Actually, let me rewind a little bit before Labor Day and share my day of labor from two weekends ago where I turned this:
In to this:
3 pints + 1 quart of salsa and 11 pints of yellow marinara sauce. My salsa is AWESOME. My marinara sauce.....not so much. As I was putting it in the jars, I was a little bit in tears from having spent NINE HOURS making it with the children running around my feet making me crazy (while Joel was working on the barn project that never ends). I will never, ever make marinara sauce again. (Not that I will ever need to given I have 11 pints of crappy sauce to eat through......) Suzie homemaker, I am not. Nor am I a candidate for becoming one of those apocalypse survivalists (those jars are not "canned" - that process was too scary for me so they are just in the freezer).
One day last week, Lily put this puzzle together by herself. I am not sure who was more proud - her or me. She did it in about 30 minutes - taking her time and chatting up a storm the whole time. Usually I do this puzzle with her, but this time I just watched and kicked myself for helping her so much before. She's probably been capable of doing this solo for quite some time, but I just never realized it.
Last week, I had a team building overnight "camping" trip with my coworkers. As a part of the trip we did a high ropes course which essentially means we climbed a tree to a "high wire" and then crossed said high wire from one tree to another while holding on to a rope that was tethered to only the starting tree (we were all harnessed in like in rock climbing). There were about 10 of us that did this and I went last, getting more and more and more nervous that I was going to make a total arse of myself and not be able to do it in front of all my employees and coworkers. But I put on my big girl panties when it was my turn and I shimmied up that tree, gracefully maneuvered myself on to the high wire and proceeded to move across it in LIGHTENING FAST SPEED. I made it the 20 feet in about 30 seconds. I think the next fastest person was probably 5 minutes or more with most people averaging 7-10 minutes to cross. Not only did I not make an arse of myself, I impressed the crap out of EVERYONE - myself and the camp staff included! One of my coworkers took photos with an old fashioned DISPOSABLE CAMERA (I totally didn't know they even still made those). Once they are developed, I'll have to post a pick of my "bad self" - a term we said during the activity - you know, "climb on with your bad self!"
While I was camping and hire wire shimmying, I was not really reachable by phone due to being in the wilderness. Figures, cause Tyler ended up sick with a fever while I was gone and had to be picked up from daycare on Thursday. Shocker - we were heading in to a holiday weekend so it was inevitable that one of the kids be sick. Joel ended up having to leave work early to get him. Ugghh. Friday morning, he still had the fever so I took him to the doc. Double ear infection. Poor feller. At least Advil, suckers and donuts help.
Earlier that week, I decided I would take the kiddos to Evansville for the last swim of the season. I knew Joel would be working on the barn project from hell for the whole holiday weekend, and I really, Really, REALLY needed a distraction for the kids.
Unfortunately, we really only got in a few hours of swimming on Friday before the rain came in and drenched our parade. So instead we went bowling. The kiddos LOVED IT. Great idea Grams. Check out their little bowling shoes. Is that not the cutest thing you've ever seen?
Tyler man handled that 6 pound ball like a champ.
I tried to convince Lily to "granny style" it, but she wanted to use the ramp like Tyler.
Even Uncle Jason graced us with his presence... a rare event indeed!
The kiddos lasted about 8 frames before they started to lose interest and melt down a little. Ok Tyler melted down A LOT and did NOT want to return his bowling shoes. He was pretty p*ssed at me when I took them off of him.
We headed back to Grams house and Tyler barely made it through lunch before he passed out. Lily was being SO GOOD that I didn't make her nap. I'm telling you, she was down right angelic. My heart was bursting from my chest, I was so happy.
At one point, she wanted to help Grams clean so she had grabbed a baby wipe and was cleaning the glass on the end tables. I told her not to do that, cause it would make them streaky. So Grams says, "Here Lily, if you want to clean the tables, use this" and gives her some paper towels and the window cleaner. A few minutes later, this is what we find:
I'd say she got it clean.
She had earned a "small prize" that week which we had yet to "redeem" so I took her to Target for some "Mommy and Lily time" and so she could pick out her small prize (stickers, a notebook, a toy from the $1 bins.....). We get there and Lily says, "Mommy, there's other people here at Target." I said, "Of course, honey, other people shop at Target." Lily said, "But you said it was just Mommy and Lily time and there's other people here. See that guy over there? He's not even a girl and it's supposed to be girl time."
You're smiling from ear to ear right now, aren't you? Yeah, me too. Which is why Lily came home with this:
Slightly more than some stickers. BUT SHE WAS SO FREAKIN CUTE. And it was SO FUN to be around her for like 24 consecutive hours of fun cuteness. So I caved.
And then, about 2 hours later, it allllllll turned to sh*t.
My hellion came back.
After dinner, she decided to pester her brother. She wasn't kicking him exactly, but she would put her feet on him until he whined. I asked her to stop. She did it again. I moved Tyler out of her reach. She moved so she could do it again. Tyler started crying. I asked her to stop. She did it again. I told her one more time and she was losing her new crown. She looked me square in the eyeballs and I'll be damned if she didn't put her feet on Tyler again. I snatched the crown and put it on top of the fridge. She screamed bloody murder. I asked her to calm down. She hit me. I said, "hit me again, and the dress goes too." She pulled back and hit me again. I pulled that dress off her so fast, she didn't have time to blink. She continued to scream at the absolute top of her lungs, take swipes at me, etc etc. She got a spanking. No effect. Spanking has absolutely no effect on this child. I tried talking to her. Explaining. Asking her what's wrong. You name it, I tried it. Mom is standing back the whole time just in total shock at the complete 180 Lily pulled in a matter of moments. It was CRAZY. And unfortunately these days, the norm.
And then, almost as quickly as the tantrum started, it stopped. Was a short 20 minute tantrum this time.
Sadly, Lily earned back and then lost her Rapunzel dress two more times before the weekend was over and I found myself in tears just as many times over the total feeling of helpless and lack of control. Mostly because if my 3.5 year old can act like this, what is my 15 year old going to be like????
So as not to finish up on such a depressing note, here's a couple pics from the playground on Monday afternoon. I took the kiddos to play for a bit while, you guessed it, Joel worked on the barn (it IS almost done, though! HOORAY!!).
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