Up to no good...

This pretty much sums up Ellie these days. (That's syrup in her hair above) She is into everything. And by everything, I mean every single thing she could possibly get into around the house--things I would never think to protect her from. Like, the other day I was washing dishes but couldn't see her anymore in the other room, and when I checked on her, she had removed a SHELF from our bookshelf and was pulling out the little rods that the shelf sits on. As I put that one back in I looked over and she had run over to the other, identical bookshelf, and was quickly trying to figure out if that shelf would come out, too. (The bottom two shelves are empty because Miss You-Know-Who was constantly pulling all the books off and I got tired of picking them up again and again and again.)

She also seems to be entering a defiant stage (please, Lord, let this be a stage!) that is driving me bonkers. She wants to do everything that I tell her she can't do, like get into the oven or the dishwasher, or eat things out of the trash (I mean, seriously, girl. How gross is that?). Tonight she and I battled over the trash can for a full five minutes, with her repeatedly coming back to the trash and trying to open it. I don't know what to do...it reminds me of Jack's phase when he would put his bowls of food on his head at every meal...remember that? When I wasn't sure whether to ignore the behavior or scold the behavior to get it to stop? Well, at least then it wasn't necessarily harmful to him, so if I ignored it he wasn't in any danger (other than my frustration at having to clean him in a bath after every meal). But this oven and trash fascination of hers must be watched diligently lest she learn her lesson the very, very hard way, including food poisoning and awful burns.

When either of them want to go outside in the snow without shoes and they start to throw a tantrum, I say, "Okay. Fine. Go ahead. I'll wait for you right here." Only takes them a few steps into the snow with bare feet to realize Mommy is only looking out for their good (at least that's what I like to think they are thinking) and they come running back for shoes. I know there will come a time when part of our "discipline" will be allowing them to learn things from experience and from making the wrong decisions, and that I won't always be able to step in and protect them from these mistakes. But at this point in their lives, being so little, one of my main duties as their parent is to protect them from dangers they can't yet understand while teaching them about those dangers, and at the same time the importance and reasons for obeying Mommy and Daddy. No small feat, right?

We find ourselves so often saying to Jack, "I just wish you would obey Mommy and Daddy; we don't like to give you spankings." In other words, wouldn't life be so much more pleasant for you and me if you would trust my reasons and intentions and obey me up front? Haven't you learned your lesson yet, that obeying Mommy and Daddy always turns out well, and disobeying always makes your bottom sore?

But teaching Ellie to obey is not as straight-forward these days, at her age. She thinks everything is a game, something to be won or conquered. The whole time we were battling it out over the trash she was laughing uproariously. I even went so far as to "remove her from the situation" as all the books say, and I took her all the way back to her room, plopped her on Jack's bed with a ton of books, and then I had to RUN back to the kitchen...she was only seconds behind me, heading straight for the trash.

She loves to do things that get a big reaction from me, so I'm having to learn to keep my reactions fairly mild, although there are times she needs to be startled into listening. But it's so hard to find a good balance, it seems. The other day she had climbed up onto something and was leaning far over the side trying to reach the TV buttons; Eric and I realized at the same time that the bin she was standing on was about to tip over and Eric suddenly yelled, "ELLIE!" Instead of stopping her from leaning further over it startled her so much that she ended up falling anyway.

Today was particularly rough for some reason; I'm finding myself short on patience these days. My back gets tired and achy from bending down so much as I pick up toys and kids. The physical side of pregnancy is starting to get me now, with a growing belly and kicking resident inside...not to mention how tired I am almost all the time. I could pretty much fall asleep anytime I sit down if I could (how I wish I could!). So I'm sure that this lack of energy doesn't help my patience level as I'm faced with curious, persistent, and stubborn personalities all day.

Jack has been wonderful this week, and I am so thankful. Last night laying in bed I thought to myself, "This is the kind of day I should write posts about, when he is so sweet and funny and cute and just a delight the whole day. When I feel like I have a little buddy, when he says things to me like, "Good, Mommy!" when I pour him his milk and when he comes up and hugs me for no reason. Those make for good days."

So HE hasn't been the one making me take long, deep breaths and shooting prayers for patience...no, it's the little one. I also probably set myself up for disaster today because I wanted to get the whole house cleaned up so that it would be a nice place for Eric to come home to, especially since he had something at church tonight and so would only be home a short while for dinner. I realize that it probably gets to him, too, when the house goes for days without a good pickup, when I skip a day of showering, when he comes home every night and my first words are, "HELP ME!!!! Oh, hi. I love you." So I just wanted to do something nice for him.

So between scrubbing the toilet and the bathroom floors (and even washing the floor rugs!) and scrubbing moutain-loads of dishes (we ran out of soap yesterday so there was a big pile-up) and sweeping multiple times during the day and picking up toys again and again and doing laundry and making dinner for him/me and for the kids...I was pretty pooped when he finally got here tonight. Add to my "pooped-ness" the child hanging on my pant leg crying for food, but then rejecting EVERY SINGLE THING I offer her; this same child who managed to somehow get her little hands up onto the counter (I HATE this phase, when they first discover they can reach things on the counter!!) and pulled down the basket of silverware that I had just stocked for the dishwasher...forks, knives, spoons, spatulas, all came down right on her head...which meant more delay for comforts and kisses...then picking up all the knives and forks off the floor before she got to them (she was way more concerned with trying to confiscate a fork than she was having me comfort her, even though she had a big welt on her forhead).

Add to this the trash can episodes, and the climbing onto tables she needed rescuing from...and then the fact that Eric was only able to be here about twenty minutes before he had to leave, so I'm not sure he even had time to notice one speck of cleaning I had done, which is really discouraging (I know, I'm such a WIFE). And after he left, the trash can battle started again with Ellie--while I was trying to finally get a bite to eat (ended up eating my taco cold later on). And then while I was giving them a bath later, she refused to sit down and kept falling, so I finally took her out. I had been trying to fold laundry while they played in the bath, and when I took her out of the tub you know what she did? Pushed over my basket of folded laundry on her naked way out the bathroom door! Grrrrr. As I was picking that up...she dumped out all the bath toys. Not becasue she wanted to play with them. She just likes to dump things out. (Another fun phase...)

So all of this venting (I'm doing this a lot lately, aren't I?) to say that she's one handful right now, and I'm one worn out mama! Cute-as-a-button to be sure, but BOY is she giving me a run. I'm actually feeling some very mild cramping right now and I think I'd better go lay down...instead of trying to make the kitchen, bathroom, and living room look as they did a few hours ago, you know, before bathtime and more dumped out toys and dinner messes...oh, good Lord, I just remembered. I forgot to feed Jack dinner. Is that a horrible thing to admit on our family blog? Well, there it is. Poor kid. Ellie was such a handful at dinner (she figured out how to climb out of her high chair, so we've started to use the high chair straps, and now she's figured out how to get out of the straps) that I totally forgot to feed him. Please tell me someone else has done that before?? Well, that's embarrassing (and don't laugh Rob and Janet--this is only the second time I've done that).

I just hope, hope, hope that facing all these tricky and frustrating stages now means that she'll be an angel when this baby comes. Hey--just let me hope! She does adore babies and loves to coo and talk to them and touch their heads and hands...so that's a good sign, I think. People keep telling me that these first few years will be hard, with the kids all being so close in age, but that if we can just endure, we'll come out fine in a few years. So that's what I'm trying to do here...to endure, with God's strength. Boy, it's tough.

Well, I'm off to rest the uterus. Hopefully my next post won't come close to resembling any kind of venting session about my kids. But no promises.