My midwife wants me laying down more often during the day as one of the measures to relax and make sure my blood pressure doesn't rise higher. She's a mother of eight so far, so she's not telling me to "just lay down" without understanding the nuances of difficulty. My home is an obstacle course of babyproofing devices, but I still find that rarely can I lay down for longer than five minutes before having to leap up again. Thank God my four-year-old is basically very sweet and obedient now, but I have a brand, fresh two-year-old on my hands!
While feeling like junk this morning and trying to lay down, which lasted for about five minutes, Mary got into one of the home's few locked caches of pens: she colored all over her hands, her face, on every page of her current favorite book, on a matching game, on the windowsill, and on the upholstery of a dining room chair. At least that is the damage I have discovered so far. (Above is what Mary calls her "bad soldier" face, which she makes when she is trying to be fierce.) In this case, a door knob lock works only so well as the person who last used the door actually closing it (I think the fault falls to me this time!).
Two-year-olds are special little balls of energy and ingenuity. I remember when Mary was born and John was newly two, I felt like she was "along for the ride" for a solid year. I felt like I hardly paid attention to her, I just cared for her needs on autopilot, strapped her onto my body in a baby sling, and instead focused 90% of my mothering attention on my demanding two-year-old. I have a strong feeling that is what will be happening again when the new baby is born!
Today, Dave's home project is to fix my entire chest of drawers, whose tracks were all but broken as Agnes decided to finally act like a normal two year old in her last 2 months of 2-ness, and opened the drawers in a graduated way creating a STAIRCASE which she would climb up to stand on top and reach the top of the bookshelf on TOP of the dresser because she once saw that I kept my "unreachable" stash of mom-chocolate up there.
ReplyDeleteI will say this: It is a blessing to have such intelligent children. I know some kids don't do these things but are, well, more average on the brain scale. It pays off later with things like using reason to engage cooperation. :D Small help now, sorry...
Thank you for the tribute! Keep your sense of humor! xoxo
I remember the mischief Emma would get into (and STILL gets into) at Mary's age!! And now, Jamie is following in his sister's footsteps. This morning after our morning cuddle, he climbed down from my lap to play. At one point, he flashed me this sly little grin, raised his eyebrow, then quietly disappeared. I ASSUMED he was playing in the front room with some toys, but it was silent for too long. I discovered that I left the gate at the bottom of the stairs open, and he took full advantage of that. I found him in his room, contemplating the trouble he was going to get into!
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