Despite Kenzie being my fourth child, I am completely unprepared for the arrival of the terrible two's, seemingly over night! Her curiosity has overcome her and nothing is left untouched. As if I could keep up with life before, now I spend it running after Kenzie trying to clean up the wake of her destruction - and in the process she simply heads out for more! She unloads the dishes and pans from the cabinets, the food from the pantry, the clothes from the boys closets, her things from her drawers, the videos from the entertainment center and anything else she can get her hands on. Nothing is safe from her grasp - she climbs and gets the boys Lego's from any height - I think even the ceiling fan is no longer able to escape her grasp!
She has also been perfecting the talent of the tantrum. I think Easton has been giving her pointers. She scrunches her face (you know the one, the "whatcha talkin' bout, Willis" face!) and punches the air. I've heard that the astronauts on the space station can hear her angry screech of defiance. There are the instant tears and of course some good 'ol fashioned throwing herself to the floor and kicking and screaming and thrashing about. Lovely!
I do vaguely remember hating this stage when the boys were little... perhaps I've got my rose colored glasses on but it I'm telling you it wasn't QUITE this bad. In my defense they were only 17 months apart and we lived in a different house. This makes all the difference! For one thing, that house was conducive to gates so they spent most of their time at this age in the "giant playpen" aka the family room. This gave them SOME things to get into for sure, but it was limited to the one room. Let us not forget that since they are only 17 months apart they share most things - there was no sibling that was 6 years older leaving out things that are ideal for the destructive ways of the curious George types!
Parents often tire of their children saying no - with Kenzie, no isn't her favorite word YET thankfully, but I'm already sick of it as it seems to be about the only word in MY vocabulary these days! "No, Kenzie, no no no pulling everything out of the fridge!". Its like LIVING the No, David books.
My fear - I DO remember with the boys thinking that age THREE was far more terrible than the two's....
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Domestic Goddess? I wish!
Whenever I'm asked on some random form for my occupation I always will put stay-at-home mom rather than homemaker. I don't really have a problem with the term homemaker, its more that I simply have too much respect for homemakers than to insult them by counting myself as one of them. I may be home all day, but I don't really CARE for the home. Sure, I do things that I have to ... the things that relate to caring for the children. I make school lunches and home lunches (if you want an outstanding peanut butter sandwich, I've pretty much mastered the technique, though I still hate it) and sure, believe me, with 4 small children I do my share of laundry but that's as close to home-making as I get.
My husband does 99% of the cooking. Luckily, he likes to cook and he's really great at it. Its just a fact of life in our house that Dave is the main cook. I recently did one of those facebook things where you interview your kids and one question had something to do with something I'm not very good at... all 3 boys said some form of "cooking". I have messed up food that comes from a box. I have made food so badly that it has to be thrown out. I have cut every finger more than once. I have literally burned the fingerprints off a couple of fingers. I have even burned myself heating canned peas in the microwave - no lie. IF the food I attempt is actually edible at the end and IF I have even managed to not mangle myself in the process, at the very least the kitchen looks like the kids were having a field day in there and my stress-level is so high you'd think we were in the midst of a survivor challenge!
As for cleaning, I'm only slightly better and getting worse by the minute. Ask my mom, I'm a naturally messy person. Not dirty - MESSY - there is a difference! True story, when I left for college my mom put a photo of my messy room on her desk so that if she started to miss me she could at least delight in the now spotless room. I think I may have mentioned that I don't do "stick chores"... you know anything requiring a stick like mopping, sweeping, shoveling etc. Thankfully my wonderful husband doesn't mind them. Sure, the dishes eventually get done. The downstairs half-bath gets cleaned fairly regularly and we "straighten-up" daily. I notice the dust, but it usually takes me awhile to get around to the dusting and vacuuming and this kind of thing. I've just stopped using my desk as the old habit of piling "stuff" on it that has plagued me as a teen and even in college has returned. I don't even seem to always see all the "clutter". The DVDs and videos are all messed-up and something like that used to literally keep me up nights.
I wish I could say that instead I was really great with broken plumbing, or I loved mowing the lawn (that too goes to seed usually before we get around to getting to it!) or at least gardening or painting or SOMETHING... but no, see, this is why my home remains forever unmade...
My husband does 99% of the cooking. Luckily, he likes to cook and he's really great at it. Its just a fact of life in our house that Dave is the main cook. I recently did one of those facebook things where you interview your kids and one question had something to do with something I'm not very good at... all 3 boys said some form of "cooking". I have messed up food that comes from a box. I have made food so badly that it has to be thrown out. I have cut every finger more than once. I have literally burned the fingerprints off a couple of fingers. I have even burned myself heating canned peas in the microwave - no lie. IF the food I attempt is actually edible at the end and IF I have even managed to not mangle myself in the process, at the very least the kitchen looks like the kids were having a field day in there and my stress-level is so high you'd think we were in the midst of a survivor challenge!
As for cleaning, I'm only slightly better and getting worse by the minute. Ask my mom, I'm a naturally messy person. Not dirty - MESSY - there is a difference! True story, when I left for college my mom put a photo of my messy room on her desk so that if she started to miss me she could at least delight in the now spotless room. I think I may have mentioned that I don't do "stick chores"... you know anything requiring a stick like mopping, sweeping, shoveling etc. Thankfully my wonderful husband doesn't mind them. Sure, the dishes eventually get done. The downstairs half-bath gets cleaned fairly regularly and we "straighten-up" daily. I notice the dust, but it usually takes me awhile to get around to the dusting and vacuuming and this kind of thing. I've just stopped using my desk as the old habit of piling "stuff" on it that has plagued me as a teen and even in college has returned. I don't even seem to always see all the "clutter". The DVDs and videos are all messed-up and something like that used to literally keep me up nights.
I wish I could say that instead I was really great with broken plumbing, or I loved mowing the lawn (that too goes to seed usually before we get around to getting to it!) or at least gardening or painting or SOMETHING... but no, see, this is why my home remains forever unmade...
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