A Joust

We took Spiderman to the Renaissance Festival this weekend. I love that place. I'd love it even more if we had money to spend there. I did have a great time jumping on a giant trampoline while hooked up to giant rubber bands. I flied.
Here is video proof of this excitement. My jumping video.


We watched a joust. Our Knight Sir Jeffery was very amusing to watch. The first joust he was somewhat victorious, then we watched the last joust of the day and he died.



You will be missed Sir Jeffery.








I have so many great pictures of our day. Superman got to stay with Grandma and PaPaw since pushing a stroller around there for him would have been exhausting and he would have been bored anyway. Spiderman was excited that he got to dress up like a knight. He got scared on the jumping thing and his ride was short because he wanted to stop. We waited 2 hours to fly and then he chickens out. He was so excited til he actually did it.

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH

For the most part I truly love this mothering gig. Sure the pay is dismal and my two clients don't appreciate my efforts, but they love me and most days are extremely rewarding. But I have to draw the line at the terrible two's. How is it that i had forgotten just how terribly long the time between 18 months and three years-old can be? Why is it that these beings are so adorable to look at and yet so difficult?
2 year olds drive me nuts! Superman's little personality is adorable and sweet. But then sometime after he had mastered walking, an irresistible urge to make his own choices began to well up inside him. This is an exciting development, but the difficulty with his making an independent choice is that he must disagree with you in order for the choice to be his own. Now, when you ask him to do something, he refuses. Combine the independence with determination and stubbornness and we get head pounding tantrums.

Just walking thru the store he screams if I don't let him hold and possibly open every item that goes in the cart. Screams, tries to get out of the cart, or won't go in the cart to begin with. How do stay home moms do it? I usually wait til Batman gets home and go after supper just so I don't have to drag a screaming kid thru the store. It takes me three times as long to get groceries when he is with me. I don't yell every time. At home, I put him in a time out chair. The whole way there he kicks and screams. Then he just pops right up and continues the behavior.
He doesn't want to go in the house, he doesn't want to leave the house. I can't get him to take a nap. He does the kicking and screaming then too. He climbs out of his crib and the big boy bed. I can't lock him in his room.
He won't eat at meals. He has to be told 100 times to take a bite. We don't let him out of his high chair until an acceptable amount has made it into his tummy. Taking it away and letting him go without food doesn't work. Next time he still barely eats. I felt like a terrible mom when I didn't give him breakfast to see if he would eat more at lunch. Didn't work anyway.
During TV time, he only wants to watch "BobPants" and will not accept anything but. We have it on our DVR just incase its not on TV at the time.
The worst thing is when we are in the car, and he first off, he won't get in his seat. Then arches his back while we buckle the belts. Then he unbuckles the top part thats on his chest and takes his arms out of the straps. Once he even unbuckled the main car strap that holds the carseat in.
Its like his main goal of every day is to do all the things he knows are bad. He colors on the couch and himself, hides cellphones and remotes, spits out his drink on purpose, steals/spills other people's drinks, undresses in public, demands his choice of drink in his sippy, refuses to share with his brother, hits his brother, pulls hair, turns the TV on and off, has to jump down stairs, and probably a million other things I can't think of.
I don't know how we made it thru this age with Spiderman.
Its all very frustrating. I couldn't imagine all the screaming if I'd had twins. I am sure my neighbors think I am torturing him now because of all the screaming. You'd think the world was ending and he hated everything.
Toddlers hate hearing the word no, but love using it. How can such a short word be such a giant source of parent-child angst? I have no idea. I also have no solution for this toddler truth. However, I figure that any skills I develop in the no-yes debate now will fully transfer to when my boys are teenagers.

He's not a baby anymore.
He walks confidently now. The "drunken walk" is now gone. I miss it :) Though he does walk on his tip toes 90% of the time. I call him "Twinkle toes" sometimes.
He's got 16 teeth now. Eight on top and eight on the bottom. Yay! more teeth to chew on food he won't eat.
He cries if I take him out of the bath.
He has figured out how to open a couple doors with safety devices on them. Apparently you don't have to squeeze the two buttons and turn the knob inside the plastic, you just have to pull down and turn. Perhaps we need a refund on these, or our two year old is a genius.
He can identify almost all of his body parts. I may have to upload a video of this soon, its entertaining how he identifies them.
He loves superheroes and singing the Spongebob song.
He tells me when he has a messy diaper. Yet he still doesn't get the going in the potty chair concept. The potty chair is just a place to sit and laugh at mommy.

Who took my sweet baby away? Where is SuperNanny when you need her? I am grateful that Superman goes to bed at 9 p.m. That is the time when I go to the bathroom, have a good cry and hope for a better tomorrow.

Can't Wait!

Fundraiser and DWTS!

So I had a nice, fun, long holiday weekend visiting my friends in Illinois. We did a bit of scrapping.
This is my favorite layout in this book. I am working on a 12x15 album for baby Superman. He is already two and I am only about to start scrapping his first Christmas. Not even close to his first birthday yet.
Spiderman started his first school fundraiser yesterday. He is selling huge coupon books. They are awesome. He is trying to sell 55 books at $25 each so he can earn a bike. Today is Thursday and I went to order it online and it said I could get the Kansas City book for $20 today. There are several cities that are $20 today and some of the bigger ones are $30 but most are regularly $25. You can visit http://www.entertainment.com to purchase an Entertainment Coupon book. He will definitely Thank you!

Can't wait for Dancing With The Stars to start again. I want to see Cloris Leachman to get to the top at least. And I bet Kim Kardashian will go far just cause of who she is. I'd like to see Rocco the Chef do well. Don't really know who I want to win at this point. It would be funny if the Hannah Montana guy wins though.