Challenges

This past week, and really, if I'm being honest, the past three weeks, have been extremely challenging for me.  To give a very brief back story, Ryan's work asked if he'd be willing to travel every other week to CA for the next 2-3 months, beginning on August 19.  After much consideration and prayer, we agreed this was a great opportunity for him, even though it would bring many challenges, both for him and for the family.

Well, over these past few weeks, Reagan has been giving me a run for my money.  He is challenging everything I ask him to do, refuses to listen to me, and throws temper-tantrums up the wa-zoo!  Ok, I may be exaggerating a little on the temper-tantrums, but I'm not at all when it comes to obeying and listening to me.  This past week - the first week Ryan was traveling - was exceptionally difficult.

Every morning, we go through the same routine.  The very first thing I do is change his diaper.  Now, Reagan doesn't want his diaper changed.  He kicks and screams as I try to set him on the changing table.  "What's caused the sudden desire to stay in a soaked in a diaper," I wonder?  Or when it's time to get dressed in the morning, he runs away to the opposite side of the house, giggling the whole time.  I count to three, but that only raises my blood pressure and doesn't help him obey.  Or when it's time to leave the house, I tell him to sit on the bench so I can put his shoes on.  This, of course, prompts another round of running away as well as screaming "No!!!!!"  What gets to me the most; however, is actually getting into the van.  Reagan knows he's not allowed in the back row, and yet that's the only place he goes.  He'll even tell me "Don't go the back seat" when we're walking to the car, but sure enough, as I strap Kyleigh into her seat, I find him sitting and smiling in the back seat.

I am at my wits end, here.  We've tried discipline (and I mean several rounds of discipline) and it doesn't seem to phase him.  I've tried time-outs and he'll go and stand in his time-out location, but it doesn't change his behavior the next time around.  As recently as this morning, I've started taking away some of his "privileges" (ie, watching a movie).  We'll see how this turns out.

I feel like this is spinning out of control...and quickly.  I've gone back to my Entrusted with a Child's Heart curriculum for guidance.  It seems like I'm on the right track, but Reagan is not leaving the naughty track and jumping onto the right one!!  One thing is I'm definitely trying to begin my days with prayer.  This is something I should be doing anyway, but often forget.  I ask the Lord to give me patience with Reagan's continued disobedience.  Some days I do better, some days I don't.  It's a constant challenge.

I often find myself in an internal struggle of holding onto these times and wanting to pull my hair out.  Over these difficult weeks, I've been thinking of the poem "Wet Oatmeal Kisses" by Erma Bombeck.  If you've never read this poem, seriously, Google it and be humbled.  I know I am every time I read it.  So as I reflect on this challenging time right now, I do not ignore the fact that this is challenging and it's okay to acknowledge the challenge.  But, I also try to dwell on the fact that this time with my children is fleeting and one day, they will be grown up and I'll look back and think "Why did I let my blood boil over climbing into the backseat?"  One day, I'll look back.  That's not today :-)

A New Phase

We've had a bit of a breakthrough at our house these days.  Within the last few weeks or so, Reagan and Kyleigh have been playing together.  Like, they can be in Reagan's room talking, laughing, squealing, playing together!  This brings about a few emotions within me.  First, PRAISE THE LORD!  There is a moment during their awake hours where I can be in one room and BOTH kids are happily playing together in a different room.  It brings me great joy listening to Reagan say "C'mon Kai-ee (his version of Kyleigh), let's go.  Here Kai-ee.  Play with me, Kai-ee."  I am starting to believe what so many people told me over the last year: "They will be great friends because they are so close in age."  For the first time, I can actually see this becoming true.

The second emotion; however, is a little bit of sadness.  There is a little part of me that thinks, "They are growing up so fast.  They don't need me as much anymore."  Now, I know this is a bit of a stretch because they very much still need me.  However, there was a time not too long ago when Kyleigh had to be in the same room as me at all times.  If I left for just a moment, she would scurry into the room or she'd cry until I came back to pick her up.  I know this is a natural progression of growing up, but there are moments - some moments - when I desire them to stay my little babies forever!

When I do enjoy those precious moments of listening to them in another room, I also realize it's not always happy play.  We've also entered another phase in the last few weeks - the tattle-tale phase!  Reagan often leaves the room to come and tell me, "Kai-ee hit my head.  Kai-ee touched my jams.  Kai-ee is breaking my floor (ie ripping apart the alphabet puzzle mat)."  Legitimately, Kyleigh has entered her own phase of hitting (and hitting a lot!), so I appreciate that Reagan comes to tell me he's been hit.  However, he takes this to the extreme!  As with all new phases, you learn how to deal with the kids' ever changing personalities!

Life is definitely changing in our house.  It's all great and I love it, but I also realize how quickly time is passing.  It's so cliche, but it's so true!

Reagan and Kyleigh - July 2013

My notes from July 2013:

Reagan:

• Getting much better at counting
• I asked him who his best friend is and he said JT
• We (finally) moved him to a big boy bed!
• One day, all morning he told me, "I'm so tired" This was hilarious coming from a 2 year old
• He'll show me his coloring and then says, "That's so pretty"
• Managed to lock himself in Sue's bathroom with the light off, but wasn't phased by it at all
• Playing independently better
• He has a few stories almost memorized and he'll read them aloud to himself or Kyleigh
• He is growing a lot in his understanding of concepts
• Asks many questions: "What's that?" "Where did that come from?" "What are we having?"
• He's been showing concern for others (when I throw up due to morning sickness or have been coughing a lot)
• Very possessive of a few things (primarily his phone, but also his "beet")
• He doesn't like it when Kyleigh crawls on me; he'll scream "That's MY mommy!"
• Throws tantrums a lot when he doesn't get his way
• Identifies his drool (so gross)
• Wants to race Kyleigh around the house on his car

Kyleigh:

• Starting to climb (found her on the side table in the breezeway, as well as into the dishwasher)
• Becoming much pickier with food
• LOVES to throw her food on the ground
• Says "Uh-ooh"
• Much more difficult to feed; she changes her mind daily about what she likes
• Can walk backwards fairly well
• Barely starting to wave (not all the time, but occasionally)
• Starting to like books better (Peek-a-Who, Brown Bear, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?)
• Will come and sit in my lap if I'm on the floor
• Loves to crawl all over me
• Learning how to follow commands (ie, go get your milk)
• Scrunches her nose when she smiles big
• Walks all over the place; I can't keep her in one spot
• Starting to throw tantrums; she'll sit/throw herself down on the ground when she doesn't want to do something
• Seems to understand a lot of what we tell her to do, but doesn't always do it
• Showing an interest in feeding herself with a spoon
• Does not like to drink her milk
• Needs to be in the same room as me - all the time
• Laughing more
• Takes apart Reagan's alphabet floor daily
• Finally lowered her bed
• Likes to dance when music is playing
• Favorite toy is still the plastic Easter eggs
• Gets on Reagan's firetruck and presses the buttons, but doesn't go anywhere
• Grunting as loud as possible is her main form of communication (crying is her other one)

Minivan Mama

It's official...we are minivan owners!  Ryan still isn't so sure about this, but I think he's beginning to come to grips with the fact that this was the best decision for our expanding family.  I got to that point a long time ago, so I'm happy we finally have our van.

Boy, it was an emotional week of trying to get this van.  A quick recap: we found one via private party and looked at it on Monday.  He was asking way to much for the base model, so we continued our search.  We looked at another one on Tuesday evening and we both loved (as much as Ryan could love a minivan) it.  It was a 2008 and top of the line model in really good condition.  We called the guy back on Wednesday morning and he wouldn't accept our offer because he owed more money than we were offering.  I was bummed, but understood.  I found a great deal from a dealer on Wednesday and spoke with a sales rep and he said he had people coming to look at it that night.  I called back Thursday morning and the van sold Wednesday night.  I was again really bummed.  Thursday night we looked at yet another van.  This one was promising - within our price range and in fairly good condition.  The only problem is that the AC didn't work.  The salesman said he would have it looked at on Friday and let us know.  We even negotiated a price with him.  Very surprising for a salesperson, but we had to call him.  He gave Ryan the runaround, so I spent a good portion of Friday night looking for more options.

Oh boy, Friday night was fun.  I ended up finding a really good deal about 1 hour 45 minutes away.  I called the dealer and, of course, it sold 5 hours earlier.  I continued my search and found 9 vans for Ryan and I to vet.  We crossed off a decent number and picked 1 that we thought was a "too good to be true" deal in Elgin.  It was a 2008 with only 30K miles on it.  It was a little steep on our price range, but given the low miles, we were going to take a look at it Saturday.  I spoke with the dealer and he said they would run it through inspection first thing in the morning and we could come around noon.  Perfect!

Saturday morning around 9a, I received a call from one of the dealers I contacted in Joliet (about 1 hour away).  They had an 2006 with 72K miles on it and it was on the lot for viewing despite the fact it hadn't gone through inspection yet (they just received it two days earlier on a trade-in).  I asked how much and it was surprisingly very much in our price range.  So, Ryan and I decided to call the Elgin dealer and postpone our visit until the later in the afternoon.  We wanted to see this one in Joliet first since it seemed to be a better fit financially.  Turns out, we really liked it and bought it!  We both love the color (officially, Slate Green Metallic Ocean Mist Metallic, but it looks more like a very light grey/blue color) and both the exterior and interior are in good condition considering it's 7 years old.  We negotiated with the dealer and were able to walk out the door paying $200 more than our goal.  Not too shabby for dealing with a car dealership.

Minivan Mama (as Ryan now calls me)

One Step Closer

This post is a few days overdue, but oh well.  Life gets busy and I get tired by the end of the day!

A little back story before I answer what the "one step closer" means.  So last week, we had Claire with us while Andy and Katie were on a missions trip in Haiti.  I didn't want to have the Aerobed set up all week because it takes up too much room.  Ryan and I decided to remove the front railing of Reagan's crib and let Claire sleep in his bed while Reagan slept in Kyleigh's crib and Kyleigh slept in the pack-n-play.  A little musical beds, but that's okay.

Fast forward to Saturday, July 13...Claire leaves our house.  Ryan and I decided to leave the railing off the crib and let Reagan take a nap in his "new" bed.  I wanted to test this out with a nap before a whole night that way if he fell out and woke up screaming, it wouldn't jolt me out of bed in the middle of the night!  To my surprise, he took his normal 2ish hour nap, no problem!  He didn't get out of bed and play with toys and he didn't fall out of the bed.  Whoo hoo!

On to bedtime.  We put him in the bed and reminded him of the rules: no getting out of bed and no jumping on the bed.  It was rest time.  He went right to sleep and I thought for sure I'd hear a clunk in the middle of the night, but I didn't!  I couldn't believe how well he did.

We are officially one step closer to moving Reagan out of a crib.  Craziness!!

Here he is Sunday morning, so proud of himself and his big boy bed!

June 2013 for Reagan and Kyleigh

Here are the notes I took for June 2013 for both Reagan and Kyleigh:

Reagan

• Enjoys putting his feet up on the dining room table
• Fights tooth and nail about eating his carrots
• He's a total book worm!  Loves, loves to read (Thomas is his primary favorite, but we read Jesus and Clifford, too)
• Loves to play in his "piece" (translation, police) car the Lehmanns gave us, but he always afraid there are bugs inside
• Likes looking for airplanes when they fly over
• Really enjoys listening to "moosic" on my phone
• Really aggressive with Kyleigh

Kyleigh

• Walks to the right inside of in a straight line
• Walks swinging her left arms like crazy while her right arms stays relatively still
• Loves to eat, especially carbs and cheese
• She doesn't really like her milk, but is getting better at drinking it
• 8 teeth now
• Grunts at everything to communicate; so funny!!

A little update

It's been sooo long since my last post.  So much has happened and I've been meaning to post, but honestly, I just haven't been up to it.  This will be a quick update on the past 6 weeks.

At the end of May, we were supposed to go on a one night family camping trip.  We were very excited to go, but pulled the plug at the last minute to due to weather forecast.  Unfortunately, the severe weather we were expecting never came to fruition so we cancelled our plans for no reason.  Grrr....

Kyleigh's first birthday came next.  We had a little celebration here in IL on June 1st with the Lehmanns and Sue.  I wanted to make the most of the decorations I'd been making for her big celebration in CA, so I decorated the house for our little pizza party here.

On Kyleigh's actual birthday, we didn't do too much.  We had her 1 year pictures taken at Lake Arlington and they were great.  It was a little cold outside, but we still got some really great shots.  Kyleigh's favorite part of the night was digging into her birthday cake and stuffing it into her mouth ;)

A few days later we left for CA for a week.  The trip was awesome.  We had such a relaxing time (other than Kyleigh's birthday party).  It was really nice to be in CA other than during the holidays.  It was such a difference.  Although I was stressed during Kyleigh's party, it went really well.  We had nearly 30 people there and of course, it was 106 that day.  Plans changed and we moved the party inside, but it all worked out.

The rest of June seems to be a blur.  I don't remember much, other than celebrating 7 wonderful years with my fantastic hubby.  We got a night out at Stoney River and truly enjoyed talking about our life together and dreaming about our future.

Ok, that's it.  I've got nothing else for now.