HOLY NEW FLOOR DAVEMAN!

It has been a while yet again. We have been hard at work around here. We got a new washing machine dryer combo. Takes a LOOOONG time to wash clothes and can't cook or do dishes while it is working, but it is infinitely better than the laundromat. THAT was getting close to creating damage to our family unit as the person who had to do the laundry ( me) was contemplating doing something horrible to the people who made too much laundry ( every one ) in the house. A LOT of laundry can be made by little girls the age of ours.... and what is worse Dave can often go through three different shirts in a matter of minutes because one has a stain, one is too faded etc. He is such a girl about it. Of course I don't work outside the home so I have a pair of sweat pants on with holes in the side and a white tee-shirt that has prunes on it from one daughter and something else ( I can't identify it) from the other. I am fine with that because my two year old isn't really going to give me any grief when it comes to my wardrobe. Of course it would be nice to get dressed up every now and then, but the sad reality is that there is little point and when I do where something that borders on nice I am in mortal fear that SOMETHING will happen to it. You name it I have had it on me due to my babies. I have been baptized in leaky diapers and washed off in various forms of spit up and puke. I am at any given time a bio-hazard and usually someone ELSE'S bio-hazard to boot. At any rate I seriously digressed. I have a washer/dryer combo! YAY! We are still working out the kinks ( like the fact that it takes 4 hours to do a load so how the hell can I feed my family and do laundry in any given day?) But I'm not hatin'. I have a way to do a few loads of laundry a day in my house.
And I have a new wood floor in my living room. My own personal Daveman put it in for me. It is BEEEEAUUUUUTYYYYYY-FUL! T cruises every where on this floor at a million miles per hour. She is loving it too. A spent the first hour of the new floor running around in the open spaces giggling and sliding. It is truly a wonderful thing. We are SOOOOOOO happy. I did not take before pictures because I don't want to have actual picture verification of what the floor looked like. The carpet had to be taken up due to a cat with a peeing problem and a little girl with allergies. So it was taken up. BUT we didn't have any money to REPLACE the floor so we have been living on a concrete pad with black tar paper on it for the last year. Before your freak entirely we did put down an area rug so the kids were able to play... but we had to keep them ON the rug rather than just let them play. It was NOT the best environment for our children. This is so much better now! So while I played with the girls and kept them out of his hair as much as possible... my daveman took the only two day weekend that he has gotten and will have in the month of April and put down the floor. Have I ever mentioned how MUCH I love this man!
Yes and while I am on the subject. His work has changed his schedule. It is a bit of a pain in our bums.... you see they went to a seven day a week delivery schedule and because of that he very very rarely gets what one would call a weekend any more. Usually he gets Saturday and Tuesday off. He had one normal Sat and Sunday weekend in March and had a Friday Saturday weekend this last week. It is a little bit of a pain as I have said. Especially as they are still trying to figure out what the heck they are doing with this schedule and change things up every couple of weeks.
The girls are a blessing of course, as always. We are so incredibly lucky to have them and each other. One of the really awesome things about Dave's later schedule is how our mornings work for us. We all sleep in the same bed and so we all wake up at around the same time. We wake up between 7 AM and at the latest 8 AM but we end up snuggling, cuddling and playing until at least 8:30. Some mornings until nine. It is amazing! I haven't ever really been a morning person, but I have become one! It is the best part of the day. We all wake up with smiles!
T-bear is pulling herself up on everything in the world. She can walk across the floor with someone holding her hands. And she is so thrilled when she does something new. She grins from ear to ear and claps her hands. She is quite a little chatterbox ( much like her sister!) She gives you what for as often as she coos. She is eating food these days, and has started spitting it and hitting your hand when you are feeding her. I have been appalled by her manners. She gets the person who is feeding her as well as herself a total mess. This is something that I have read about from other people or heard about from other people... but I have NEVER had it happen to me. I am entirely serious. Not one of the babies I have had the pleasure of feeding has done this. I'm guessing that this makes me pretty lucky... but dang it can be hard to feed that little booger butt. She loves to feed herself finger food. That is one way that you can calm the stormy waters no matter what the case, or how tired. Putting her in her highchair with finger food is a tried and true answer.
A is beautiful as ever. She is growing like a little flower in the spring. Though she has many faces. This kid is seriously expressive. She is such a helper with her younger sister. She sings songs to her and helps to find toys. When mom is busy and T is crying she makes her smile. We are still working on the sharing idea. And she still has a bit of a problem understanding that a toy that T has can't just be snatched away. But she is trying. We have been playing outside an awful lot lately with the wonderful weather that we have had. She more than anyone seems to appreciate the new schedule for Dave. While it only means one day of Daddy being home... it also means a shorter stretch between his days off. And that is a good thing when you are two. She loves her daddy a ton! She wants a tool box and tools like crazy right now. She wants to be able to help her daddy to fix things. The other day I found her laying on her back under her sister's highchair with the potato peeler "fixing" it. After checking to make sure that she wasn't indeed unscrewing screws or something of that nature ( as her sister was IN the chair) I asked her what she was doing. She answered " Don't worry about it, I fix it!" So I didn't worry about it, it was obviously in good hands.We will need to get her a toolbox here soon so she can stop using my kitchen utensils. We have to make do with a lot of different items for wrenches and screw drivers and hammers and such. She knows the names of the things that she wants.... so it is time to get her the items I guess.
So I am off. Gotta feed the masses. Dave will be done with work at 7:30 but that is too late for my little ladies. So I feed them before we go to get him. And then I make dinner after we get home. Our days get kind of crazy busy sometimes. I don't think I would change it though!

Spring fever!

Yes I do believe we have a touch of that fever around here. As a matter of fact I am sitting here with all of the windows open and a fan pulling that nice cool air into the house. We slept last night with windows open and we may have the fan on all night tonight. We have been spending a TON of our time outside playing. It is the season of renewal and we are feeling it here! We are full of plans again and we are looking to refloor our living room and finish our bathroom. We are full of hope and dreaming of our tomorrows. We are kicking our legs and pumping them hard to swing as high as we can! The world is full of song and we are all singing along to the tune with a smile on our face.
And what is not to smile about. We have a wonderful little family with two of the most beautiful babies in the world. We have each other. Dave a wonderful husband who loves me, and I a wife who tries to be what Dave needs from me while loving him more every day!
A is the sweetest two year I have ever met and while I may be slighly biased I also think that it is just true. She is horribly shy though and sometimes needs to hide even from people she sees on a regular basis. It is a bit traumatic for her, often bringing her to tears when someone pushes and she feels off center. A hug from mommy or daddy makes it better... but she still hides her face. It is a phase and she will grow out of it, or she won't. My mother and Aunt both are terribly shy. My mother has to work very hard to meet new people. My aunt has even a harder time about it. Some people are just shy and if that is where A is then that is where she is. A few people have made comments to me about getting her out more. But the truth is my little flower is doing fine just as she is. We have been working on phonics. She got these foam letter puzzles from my parents for Christmas. She will hold it up and tell me the letter... and if it is one that we have worked enough on she can make the sound and tell me a word. For example. L la la la LOG. D du du du DOG. She only has a few that she gets right every time, but hey at TWO that is pretty damn impressive. The other day she was having a tough time with quiet time in the afternoon. ( she no longer naps but she does have to be quiet for a little while in the afternoon while T is napping) At any rate her fretting woke T up and so I sent her into the living room so that I could get T back to sleep. Out she goes and then a few minutes later I hear Sesame Street start on my computer. I didn't know whether I should be more impressed or pissed. She knows that she shouldn't be touching the computers with out a mommy or a daddy... but DAYUM that is truly impressive at two years old. Punk kid!
We also got A a couple of pets. She is now the proud mommy of a beta fish and a rat. Yes you read that right a rat. They are WONDERFUL pets. Dave and I had one years ago that we loved dearly. When we took our monthly trip to the pet store and they had rats we had to have one. She loves him. She calls him Punk Rattigan. Daddy helped with the name as he calls her punk brattigan he thought it a wonderful play on words. She got a beta fish for peeing in the hat that we had to put on the toilet to get a urine sample when she was sick. ( it was NOT a UTI... instead it is a sensitivity to the soap that has been used. SIGH eventually the kid is going to have to live in a bubble) At any rate daddy promised and she remembered! ( kid has a mind like a steel trap I swear) So we toddled off to Walmart and got a fishie and all the trappings that go with it. She calls him Dorothy. Yeah I know.... but Elmo has a fish in Elmo's world named Dorothy and so it was bound to happen. She is so cute with her pets... though it is mainly mom and dad's job to keep up on them of course. She enjoys them a ton!
T is at a really fast point of development. Everyday there is something new. She learned how to sit up from laying down the other day. She can roll over in a series. She can say Mama, Dada and UP UP. She also says NO... but she says it just like A does in this kind of wail. She is minutes away from crawling. She gets up on all fours and rocks... but when she moves she moves backwards. Totally normal nearly every kid does it... but HOLY COW does it piss her off. This kid has a temper to reckon with. She has a mind of her own and she has the voice to back it up. She has us terrified of bringing her anywhere unless we can keep her busy. And the kid hates the car seat after dark. Day time no problem but turn out the lights and the kid goes ballistic. Truly a mystery. A was the same way. She was better when we turned her seat around... but T has a while yet. Meanwhile, mom and dad have determined that we will not go anywhere that we can't be home before dark. We also won't go anywhere that she has to be in the car seat for longer than an hour and a half TOPS. This kid has us living in fear I swear. Okay so that isn't really true, well not really.... okay well only sorta. I think we stand our own most of the time... well some of the time... well when it is really important. Hmmm. You will notice that she is smiling in all of her pictures. There is a really simple reason for that. It really is easier just to let her have her own way. NO NO NO I am just kidding. She isn't that bad! She is a happy baby. She just is! Yes she has a mind of her own and a temper but she doesn't hold a grudge and she LOVES to smile and giggle. She has got THE cutest giggle in the whole world. Hands down! She is so ticklish it is funny. You have to be careful changing the bottom because those little legs are ticklish. Not to mention she is starting the roll and run that is so common for this age. Got to be quick quick quick these days. She has also cut two teeth full out on the bottom and two teeth that have just cut the gums on the top. This kid doesn't do teething gracefully. Not only that but as a nursing mama I am a little tired of her biting.
A is the best big sister in the world. She loves her little T bear. They fight already and there is a definite jealousy on both parts if the other is getting a cuddle. But then I have two arms and two legs that make up my lap so there is room for both. Dad also has the same configuration of arms and legs so we are money! They also fight over the same toys. T is not going to have any trouble holding her own when it comes to that. She already gets mad and lets the world know it when A takes a toy, which she does frequently because she is a two year old. So I am already a referee in fights. I thought it would take a little longer for that... but oh how naive I was. So many things that you think BEFORE you have the second kid get blown out of the water after you have the second kid. If you still think you have any control after the first one, you are roughly disabused of that notion when the second comes. I still struggle every now and then to be the woman who has it all figured out. But I do a whole lot better when I just let that current carry me rather than to struggle against it. We have I believe finally settled into a family. It takes a lot longer than you would think. A had to be given the chance to realize that she does LOVE T. And she says it fairly regularly now. Not to mention the first couple of months Mom was in a fog of hormones. It takes about six months for that haze to lift and the world to right its self. We are there now though. We are happy. We some mornings just lay in the bed all four of us and enjoy the fact that we are a family. We are together and we love each other. ( oh the perks of a 2nd shift job hmm) I am not joking some mornings it takes us an hour to get around to actually getting out of bed.
Life Is Just Grand!