Friday: playground, gravity maze, rain

We went to the playground with some friends this morning.  It was a beautiful day for it.  We even managed to get all the kids in the same spot for a picture...I took a bunch and Betsy took a bunch, and I think she got one of the best.

Later on in the day I was changing Isaac's sheets and found several lost toys.  This led to Isaac and Joshua playing one of them together, and really playing quite well.  (It's been happening more and more often lately.  But then there was yesterday, when Isaac came out of his room and asked Joshua, "Do you want to chase yourself?"  When Joshua responded affirmatively, Isaac went back in his bedroom and Joshua was left with tears.)

We played down by the beach for a little bit tonight.  The forecast said no rain, but of course about five minutes after we were out it started raining lightly.  I exchanged my book and phone for an umbrella and we stayed out for another fifteen minutes, until it started raining harder and neither boy wanted to play in the rain.  I thought it would last a bit longer, but oh well.

Wednesday: sleep

Well, after Joshua fell asleep yesterday he did stay asleep until 6am.  Six is still too early though...I finally went into his room and tried to get him down.  Then I went back to bed, turning off the monitor.  I intended to stay awake and make sure that he calmed down.  I'm not sure if he calmed down or if I just fell asleep, but I awoke later to "green, green, green!", meaning his light said it was time to wake up.

And yup, I put him in front of the TV and went back to sleep.  It was day 2 after a poor night's sleep and it is always the worst for me.  I feel like I've been doing that a bit more lately, but hopefully I'll reevaluate my sleep habits and Joshua will sleep better.

Monday/Tuesday: sleep?

Over the past few nights Joshua has been sleeping more and more poorly.  First I just had to go in there and he'd calm back down.  Then it would be close to morning and calming and rocking didn't work, so I'd bring him into bed with us for a bit.

And then last night happened.  He woke up just as we were going to bed, of course.  He wouldn't listen like normal to go to sleep and any time we'd go in he would easily lay down.  But was up again in a few minutes.

Ben: What's wrong Joshua?
Joshua: wall
Ben: the wall?
Joshua lies down.

Since he was keeping most of the household awake, Joshua and I slept in the guest bed.  He calmed right down, except for one time that he started awake yelling "Mom!"  It was almost as if the yell woke him up.  He nicely slept on the bed itself instead of me, so I got a comfortable, although not full, night of sleep.

Tonight he continued the trend, crying right away and not going to sleep.  Eventually he ended up like this:

That's right, sleeping while standing up.  He eventually moved to the corner and it worked ok, but he'd still sort of wake up every few minutes, wimper a bit, and go back to sleep.  Ben finally got in the crib with him and got him to lay down.  We haven't heard anything since then, but it also isn't time for us to go to bed yet. :)

Stay tuned!

Monday: paper crafts

Lately the boys have both been enjoying paper and pens/markers/etc.  Joshua colors up a storm.

Isaac punches holes in the paper.  He also really like to staple it and then remove the staples.  But we have a ton of staples and barely use any, so why not.  He rarely uses paper to color.  Coloring is on the list of his not-fun school activities.  (It makes it a bit hard because coloring is so easy to bring to different places, but he gets bored with it so quickly.)

Today Joshua also enjoyed coloring himself.  Perhaps he ran out of paper?  We were both tinged blue for most of the day, but it's now mostly gone.

We also had our first day of gymnastics.  Joshua and I started with a Mommy and Me class.  He held on to me pretty tightly for the first half.  I got him to do a few things, but not much.  Then the class split in half and he did a lot better with fewer people.  He really like hanging from the high bar and letting go and was ok at the balance beam too.  There's a foam pit for some "free time" at the end that he enjoyed jumping into.

Isaac had his class right after it.  I could only see him a little bit.  He wasn't great, but he wasn't bad either.  Several students had been there before and knew the routine, so that seemed to make a large difference.  He said he enjoyed it.

Sunday: non adventures

Sunday.

The day started out with Ben and I "teaching" the Sunday school class Isaac is in.  There was no lesson though, so it was just an hour of play.  While I'm happy to help out and think that this is super, super important, it is also so draining.  At the end of the hour I felt as though all my reserves had been used up for other kids and I didn't have much left for my own.  (It was a good thing we had played Duplos for a bit before church.)

Sunday is cleaning day.  The house looks pretty nice.  Isaac's bedroom...does not look so nice.  We had some tears at the beginning because he wanted to do his search and find and I said no.  I realized that I was in error about five minutes later, and he calmed down.  (Technically, the rules are no ipad and no playing with mom or dad until the room is clean.)  We had more tears later as I was trying to get him to recycle a few pieces from his art wall.  Not very many, just a few.  I almost gave in because the difference of saving three pieces of paper versus recycling them is dumb, but didn't because he also needs to learn how to get rid of things.

After dinner Isaac and Joshua had a great time playing tag.  (Remember, no parent play?  It worked nicely for everyone.)  They coexisted in the bath very well too.  Isaac's room is barely cleaner than it started out today.  He did get Joshua to pick up a few toys for him, which in all honesty is probably pretty fair.  Joshua takes some toys out too.

Saturday: potty training adventures

We've more-or-less started potty training.  Joshua likes underwear and knows when he's gone, so we're trying a bit harder.  But not too hard; I'm not quite prepared for that.  Anyway, we have a lot of conversations that go like this...

Joshua: Poop!
Amanda: Great job.  Isaac, do you want to give him a treat?
Isaac: What color [M&M] do you want?
Joshua: Yellow.
Isaac: how about [some other color].

Friday: unexpected

Today held several unexpected things.  Most were the boring sort of unexpected - plans changed, Joshua fell down a lot, Isaac sang some interesting songs.  But two stood out.

1. The boys and I were going down the escalator for the fourth time (!!) and the escalator caught my skirt.  I freaked out for a second and got a death grip on it, yanking most of it from the claws of sure embarrassment.  It only ate a very small piece.  I'm not really sure how it happened...it's not as though my skirt was dragging on the ground.  We continued to ride the escalator two more times because it is super fun.

2. We came home from dinner at it was about a half hour before bed time.  Ben and I were talking, taking off our shoes, etc., and looked over at the boys.  Isaac was brushing his teeth and Joshua was trying to put toothpaste on his toothbrush.  Ok, bedtime it is!  I expect Isaac started this and Joshua followed, but we're not really sure.  Routine definitely worked in our favor this time; once they started we didn't let them stop.