Pick Him Up!

I'd love for this to be a purely happy, sunshiney place. I'd also love for my kids to be purely happy and sunshiney. Neither of those are reality so let's move on.

I'm not even going to talk about this past month right now. Too crazy, hectic, tiring. We'll talk about that all some other time as there is definitely what to talk about!

Right now, I'm having an internal struggle. I could definitely use an outlet for my thoughts, no need to let them brew and stew in my noggin.

Picking up Benny from school every day makes me never want to take him back. It's not the school. It's not the staff. It's not even his classmates. All of those are fine, great actually! But maybe that's the problem. Benny NEVER wants to come home with me. They are usually playing in the yard when I come to get him. I usually spend 10-15 minutes trying to persuade (read: bribe) him to walk out willingly. Then I end up dragging/carrying him back into the classroom to gather his stuff. All while holding Bella, who sometimes starts out pickup-time sleeping but almost never remains asleep. {I try to put her in my Ergo to have both hands available, it's a real bummer when I forget it at home!} Once we're in the classroom, I have to gather all his things, he's still busy having his tantrum. My safety zone is usually getting him into the hallway and closing the classroom door. In case you're wondering, we've usually hit the 20 minute mark by this point. Sometimes the hallway calms him down, sometimes he just lays on the floor and goes into full-blown tantrum mode. Shrieking. Kicking. More shrieking. Teachers poking heads out of rooms to make sure everything is ok. Oodles of fun.

Once in a blue moon, he just walks out nicely with me. I can probably count on one hand how many times that has happened.

Shuky tries very hard to get him on the days he's available, or at least to come with me. While he does this quite often, and I am extremely grateful for those days, the bad days WAYYYY overpower those times.

So, now my thought process is telling me it is really not worth the money we are spending for the battle I face, for the small amount of time he gets at the school.

Not sure what will come of this but sometimes rants are needed!

No RSVP

There's a party going on in my belly and I wasn't invited!!! This little baby is SUPER active!! All day and night, there's loud music, dancing, and fun stuff going on in there!! :)

In other news, Benny is doing great with the toilet (I feel like that should be whispered).

Shuky went back to school today. Benny was very sad when he realized what was going on. He saw Shuky getting ready to leave and asked him where he was going. When Shuky told him he was going to school, Benny responded with, "Oh my chinny chin chin! You can't go to school Tatty!" This kid really comes up with the funniest things! Needless to say, I jumped out of bed (yes, I was trying to pretend morning had not yet come still) and started something fun so the kid wouldn't be devastated.

Back to toilet news, we've been having him running around naked, a lot less accidents happening that way. We'll have to deal with the underwear transition when he seems ready. I guess the training pants were just too close to diapers! This morning, he was sitting on the toilet and he hand-called me. This was the message he left for me, "Hi Mommy! It's just Benny! I on the toilet but I don't need to make pishies! Ok. Bye."

We've been trying something new with bedtime as well. We get him ready for bed and give him kisses and hugs and ask him to go to bed on his own. Completely. Like, leave the couch and go to bed. If he manages to go to sleep on his own without one of us getting into bed with him, he gets a prize in the morning. So far, out of two nights, he got one prize. I won't mention that it took him over two hours to actually fall asleep. We'll just focus on the fact that he did it on his own. Last night, however, was a mess. Screaming, no make that shrieking, for two hours straight. I finally crawled into bed with him and he was asleep within five minutes tops! I felt bad that I caved but I couldn't handle the screaming anymore. And I knew the morning brought the first day of the semester so I felt bad for all the students in the building that needed to be hearing his insanity. Let's hope for better strength tonight!

Going to go enjoy the sight of the snow from the warmth of my couch!

New Year, New Fun!

Rosh Hashana was really nice. We had ate three out of the four meals out at friends' houses. Benny was mostly OK. For some reason, he had the hardest time with the Shabbos day meal (when he walked to someone's house!!!) but I'll give him that one. Chalk it up to crazy schedules, intense meals, new faces, you can choose! He loved being in shul on Sunday. I let him walk most of the way to see if he could make it on a Shabbos, but I thought I would be late and miss the shofar so I threw him in the stroller and make a run for it. Of course, the shul was running late so I had another 20-30 minutes to spare! Next time...

Benny sat with Shuky for a nice amount of the davening. When it came to singing parts, he got SO excited and started doing his regular dancing and rocking to the beat. People from the bimah were dancing with him. Everywhere Shuky looked, someone else was either enjoying the show or joining in. So cute!!

School has been going well for me, thank G-d. My older class has been giving me great reviews (via parental feedback) and my younger class is giving me a run for my money. I have them for the last hour of the day and I usually don't get my full hour. By the time I get into the room, they are very ready for the day to be over and nothing I do can keep them happy. It's only been a week so I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I'm hoping that once the Yomim Tovim are over and the school schedule gets back to normal, I will really be able to make something more of that period!!

Benny is doing well in school, as well! If he doesn't have a good nap before school, he is a MONSTER! But when he does sleep, he loves being in the class! He has his friends already (hung out with them at shul too :D) and does not let me touch his lunch box. He has to carry it everywhere! Of course, it is half his size and drags on the floor but it's his and I better not touch it!

Shuky is also doing well in school! NICC just announced that they have paired up with University of Iowa and are offering a BA in Shuky's program. That means that our two years here may have just become four, but we will have to see as time goes by...

And, I have offiically stopped nursing. Did it for 14 months, super proud of myself. BRING ON THE BOOZE!

Hope everyone had a beautiful Chag and an easy fast today. May you all have a sweet new year with health, wealth, and happiness. And all that good stuff.

And, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIMI!!!!!!!!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!