Weekend catchup

 

OK, nobody responded to our boy for rent ad.  Well, at least no serious takers… 

 

It was all fun and games, a joke, but with some of our true feelings about Alex sprinkled right in.  He is pushing our buttons, oh so many buttons, he knows how to push my buttons and Lance’s buttons (and the difference between the two). He is trying to be “the boss” of everything and if one little thing goes wrong, there is a downright fit-throwing tantrum with LOUD screaming.  He has a bad temper right now, too.  He seemingly can’t play even 1 minute by himself with any one of his tons of toys.  Not even 1 minute.  He is testing our limits, sometimes it seems every minute.  Testing, Testing, Testing… He doesn’t seem to have his “listening ears” on very much, especially when he’s about to touch his sister’s eye. 

 

Of course we love his full of life attitude, his wonderful giggles, his smarts, his curious mind – but, he gets to be so much to take care of on the weekends.  With a full 48 hours of pure Alex for us both (how can one 3.5 yr old ware out 2 adults?), we are worn out most Sundays and are ready to send him off to preschool.  Especially lately, he is just grinding us down.  I think it is all of us being more busy with me being back at work.  Things are just super busy.  SUPER busy.  SUPER SUPER busy.  Three and a half years old just seems to be hard lately.  A few times recently, Lance and I have talked about how we rush around and do this and that, get home, feed the kids, do this chore, that chore – just to go to sleep and get up and do it all over again.  It’s pretty difficult to go to bed thinking you’re going to “do it all over again”.  We know that this is a hard and difficult time for our family – adjusting to a new normal of 2 kids and 2 working parents.  It will get better and better.  We’re just in a rough place right now.  Trying to think of ways that we can make things easier and better on all of us. 

 

This weekend, Grandma Sandy came to the rescue and had lots of fun with Alex and Sara.  Alex and Grandma Sandy went bug hunting, played legos, read new books that she brought about bugs, sharks, snakes and dinosaurs, baked a peach cobbler, played outside and generally kept him out of our hair for as much as possible.  They just have so much fun together!

 

Meanwhile, Lance had something new to play with… a new lawnmower (the old one just broke one too many times).  So, we are now the proud owner of a new John Deere tractor.  Sara got the first chance to check it out while big brother was taking a nap.  She says she likes it!  Lance’s picture where his sloping his arm means that this lawnmower is FAST!  He was telling me that when you start it in a fast gear and let off the brake – it pops a (little) wheelie!  Crazy!  Alex got his chance to take it for a spin and really loved riding with Daddy. 

 

Then, we got to celebrate the beginning of football season (yeah!).  Lance was watching some games today and it inspired Alex to put on his football jersey and “football helmet” (he now knows the difference between a REAL football helmet and what we’ve been calling a football helmet, which is really a bike helmet with dogs on it).  He found his big football and they played a little – DOWN, SET, HIKE and GO LONG. 

 

It actually turned out to be a pretty good weekend, but it didn’t start out that way: a broken lawnmower, a totally messy dirty house that I didn’t want to spend my whole Saturday cleaning, a cranky 3.5 year old kid… But, we ended up with a new mower, peach cobbler, football in the front yard, and some fun times with Grandma Sandy (who reminds us both how wonderful Alex is, even when we just want to wring his little neck).