Two Months in Two Winks!

With all that has happened over the last two months, I shouldn't be surprised that two months passed so quickly.

We are all settled into the new house. "Settled" means that we have all essentials unpacked, a few pictures hung and are acclimated to the new sounds or lack of sounds. I love our new home. I love looking out into our patch of trees every morning. I am enjoying my new kitchen immensely, the large island and double ovens. Love it!

I continue working part-time for GR and it was quite overwhelming at first, but I think that things are settling and I'm finding a rhythm. Of course, life is significantly easier now that the wireless network is set up in our house. Thanks, babe!

The biggest change in the last two months, of course, is that I've made the switch from a full time employee to a stay at home mom. I was apprehensive and excited about the switch. I've had my ups and downs, mostly ups and am still struggling a bit with the juggling, but I'm still happy with my decision.

One of my biggest challenges has been keeping a good schedule, managing appointments, chores and schoolwork. I'm quite good at juggling tasks, until you throw in two children that have minds of their own. It was my goal to work with the kids on educations projects, visit the library and misc schoolwork. While I haven't accomplished as much as I had wanted in the last two months, I am excited to report that Sydney has read her very first story and a second this evening! Yay! How elated I was to be there for her as she sounded out the first story and to see how proud she was of herself! Not as proud as I was of her! :) I've promised that when she completes her workbook, we will have a party. I cannot wait.

In addition to Syd's reading accomplishment, she is now finally sleeping in her own room through the night! WOW! After weeks and weeks of trying, we finally succeeded. Who knew it would take fingernail polish, curlers and 'The Wizard of Oz' movie? If only I had thought of it sooner.

Our next challenges with Syd are public tantrums, television reliance (which causes a lot of tantrums) and major sassiness. I have endured some major eye daggers over the last few weeks from shoppers at the mall, grocery store and Target. At these moments, I've wanted to literally melt into the floor or disappear. In addition to her stunning performances, her sassy mouth has landed her in her room quite frequently.

We are fairly strict with the television in our home and our belief that tv should play a small part is being reinforced lately. Sydney's desire to watch tv incessantly is frustrating and is the cause of a lot of tantrums. In the past, we had used the television as a reward and we have strayed from that. I'm thinking we are going back to that system, at least in part. Finding a balance is hard sometimes. We'll keeping working at it until my sweet little girl settles a bit.

Mr. Nate is growing like a little weed. He is a doll and so cuddly. He is generally very well mannered and so loving. He loves to color, play with playdough and flash cards are a favorite. He counts to fifteen or so now on his own. He loves to look at books and have stories read to him. We've been fortunate enough to get to the library over the last two weeks and we read a minimum of three books a day. That has been the habit since day one. I was getting a bit tired of reading the same stories over and over and over again. :) Thank goodness for the library.

Nathan is still working on recognizing his colors. Everything is blue, brown or orange. :) He does a great job with his shapes and likes to try to draw them. So far, circle is the only one that makes it out. He is learning the letter sounds, but is still not able to recognize the letters. We'll just keep working at it.

Nathan has decided to start mimicking some of Sydney's undesirable behavior. When he is unhappy or frustrated with you, Nate enjoys calling names. Specifically, "Stupid bumblehead!" Let's just say that his little behind has been sitting on the time out stair a lot for name calling lately. It is hard to remember to enforce this sometimes when he is still at that cute stage. You know, when you find it a little funny.

Sydney and Nathan are quite a pair. They are adorable together most of the time. They are huggy and cuddly a lot of the time. Sydney looks out for her little brother. I observe her trying to teach him things, not all bad. Today, she lined up cookies that were numbered 1-10 to show him the appropriate order. Then, she asked him to do it. She gently corrected him when he did something wrong. She calls him "honey" or "sweety" most of the day. It is sweet how she looks out for him and he wants to know where she is every minute of the day.

Of course, they are still brother and sister and it is expected that they will fight. They certainly do their fair share. There are times when I feel like my shirt should be striped black and white and a whistle should be attached.

Marc and I joined the local Sport and Health. I've been bouncing between the gym floor and aqua fitness classes. Tomorrow, or sometime this week, I'll get back to yoga now that I have a mat. Yay! I've missed it so. I'm trying anything I can think of to gain energy to keep up with my monkeys. I figured that it couldn't hurt.

Despite having a list of things to do a mile long, I'm still optimistic (shocker!) that things will shake out and settle down just in time for Syd to go to school. Ipes! I cringe at the thought.