Still standing

Sorry about the lagging posts. No, really, I'm sorry. Not sorry for YOU, but for myself a year from now. I really enjoy logging my life for my own retrospection. Is that a word? I guess I'll find out when I hit spell check.

Time to blog is a bit of a joke. Michael did NOT get the memo that he is the third child, so he should then be okay with being ignored a bit. Again, he was apparently not informed. He insists on being held CONSTANTLY. And he likes the sling only about 50% of the time. So it is a real crap shoot as to whether I'm going to get anything done during the day or not. If, and I mean IF, you are cuddling him, Michael is the perfect angel of a child. He is easy to soothe, and his tummy timer makes him very easy to feed. But HEAVEN FORBID you lay him down...even for 30 seconds. He will let you know that this is UNACCEPTABLE. And he gets himself into such a tizzy that he actually forgets to breathe a lot of the time. Which freaks me out. And makes me laugh at the same time. I mean, seriously. Is it so bad to not be cuddled for 2 minutes? So bad that you have to scream to the point of passing out? And this makes us take him MUCH less seriously when we hear him crying. Someday Lily will sit on him, and he'll cry to the point of suffocation, and we'll ignore him. -sigh- I just wish he'd taken the time to read the fine print in the 3rd child contract. He also HATES his car seat (as did my other 2) and almost NEVER falls asleep in the car. This, too, is in the 3rd child contract. "You will spend an inordinate amount of time in the car seat. You will not have regular nap times, so sleeping in the car seat will not only be recommended, but expected." Oh, Michael. You have a lot to learn. Or a lot to teach us.

Andrew is alternating between being really really cute and really really annoying. For example, today Lily and Andrew were playing with a bucket of water outside. Yes, it really is like Six Flags at our house. Anyhoo, Andrew kept putting water on Lily. I finally told him that he would have to go inside if I saw him do it again. How annoying. And then he said, "Okay, Mommy. I shall resist." In a cute little Frenchie accent like the shrimp in Finding Nemo (who has to stop cleaning the tank and says the same thing). So you are just about to put him in a stranglehold when he pops out a comment that makes you laugh out loud.

I know it is from the nearly constant boredom. Since Michael refuses to be put down (see above), our play time activities are limited. We've now expanded our pretend games from America's Next Top Model to Survivor and Chef and Animal Doctor and Civilization (a computer game that is WAY over Andrew's head...but he grasps an amazing amount of it anyway). I am about to GO OUT OF MY MIND with boredom playing these stupid games. But how can I blame him?

Lily is cute and mischievous and cute and messy and cute. She really doesn't pay much attention to Michael except to get him a pacifier now and then and say good night to him. She knows his name, but refuses to call him by anything but "baby". She does the same with Shadow...insisting on calling her "dog" and nothing else. Which leads us to believe that Shadow and Michael and equal in Lily's perceived hierarchy of the family. She still astounds us with her vocabulary, which I won't bore you with here, because no one cares but us. And the grandmothers. But they don't honestly need any more reasons to brag about their grandchildren, so it's best for all if I just don't mention it here. She is a total stinker and such a horrible listener that I'm terrified to bring her out in public by myself with the boys. And if I ask Andrew to help, he literally tackles her to get her to stop. Ugh.

So that's a little update. We are tired, but generally happy. The children are driving us a bit mad because they are bored and stir-crazy...but we lack the energy to rectify this. It will get better...but it's likely to get worse before getting better. Jeff will have to go back to work full time at some point. ;) Our hopes is that Michael will let me sleep more than 2 hours at a time by then. If not...we'll survive. :)