Rising Earlier and Other Random Thoughts

Some thoughts from the week...

Charlie has been full of attitude this week and is back to waking up at 7 or 7:15 a.m. I know, I can't complain because LOTS of babies and toddlers wake up at a dreadful hour before that time (Eli and Charlie did for a long time). I'm blaming it on the fact that the sun has actually appeared early in the morning (rather than hiding behind our usual winter clouds). I need to adjust my sleeping habits so I'm more coherent when I get up with the dear child at 7 a.m. But I love nighttime so much...it's hard to change.

Lately when Charlie wakes up in the morning or from a nap, he is quite grouchy and pretty strong-willed. It takes forever to get him to let me pull him out of his crib without major fits, but he's not happy if I walk out of his room either. This afternoon it took a full hour of me and Eli hanging out upstairs, in and out of Charlie's room, before Charlie would somewhat happily come out of his crib. In that hour, he would roll around in his crib, squeeze his blankie and suck his thumb, and made a grumpy noise at me if I made eye contact and smiled. Oh that child.

The only chance I have of getting Charlie dressed in the morning before we head downstairs is if I relinquish control in what he wears - he doesn't like swishy athletic pants or wearing multiple layers and prefers to wear his Spiderman shirt when it's clean and in his drawer. I usually ask him to go pick out a diaper and he stands there for a minute, deliberating in his head about which diaper to choose (they're all the same :). Charlie is also fighting me pretty much every time I try to buckle him into his car seat. I try to get him to help me do the buckles (when he's lurching out of it and going ballistic for no obvious reason), but that doesn't work all the time.

This makes me nervous about an upcoming 12-hour road trip that I'm taking with a friend and our kids... we'll see how it goes. There is also a chance Ben and I and the kids may drive out west this summer to meet up with Ben's family for a reunion, but it would be a long, long drive (like 25+ hours each way). Flights are crazy expensive, which is fueling this new driving plan... oh what to do??

Tonight I made Chinese chicken salad for dinner. Charlie put a piece of purple cabbage in his mouth and it almost immediately popped right back out. "I don't like it, give it to Eli?" he said firmly.

Eli is actually getting better about eating different foods (finally!) and bounces back and forth between wanting to help Charlie be happy and crying about every little thing that Charlie does to drive Eli crazy :) Eli is super loving and sweet with me and Ben and gives me hugs constantly. I absolutely love his hugs, his high fives with a thumbs up at the end, and his high five, dolphin dive.

Eli talks constantly these days and is full of stories and games and creations. I constantly find him balancing one of his army guys in some precarious place around the house. Tonight Eli told us his friend Jane said her dad went on a rocket ship to outer space but is home now (to my knowledge, her dad hasn't been to outer space). Eli loves his gymnastics class and is very into showing me "tricks" that usually involve attempting a handstand or moving in some funny way. He has a hard time sitting still at the kitchen table and loves to hop off of his chair and do a trick in between bites. We're working on keeping him at the table until he's actually done eating...

If you need a good cry, visit this blog of a friend of a photography friend whose husband passed away from cancer a few weeks ago - http://www.beinthemomentphoto.com/blog. It gets harder to read the more you scroll down, believe me.

If you need a good laugh, check out the blog, You Are Not a Photographer. This post is my FAVORITE!! Hilarious and I love the commentary.

There is a box elder bug flying around me because I'm sitting near a lamp and it's dark in the rest of the house. I know spring is almost here when bugs reappear!!! (Okay, maybe not for another month but I can wish, right?? :) Too bad it's still pretty cold outside. Melt snow, melt!! It's almost gone.


And to add to our home repairs this month... the dryer door latch broke today. Luckily it's a really inexpensive part to replace, but in the meantime I have two wet loads of laundry. So fun.


Enough rambling and I'm off to bed :)