Once again we have entered unknown territory at the old Casa de Barr. I’m an old hat at the tantrums, crying, whining, and yelling. Apparently those outbursts were getting old so they’ve moved on to new ways to go crazy. Shenzie has started screaming as loud as she can at the top of her lungs. In stores, restaurants, in the car. She will let them rip at any time. Two words: Annoying and headache!
Heaten’s “night” face. When you ask him to show you his night face this is what you get.
Heaten has started to hit me and pull my hair when he gets mad. If I happen to be holding him when when he gets angry he will just reach up and smack me. Two words: Annoying and headache. Ummmm, This is going to last all of five seconds. I am pretty strict with hitting and any other physical form of anger so he has landed himself in time out many many times lately.
Too cool for school!
His other new thing which is quite hilarious is ignoring me. The other day he wanted something I wouldn’t give him as we were leaving the store. He had a tantrum to the car and then proceeded to buck like a bronco when I tried to get him in his car seat. I gave him two choices - he could either calm down and let me buckle him in or I would have to force him in the carseat. I’m sure you can guess which he chose. He was super mad that I forced him in his seat so the entire ride home (15 minutes or longer) he looked out his window and ignored everything I said. He wouldn’t look at me or anything else. He just sad stewing in his chair ignoring me. I was up front just laughing at this. How at the age of 2 does he already know how to ignore someone? Hopefully Shenzie will pick up on this new “cool” thing to do and maybe, just maybe I’ll get five minutes of peace and quiet every now and again. =)
The babies/kids LOVE their new trampoline. It is only 8 foot (since our yard is so tiny), but big enough for them to grow into and jump together. It also has a net safety enclosure that we haven’t put up yet. I’m hoping this will keep them entertained for many hours this spring and summer.
How you feel the outside of your sippy to make sure the water is cold.
How you concentrate SO hard when singing to get the right words.
How you smell everything before you’ll eat it, even chocolate!
How you come running to me when a loud motorcycle goes by.
How you love to roll the car window down and get blown by the wind.
Heaten:
How you lay with your butt up in the air.
How you always have to be touching me when drinking your milk. Whether it is on my lap (your preferred place) or cuddled up next to me.
How you give me kisses and hugs anytime I ask and even when I don’t ask.
How you say “me-me” when you want me to carry you with me to wake Shenzie up or get your milk.
How you think every light that is turned off is broken and daddy needs to fix it. He better get busy, that is A LOT of lights!
I have sleep issues. I have to have the room pitch black to sleep. I have to wear earplugs to sleep. If I get woken up it usually takes me an hour to fall back asleep. Issues! When the babies were newborns we had the double pack n play. They slept in our room next to my side of the bed for 6 weeks until I couldn’t take it anymore. They snorted, grunted, cried, meowed, and cooed all night long. Since I was pumping and had to be up every 3 hours it wasn’t like I was really sleeping anyway. At 6 weeks we moved them into the loft/playroom right next to our room. I could still hear them, just not right at my ear. I was able to get a little better sleep.
We have been SUPER lucky as far as sleep goes. Being consistent and having a solid routine certainly helped. The babies sleep all night every night. VERY VERY rarely do I have to go in in the middle of the night. They go to bed at 8 and wake at 7ish. I get a full 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night. Spoiled, yes. Loving it, yes!
Shenzie 3 weeks old
So anyway…..last night (3.19.09) we had our first sleep over. Shenzie Bear caught a cold and was feeling miserable. She was stuffy, runny, icky, and clingy. She didn’t want to go to bed and just fussed and moaned in her crib when we put her to bed. Jeff and I went in numerous times to settle her in but she wasn’t having any of it. She got louder and louder until we finally got her up from bed. We let her hang out downstairs with us while we watched a little tv and then it was back to bed. Once again she was having none of it. The screaming and crying started before I even got to her room.
Shenzie 4 months old
At this point it was useless to get her to sleep in her own room so I put her into bed with me. We are not a co-sleeping family so this was the very first time since Shenzie was a newborn that she slept with me. We laid down at 10:30ish and she talked and sang and played and talked until about 12:00 when she finally settled down. She grabbed my hand and finally fell asleep at 12:30am. It was super sweet. Of course I didn’t sleep a wink until 2:00am when I asked Jeff if he would move her into her own bed so I could get a little sleep.
Shenzie 1.8 Years
Now Heaten is sick so maybe he’ll get his turn for a sleepover!!
Last week I asked Jeff very seriously if he would commit murder for me. You know it is true love when someone vows to murder for you. Well, true love or crazy husband…either way the answer was yes. He then asked who I would like murdered. I gestured downstairs (don’t worry, Jeff and both babies were upstairs). Since there was no one downstairs he was quite confused until I whispered “Blue”. “Blue? Huh”. I then had to explain to him that yes, we have a fish named Blue who I would like murdered (goes to show you just how much attention Old Blue is NOT getting around here).
Now - before you call PETA on me understand that Blue is not a real animal. Not like a cat or a dog or even a lizard. I do not randomly go around hurting animals or fishies. Well, except for that one time I left my hampster Joe outside in the scorching heat and he died. Or that time the neighbor jumped off the roof onto my cat and killed it. Oh yeah, there was also the time my dog Max got stole from our front yard. So maybe I do go around hurting animals and fishies, just not on purpose. This time it would be on purpose.
You see, Blue is boring and causing me nothing but extra work (which trust me, I don’t need). The only reason I got him in the first place was because the babies love the fishies at Wally World so I got them one (against Jeff’s advice I might add). They were interested in Blue for all of one day and then he became this thing that sat on the shelf. Every time anyone came over they would swear he was dead. He didn’t swim or even move much. He just sat there, pooping in his bowl and making a mess. After three weeks of me meaning to clean his bowl and never getting around to it I finally gave up and tried to hire a killer.
And then my conscious got the better of me and I cleaned out the stupid bowl and called off the killer. Little Blue was happy after that swimming around and pooping again.
Imagine my great surprise when a few days later Jeff said he thought the fish was dead. He had made this claim before (numerous times) so I just brushed him off and said no, Blue just isn’t an active kind of fish, more of the lazy kind. I stroll over to Blue’s bowl to find him very dead indeed. Floating upside down and instead of being blue he was gray and puffy. EWWWWWWWW. And let me tell you, dead fish STINK! But I swear I didn’t kill him. Well, not on purpose anyway. As an added bonus any and all pets have been banned from our house until such a time that the babies are old enough to kill them…er, I mean take care of them without me having to do their dirty work!
*Note to my sister Ang who is going to call me and yell at me: I really didn’t mean to kill him. Unless all those evil killing thoughts did the trick. I Pinky swear.
It seems like each new age/phase we get to I like better than the last. I will say this age is by far my favorite thus far. Watching the babies gain their independence (although the constant testing of limits drives me crazy at times) is so fun and amazing. I know it is only going to get better when they can talk more. We are having so much fun playing. They LOVE being outside and with this perfect weather we’re having we spend many hours outdoors.
I think everyone has their favorite baby/kid age. I can’t give a definite favorite yet since these are my first babies and I have no idea what is coming next, but age two is probably going to be right up there. My worst age was the newborn phase. It was SO HARD. Thinking back I don’t know how I even survived with two newborns that both demanded so much. And now that I wrote about how wonderful this age is I probably jinxed myself and will be crying next week about how hard this age is and how the nubs of Shenzie’s two year molars might just be the death of me.
Speaking of teeth…Heaten’s last three (excluding his two year molars) and FINALLY all in and through the gums. He was quite the bear while they were coming up, not sleeping well, fussing and crying more than usual. Eight more teeth to go between them and we’re done!!!!
It is never a good thing when the babies come into the bathroom and giggle then run away. It’s even worse when I’m in the shower covered in conditioner and soap and unable to do anything but hope they’re not into anything too messy.
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For the rest of the week our weather will be in the 80’s!!! Guess spring has come and will soon be gone. We will be spending A LOT of time outdoors before it gets scorching hot!
We spent the morning at the park enjoying our 75 degree weather. Hopefully the babies expelled enough energy to take a nap today!
You can’t see, but we are all wearing our GREEN today. Poor Heaten bear fought me tooth and nail when I tried to dress him in his green shirt so we compromised. Apparently he isn’t feeling “green” today.
For the longest time Shenzie has been shy, clingy, and scared. When we go to the park she is usually close by me. She will go on the little slides, but not the big ones. Heaten on the other hand is long gone at the park. He wanders off doing his own thing occasionally glancing around to find me. He goes on all of the big slides all by himself. He chases the bigger kids around laughing. He runs around like he owns the park while Shenzie is happy to stay near me observing the other kids play.
When I go to the gym and drop the babies at the playroom she cries which breaks my heart. They’ve had to call me back one or two times after 45 minutes because she was crying. Again, breaking my heart.
This week something happened (I’m writing this post on 3.12.09, but it probably won’t be published until next week sometime). Something great. Something amazing. My little shy Shenzie Weather busted out of her shell!!!!!!
Crappy image - photo taken with Blackberry
When I dropped them at the gym playroom yesterday she put her arms out to ‘E’ one of the playroom workers. She didn’t cry and I didn’t get called back even after being gone for an hour! Later in the afternoon we went to a new park. Normally new places and situations make her even more timid and scared. Not this time. She climbed up the steps and went down a medium sized slide all by herself and then cheered and clapped so excited she did it. I was jumping up and down cheering and clapping too. The other Mom’s probably thought I was looney. =) She went up and down up and down quite a few times before running off to explore another area of the park WITHOUT ME HOLDING HER HAND. This is a HUGE deal. She usually has a death grip on my hand when put in new situations. My heart was singing. Next thing you know she was up on the BIG slide going down all by herself and saying “one mo, one mo” which means one more in Shenzie talk. She went up and down the big slide all alone for a good 15-20 minutes. I was so happy and proud.
Another crappy image - photo taken with Blackberry
Today she surprised me again. We’ve been going to Storytime at the Library since the babies were like 17 months old. On a few occasions she’s stood up and participated, but for the most part both babies spend the entire time on my lap quietly singing along and doing the signs to the songs. Today she stood up and marched, jumped, shook her sillies out, and jiggled with the rest of the kids.
That is Heaten and Daddy at the bottom. The slide was HUGE and Heaten just climbed up and went down like it was nothing.
After storytime we went to our regular park where she immediately ran to the big kids play structure. She climbed up the stairs and went to the big, twisty slide. I held her hand once and then she was off. Up and down a zillion times all by herself. I couldn’t help but clap, cheer, and laugh each time she did it. Of course Heaten got equal clapping and cheering even though he’s been down that slide a zillion times alone.
She didn’t take baby steps, she jumped in with both feet!!!!
