Sweetheart n Sunshine: TTT: Season 3, Episode 9

1. Mark started his new job this morning! As with all new things, there's always a certain level of anticipation anxiety, but this time there's been quite a bit of excitement, too. As I mentioned a while back, this new job seems that it will be a much better fit for Mark and for our family. His last day with the old job was on Friday which meant we had five whole days with Dada! We did get some relaxing in, but also stayed busy getting lots done around the house. (finally got the deck refinished! Yay!) We took a trip downtown to the Houston Children's Museum and the boys even got to go fishing with Dada and Pa and I managed to get my hair trimmed. Oh, and I think Mark and I rented and watched four different movies. Thank goodness for the Redbox right around the corner! Back to the real world now. I guess that's not so much of a bad thing though. You know how I love a routine! But man, it sure was nice to have my partner in crime for a few extra days!

2. We've all heard of the terrible/trying twos/threes. Is there such thing as the defiant fours? I feel like that's what we've hit with Kolbe. No kidding, in a span of one week we had three major public meltdowns with him. (in public is the only place these things happen, don't you know) It always happens when things aren't going his way, he's not getting to do what he wants to do, or we say we need to leave and he doesn't want to leave yet. We're not talking pouting and putting up a protest. We're talking full out wailing, kicking, screaming, heck, the one he threw on Sunday after mass resulted in barfing all over the inside of the van because he had gotten so worked up. I certainly didn't plan on spending my Sunday afternoon shampooing van carpeting. Why is it so hard to get the point across that, while the world does spin on an axis, he is not that axis!?! As much as we'd like to think that the boys will just figure out obvious things on their own, the truth is that the majority of the time we have to teach them how to handle and deal with certain things in life. I mean, if he's going to be in a big family he really can't think that the focus is on him all the time! Anyway, I know it's something that we're going to have to continue to work on until the point is made clear. Kolbe is definitely a strong-willed, bull-headed little guy some times. (I have no idea where he gets that from!) We just have to channel that into positive things! The barfing meltdown happened at a little bagel shop near our house, so we tried something new this time and decided that if he can't eat with our family in public, he can't eat with our family at home either. He had to spend dinner time sitting separate from the rest of us. It was so sad! But I know that it drove the point home for him. The other part of his punishment was having to write sentences. This is the first time we've done this with him as well, but I remember it working well for me as a child, and since he's so much like me and I'm trying to get him to work on his writing skills anyway, we gave it a shot. The joys of parenting continue! Results below:

3. As I mentioned up in numero uno, we finally visited the Houston Children's Museum this week, thanks to a Groupon I purchased a while back. (yes, almost everything we do outside of the home is either free or Groupon/LivingSocial related.) I can now totally see why it's the number one children's museum in the country! Wow! I think Mark and I were just as impressed with some of the exhibits as the boys were. There was so much to do and all of it was hands on and very educational. Even little Grant had a blast. Some of the exhibits were right at their age level, while others will be more interesting the older they get. Of course, there were several different schools of children there on field trips so we had to navigate the place so as not to get stuck at one exhibit with eight-nine other kiddos, but otherwise, it was so fascinating and fun. Mark and I loved getting to watch the wheels in boys' minds turn and turn. A trip like this is one of those things that we realize we'd never be able to do if we didn't live near a big city. While we still love slightly smaller scale living, this is definitely one of the perks. We will surely be going back...as soon as there's another Groupon, of course!

This guy is now 8 months old! And here he is in all his baby goodness showing off his first and only tooth that he got on Valentine's Day!

Ok, let's be realistic. He's not always a lump of baby goodness. Sometimes he does look like this. God forbid I not let him roll over on the changing table and try to pull himself up on the blinds!