Lessons

Today started out a little bit frustrating.  First, Drew was awake at about 6 a.m., which I knew would mean it would be a struggle to get him to stay awake until after we dropped Zach off at preschool at 9.  I finally got him up and fed him and hoped he'd fall asleep eating.  He seemed to be doing just that until my parents' dog barked her loud, drawn-out bark at some imaginary thing outside.  That woke Drew right up again, and Zach, too, who started yelling at Sadie (the dog).  He did ok staying awake until we were almost home from preschool.  Then he took a very short nap, maybe 30 minutes or so.  That drives me nuts- when I know he's tired but he just won't sleep.  Oh well.  He's been sleeping now for an hour and 20 minutes, so I guess I can't complain.  Yesterday he was a terrible napper, so this is already a step up from that. 

I was on the ball and ready to leave early to pick Zach up for preschool when I realized that Drew had a couple of splinters in his hand, so I ran and got my tweezers to try to get them out.  While trying to remove the splinters (unsuccessfully), I thought Drew smelled a little poopy.  So I picked him up and brought him into the living room for a quick diaper change that turned out to be a big ordeal.  I pulled off his pants and realized that in doing so, we had gotten poop all down his leg and covering his sock.  It was also all over his onesie and the inside of his jeans.  Ugh.  At this point it was on the carpet as well.  Great.  So I picked him up carefully so that I didn't get poop all over myself, and I carried him upstairs.  Then I wandered around frantically trying to figure out how to get his clothes off without getting poop all over everything.  I started a bath and grabbed an old towel and laid him down on that to get his poopy clothes off.  I had to rinse all of the clothes in the toilet and use a bunch of baby wipes before putting Drew into the bathtub.  That always feels like a catch-22- he definitely needs a bath because he's had poop all over him, but I really don't want to get poop in the bathtub.  Anyway, I did an extremely quick bath and got him dressed in random clothes because at this point we were about late for preschool pick-up.  We were the second to last car there, but the teachers were great about it all.  Zach was totally oblivious and just excited to tell me that they learned the song about apples and bananas where you replace the vowels with other vowels.  So you  say upples and bununus (long U sound) instead of apples and bananas.  That cracked me up because I remember learning that song in preschool, too.  Some things never change, I guess.  

We had to run to the jewelers to pick up my ring, and while we were there, Zach chatted up the computer guy that was working on the store's website or something.  He was not shy at all, and thankfully the guy was nice to him.  Then we ran to Hy-Vee to pick up a couple of things, and Zach had a hard time listening and following directions.  So on the way out he told me he wanted to hear the Superman song (the theme from Superman), and I told him that he didn't get to choose the music because he had such a hard time following directions.  So he started in on his big, fake cry.  Here's the part that always makes me laugh- Drew must be onto Zach, because anytime Zach fake-cries like that, Drew gets all cracked up and laughs at Zach.  So either Drew is a really good brother and he's trying to cheer Zach up, or he's a typical brother and he's laughing at his big brother's misfortune.  Either way, I think it's funny.  

After lunch I got Drew down for his nap (which he just woke up from as I write this) and Zach and I headed outside to play.  Well, my parents' dog just didn't know what to think of Zach and me being up on the swingset and thought she just had to join us.  Zach thought we should just "ganore" (ignore) her, but Sadie tried to climb the rockwall anyway.  However, paws just don't work as well as hands on that, so she came around to the ladder and after a few tries, successfully climbed up into the clubhouse part.  Once up there, though, she didn't know what to do.  I tried to show her how to go down the slide, but instead she opted to jump down the rockwall side, which really worried me.  I could just see her break her leg or something and need surgery.  I wouldn't want to have to call my parents to tell them about that.  She climbed up a few times, even though I tried to get her to stay down.  Then she tried to play with Maggie and Foudy.  Foudy wasn't interested because there was grass to be eaten, but Maggie played a little.  Zach tried to play, too, but I discouraged that simply because with Maggie and Sadie running around, Zach was likely to get plowed over, and those two each have about 30-40 pounds on him.  Instead we enjoyed watching them in the beautiful weather.  

Here's Sadie coming up the ladder.

And here's Zach playing with Sadie and Maggie.

And here are Zach & Sadie just loving on each other.

Tonight we had one of those tough love parenting moments.  Zach wasn't all that into dinner tonight, but he knew if he finished his salad and pork chop that he would be allowed to have one of the cookies I was making.  He was taking forever to eat, as usual, and he starting saying, "If I don't want a cookie, that's ok," which we agreed with.  Well, finally he got down from the table and said he was done eating.  This was after sitting there for about 25 minutes and eating only a few bites.  We said ok and he started playing.  After about 5-10 minutes, he suddenly got back up to the table and decided he wanted to eat more.  I think he could smell those fresh cookies that were in the oven.  We've said before that once you leave the table and say you're done, you're done, so we had to stick with that rule.  Zach started crying and saying, "I'm still hungry!  I'm so hungry, though!"  When your kid is crying and saying he's hungry, it's really hard to deny him food, but we were sure it was just a ploy to get cookies.  While he was crying, though, Drew was laughing at him, which, I hate to admit, made me smile.  I think our consistency in the past with this rule paid off, though, because he gave up his fight pretty quickly and asked to go downstairs to play.  It's one of those moments where you know it'd be easier in the moment to give in, but better in the long run to stick to your guns.  I feel like I've just written an episode of Full House or something, where Uncle Jesse teaches Stephanie a lesson and in the end she tells him how much she learned and gives him a big hug.