Monday, January 2, 2012

A Good Start

We're off to a good start on our year.  Ethan made it to school on time today (10 minutes to spare even) and got "blue" (you start on green each day & go up to blue, then purple, then pink for doing good things or down to yellow, then orange then red for bad behavior) in school.  He earned 5 out of 7 stickers on his chore board - he missed loading the dishwasher (he wouldn't help me) & feeding blaster (I told him 3 times and he kept telling me he had food - he had 4 little pieces - that doesn't quite do it).  Alex earned 4 out of 7 but I think we need to change a couple of his - the first is "listen, listen, listen" & then 2nd is "follow instructions" - that's sort of the same thing so if he misses one, he's probably missed the other.  The other one he missed out on was being nice - he was talking to mean to Cameron & hitting Ethan so there went that one.  He did, however, take a nap & behave the rest of the day - it seems Ethan coming home from school sends him down a bad spiral which we need to work on.

Last day of my vacation went fairly well.  I had been thinking Cameron had an ear infection - he's been miserable for days.  I can tell but outsiders may not have.  He just wasn't as happy and playful as usual.  He's been overly clingy and just not talkative.  I still think he may have had an ear infection but they don't all require antibiotics so maybe he's kicking it on his own cause he was in rare form today.  Had a rough night last night cause he woke up at 1 and didn't go back to sleep till 3 - I now realize that wasn't that he didn't feel well - he just wanted to play.  He finally went back to sleep and when he awoke again, it was time to get Ethan up for school.  I gave him a bottle and put him in the pack-and-play & when I got home, he & Steve were sound asleep and Alex was watching Spongebob.  I went back to sleep having had only about 4 hours sleep up to then & Cam & I both woke up at 11:00.  He then played until 4:00 when he took another short nap & started playing again.  He crawled around the floor for a bit chasing Alex (& got mad at Alex when he wouldn't play with him - kept having to chase after Alex when Alex would move away), then moved to the exersaucer, then when Ethan came home, moved on to playing with them both.  Don't get me wrong, he had some Daddy time before he went to work & then had some Mama time laughing & giggling & a bit of a tickle fest.  He was definitely back to his normal self and then some this evening.  So thankful for that.

Alex does need work (see 1st paragraph) but he'll get there.  Now that I've seen him for 10+ days and saw how he was with Ethan home and without Ethan home, I definitely think his attitude problems kick in when he's not the "lead dog" sort of speak.  He likes being the oldest and when Ethan gets home, he's not anymore and he starts acting out.  Have to find a way to make him see that he's still special and the middle child is an awesome place to be.

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow only because I won't get a nap mid-day.  I have to admit, naps are really really awesome.  I didn't get one everyday I was home but I had the option (or more of an option than I do when at work anyway).  I'll also miss my little munchkins but we have clean floors now in their room and the living room and assuming it's that way when I get home from work, we can play one of our great new board games we got for Christmas.  Some geniuses in my family got us those (Aunt Katie (I think) & Nana).

Boys are all asleep so I think I'm going to head there myself as I'm sure Cam will be up soon for a bottle and late night growl fest.  Night all.

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