The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It's been far too long since I've truly blogged and I miss it.  Yes, I've kept up on big events fairly well, but I've neglected to record all the incidentals. All the little details that really make up our life.  So here it goes....

The Good.

Gabe and Nyah are adjusting wonderfully and enjoying their respective schools and friends. It feels like over night that Gabe has just taken off with reading - it is so fun to see!  And Nyah with her super-social attitude is flourishing in preschool.  I have to intervene quite often when she enthusiastically invites her classmates for sleepovers at our house!!  We have a fantastic next door neighbor with 2 little boys that are a perfect match for my 2 big kids.  And with this mild winter, most days they can all be found outside happily playing together.  (Unfortunately their favorite place is the "mud pit" as Gabe so appropriately deemed it - an empty lot down the street full of wonderfully thick and moldable mud. Gabe quite literally can't get enough of it!)  Ian is growing bigger and talking more every day, much to the delight of us all. He is obsessed with pointing out anyone and everyone's "EYE"! (Which most strangers understandably interpret as a cheerful "Hi!")  Needless to say he loves the game of naming all the parts of your face.  He is a darling.  And he actually cuddles! Which is very exciting for Eric and I!  There was a brief 3 day stint where he discovered how to climb out of his crib that had us all scrambling... but once I placed his mattress directly on the floor inside his crib, that was over. Nipped right in the bud, whew.  It was extremely disconcerting to find him wandering around the house dragging his blanky and sucking his thumb at times when he was supposed to be asleep and safely confined to bed. I have to admit he startled me half to death several times!  And as sweet as he looked, I didn't appreciate his attempt to nix all naps and get up any time he felt like it during the night. Oh no, that wasn't going to fly.  Once I figured out how to thwart him, he accepted his renewed lack of freedom quite well though - maybe it was a relief for him as well.

The Bad.

That's easy. I'm writing this at 2am since I foolishly indulged in a very late afternoon nap after church today.  Not much worse than laying in bed for hours not able to sleep.  Yuck.  Moving right along....

The Ugly.

Gabe has discovered the art of teasing that comes naturally to all older brothers.  He delights in finding anything that makes Nyah scream. Which really doesn't take much.  She is the perfect victim.  If he calls her one of her nicknames at the wrong moment, she screams. If he looks at her the wrong way, she screams.  You get the picture.  My days are punctuated with the bloodcurdling screams of Nyah or the outraged "STOP IT"!!!!!  When I hear Gabe giggling or else loudly proclaiming his innocence, I know exactly what is going on.  What mother doesn't, really.  My other favorite phrases I hear at least a thousand times a day is Nyah yelling "You're not the boss!!" (aimed usually at Gabe but even myself at times) and Gabe saying "sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry" (always to me or Eric, never to the party he has offended).  Oh and Ian's "MINE!!!" every now and then too!  Our communication skills are really going down the toilet as of late.  Gotta brush off one my parenting books tomorrow.

Well I hate to end this way but I really couldn't change the sequence of this post... not with that perfect title.  Now I'm off to bed!