Some days are really great. Some days are really bad. Most days, however, are both.....mostly good, with a little bit of horrible thrown in. Today is a perfect example of one of those days, so I thought I'd write about it...mainly so that when I look back on this in ten years and am sad about how my little babies have grown up, I can be HAPPY that they've grown out of THIS stage. :)
This morning started out how mornings these days are typically starting out for me. Brielle, the light morning sleeper, wakes up when she hears Mike getting ready for work. She still sleeps out in the living room for a few reasons.... mainly because the though of THREE kids in our room scares me a little bit.... but I think we might have to start putting her in the room with us at night. So as soon as I hear Mike leave at 6:40, Brielle starts screaming. That's my cue to do the impossible.... get to her as quickly as possible so Liam doesn't hear her and wake up....but get there without the boys hearing me leave the room. They both have a supersonic ability to hear me open my eyes in the morning, so this is a difficult task. Today, I was successful and managed to tiptoe out of the room and pick up Brielle without the boys stirring.
Greeting Brielle in the morning is always a joy. As soon as she sees you, she breaks out into a huge, happy smile. So even though I'm exhausted and want nothing than to go back to bed, it's always nice to see her. The boys managed to stay sleeping for another HOUR (whaaat? They woke up at 7:45????), so Brielle and I actually had a really nice hour together. She drank her bottle and then I watched her crawl around and explore.... we read a few books together....we laughed (quietly) together. Liam was up and joined us on the couch to read a few books (whaaat? he didn't ask to watch TV right away?) and we were having fun. I was even able to fix breakfast for him and he actually sat down THE FIRST TIME I asked him to to eat it. Then Eli woke up and ALSO mysteriously did not demand that I turn on the TV. He came over to the table and ate his muffin and bacon. He refused to eat his banana, but walaaaa... I cut it up, put some peanut butter on it and gave it to Liam and HE ate it. WIN WIN. I had time, strangely, to make myself tea and oatmeal, while the boys were eating. SOOooo I didn't get a chance to drink my tea until noon, but still! I made it!
The morning was going great.... I read some stories to Liam while Eli watched his favorite new animal show, The Wild Kratts, and Brielle was happy to crawl around and play. I fed Brielle some rice cereal and she started falling asleep, so down she went. Liam started to get a little whinier, but not too bad, and we put together a train track and built a lego structure. I forget what happened next, but that's when things started to fall apart a bit. Liam's bridge fell apart and Eli told me he was not going to help Liam fix it....so Liam came over and hit Eli on the head multiple times with his train track. Cue screaming tantrum from Eli and cue me, picking up a kicking and screaming Liam to try to get him to sit in the corner for a time out. Cause THAT works. Ha. So then I tried to pick up a screaming Liam and get him to apologize. Cue...more screaming. So we were about to watch Toy Story (Eli usually gets to pick first and Liam ALWAYS picks "BUZZ!" when it's his turn), so I turned it off and told Liam he had to say sorry before we watched the movie. His world was OVER. He started kicking and screaming and throwing the mother of all fits. Back in the bedroom. I laid him in his bed and told him to stay there until he stopped screaming and of course he instantly jumped out and followed me out of the room, screaming. I forget how or why, but he FINALLY apologized to Eli. I packed up all of his trains and put them on the counter.
Forgot to mention that I looked over earlier and saw Brielle standing by the shoe container. She had pulled herself up to standing. Already? Yes. She is now pulling herself up on furniture to stand.
So then Liam decided he wanted a snack. Fishies. I made him sit in his chair (OH THE HORROR) and he sat and nicely ate his snack. I had to do something.... feed Brielle, I think, and he quickly announced "DONE!" and promptly threw all of his fishies and his bowl on the floor. I took him out of his chair and told him to pick them up. Of course, he didn't, cause throwing a fit is more fun. My neighbor was leaving to go to the library and I decided I'd take advantage of her ability to help me get out (our elevator is out right now) and told the kids to get their shoes on. I got everyone's diapers changed, shoes on, etc... and then realized that Liam had not cleaned up his goldfish, but had successfully stepped on each one to crush it into a million goldfish pieces. Of COURSE he threw a fit when I told him he had to sweep it up, but this time, amazingly Eli jumped in and offered to sweep them up. Ok, buddy, go for it. Eli did a great (SLOOOOOW) job of sweeping them up and Liam, the little punk, came over and STEPPED IN the tray, crushing them into more pieces and getting little pieces all over his shoes. Eli swept them up again and then said.... "Look, mommy! I put all the crumbs under the (place where we keep our shoes), so you can't see them anymore!" REALLY? He was so proud of himself and thought he did the right thing, so I couldn't be mad. (And you know what? They are still there...I forgot about them til now). I hustled the three kids downstairs to Traci's apartment and threw them in there so she could watch them for a second while I went back to get the double stroller and run it down the stairs. Liam didn't want to leave Traci's fun apartment and pulled a sit down and scream fit, so I had to grab him and carry him on my back (while carrying Brielle on my tummy) down the five flights of stairs. I don't know how I managed to do it (anger??), but I also was able to carry the double stroller and both babies down the stairs in front of the building.
We then had a nice walk over to the grocery store... I realized quickly, that since the elevator wasn't working, it didn't make sense to go to the grocery store and drop the groceries off and THEN go to the playground, so we backtracked (cue Eli... "NOOO, I wanted to go to the GROCERY STOOOOORE FIIIIIRST"....really, buddy? really?) and headed for the playground. Eli was still having a hissy fit and so Liam, not understanding, also decided to have a hissy fit. To calm them down, I told Eli that we were going to see about a special new store (the new FROYO STORE! HALLELUJAH!) in this direction. Well, as luck would have it, the fro yo store is not quite open yet. Eli thought this meant it wasn't open yet for the day and asked me about 40 times if we could check back in a little while to see if it opened yet. Ok, ok, ok, ok, ok, ok eli.
We went to the playground and I was happy to be there. It was a beautiful day and I was happy we finally were out. Eli took off and went for his favorite slide. Ever so sensitive about things being in his shoes, he freaked out when he landed in some sand, and demanded that I take off his shoes and clean them. Nope..it's going to keep happening, buddy...there's a pile of sand today at the bottom of the slide. So he took of his shoes. And sat down every 10 seconds to wipe his feet off, but dude...at least he wasn't complaining anymore! So fine... he was running around in bare feet. Liam, of course, decided he wanted to play on the complete opposite side of the playground. Brielle was fine walking around in the Ergo. Liam quickly decided he wanted to go on the (baby) swings and literally as I was saying no, he snuck AROUND the gate in the 5 mm gap that I never knew existed and got into the swing area. Fine... made it very challenging to see Eli over in Timbuktu, but if he wanted to swing that badly...we'll do it. So Liam is used to swinging in the big boy swings and naturally these don't go as high. So he starts screaming "HIGHER HIGHER HIGHER HIGHER" over and over really loudly. I had plopped Brielle in a baby swing and gave her a little push and she was just chilling, looking absolutely terrified, not in any way enjoying the experience. I finally convinced Liam to get out and then he immediately went over to the swing next to that one and wanted to go in that one. I said no and he collapsed to the ground, screaming and crying. Fine. Let's give this one a go. SAME thing, obviously. I finally convinced him to get out and then realized he had a poopy diaper. He, of course, ran away from me screaming "NO POO POO! NO POO POO!" I hightailed it across the playground to the stroller, strapped Brielle in, prayed that no one would take her, and ran back to get a kicking and screaming Liam. I pulled off the diaper change while sitting up in the stroller routine and he went off merrily on his way. They played for a few more minutes and then Eli informed me that he was done and wanted to go check and see if the fro yo place was open yet. Sigh.
Liam decided he wanted to walk so I kept brielle strapped in the stroller and pushed her and Eli while Liam adorably walked along with his little stick sword, taking turns between holding my hand and holding the stroller. At one point, he started beating the Zurg he was holding with the stick and said "OW" over and over.... it was hysterical and super cute. He decided he was done walking, so I switched out the kids and we made it to the fro yo place. Closed. What a surprise! Lol. Luckily, Eli didn't have a fit, and we talked all about how fun it will be to come back next week when they are open. We went to the grocery store, Liam's least favorite place in the world, and he screamed almost the entire time we were there. That's always fun. It's very easy to concentrate on what we need when Liam is throwing a total fit. For some reason, he HAD to be holding a box of blueberry frozen waffles. He just had to be. I had to get our favorite grocery checkout guy to coax it away from him and then give it back to him immediately. So Liam was off to the side holding a box of waffles and it totally looked like I was stealing them. The manager even came over and asked the checkout lady if I had paid for them. Lovely. We stopped by our favorite fruit stand to see that it has been taken over by a bunch of non-friendly looking people (sad! when did our fruit place get taken over?) and by our favorite empanada place to grab some for lunch. Home. Challenge time.
Liam had finished eating the outside edges of his empanada and decided he was done and ready to be holding his box of frozen waffles again. I needed his hands free so he could climb five flights of stairs. I told him he could have it back when we got upstairs. End. of. his. world. MOTHER OF ALL TANTRUMS. Picture me, standing in front of my building, trying to figure out how to get everything upstairs, with a screaming two year old laying on the ground because he can't have his box of waffles. Old ladies are giving me the evil eye, not understanding what is happening (thanks for offering to help, ladies). So I opened the gate and let Eli run up the stairs while I run up with the groceries. I ran back down and forced Liam up half of the stairs and grabbed the double stroller. Eli reached into the groceries to give Liam the waffles and Liam stood there and opened it up. Lovely. I managed to get the stroller in the building and told the boys to walk up the stairs.... I carried Brielle and the groceries while Liam cried the whole way cause I wasn't giving him a frozen waffle. I walked past him and quickly got upstairs with Eli to drop off Brielle and the groceries. Liam stopped halfway up and decided to scream "MOMMMMMMYYYY!" as loud as he could. I am very happy that no one came out of their apartment to rescue him from his evil mommy. I went down and found him on the 4th floor, missing a shoe, trying to eat through the bag of waffles. I grabbed him and plopped him down inside, locked the door and ran down to the lobby to get the stroller before anyone thought I was leaving it out there to be taken. I came up the stairs, carrying the heavy double stroller (Who needs a gym membership??!?!) to screams of "MOMMY!" coming from both Eli and Liam. Why was LIam crying? Because I hadn't given him a waffle. I tore open the package and gave him a frozen waffle. Eli was completely naked except for the fact that his button down shirt was around his head... he couldn't figure out how to get it off. Why was he taking his clothes off, you ask? Why in God's name was he choosing now to remove all of his clothes? Simple, really. He wanted to take a shower.
I could go on and on, but I don't think that's necessary at this point. :) That's pretty much how my days go.
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