afternoon — both of these things have never happened before. He has never slept that much like this. He usually takes one hour naps, and wakes up before 6 AM. I don’t know if that had anything to do with his behavior today.

I have my fingers crossed that he wakes up in better spirits tomorrow.

Oh, and Miss Kate had a wonderful day. She talked my ear off.

Weekend in Dallas, Part 3

 

SUNDAY

Again, the twins slept like rocks and woke up “late” (i.e., 7 AM) this morning.

Amanda had bought the twins their favorite breakfast — Eggos and bananas — and we had a somewhat leisurely morning. We quickly packed-up and headed over to Chalna’s house for a planned morning playdate.

This was the twins very first playdate, and I think they loved having a new house and toys to explore. For the most part, the three of them (Colin, Kate, and Carson) played separately, but it was fun seeing them all together. I was surprised that Colin (and any 1-year old for that matter) was so gracious having these unknown twins come into his domain to play with his stuff, but he didn’t mind a bit.

Colin has WAY cooler toys than the twins, and I need to get more age-appropriate toys for them soon. They still have rattles and other true baby toys still in their toy bin. I feel bad about it. No wonder they get bored.

While the kiddos played, us grown-ups (me, Mark, Chalna & Jeremy) got to visit. It was nice to be in a child-proof house and not have to worry about the twins finding something dangerous. I REALLY want Chalna, Jeremy and Colin to come down to Austin for a weekend soon. Jeremy (a non-Texan) has never been to Austin, and that’s just simply sinful. My secret fantasy is that they come down for a visit and Jeremy falls in love with Austin and decides he just can’t take Dallas anymore and he moves the family down here. HaHa…okay, not very likely, but I can still hope. 🙂

We got on the road at 11 AM, and the twins were sleeping in the car before we even got out of their neighborhood. Once again, they slept halfway home and then woke up unhappy. Kate — who had been a doll baby all weekend — was a bear on the ride home. I spent a good chunk of the time on sitting on my knees facing backwards in the front seat trying to do anything to keep her from fussing and cursing under my breath how badly I want a car with a built-in DVD player. The Wiggles or Bunnytown really would have come in handy for that final 150 miles.

The kiddos were thrilled to be back home. They were so happy, wild and hyper. They just had to inspect all of their toys, and they went room-to-room just looking round. Carson was especially glad to be home. He was practically bursting with joy and happiness.

What a great weekend. We must do it again soon!

 Kate helping herself to Colin’s wagon of toys.