Yes, I am still alive (barely)

Okay, after a long absence I am back!  The reason I've been away?  Hope.  She's suddenly realized that she's almost 2 and has decided that until now my life has been way too uneventful.

Here's an example from today...

Picture this:
I'm sitting downstairs having just settled Grace after a feeding.  Hope has gone upstairs to (presumably) play in her room, something she is allowed to do.  When I suddenly hear banging and yelling from upstairs, I automatically think "Hope has shut herself in a room - likely Grace's."  I head upstairs to let her out, but when I get up there I notice Grace's door is open.  I check the other doors - all open.  It slowly dawns on me that the noise is coming from Hope's bathroom, and she's yelling "it's hot! it's hot!" I get in there to discover the following:  Hope, naked from the waist down, in her bathtub (having brought a stool in the help her climb in), turning the water on and off.  Unfortunately she doesn't know how to adjust temperature, hence the "it's hot!"
I asked her what she was doing, she responds "I bath!"
It took nearly 45 minutes to convince her to get out (and to stop laughing)...  looks like she's learned something new, and also looks like I'm going to have to invest in door handle locks for the bathrooms...

Oh Hope, how I love you.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

Hope LOVES music; loves singing, loves doing actions to songs, loves dancing.

There are few things I love more than watching Hope dance, and she will dance to anything!  Commercials on the TV, worship at Church, hip hop on the radio, the washing machine (no joke), and mommy's singing are all favourites. 

She loves to twirl, do knee bends, swing her hips and shake her head to the beat.  Such a joyous response to music!  The other night, however, I was shocked to see her *new* dance move.  My mother was visiting and we were watching Glee (please don't judge!).  Hope got into the music and decided to climb onto the coffee table to dance.  Against my better judgement I let her stay up there because she was so cute!  Next thing I know she's on her hands and knees, swinging her head back and forth like a... a...  well, you (probably) get the idea.  Once the shock wore off I nearly died laughing! 

Where do kids learn this stuff?  Should I be afraid already?  What behaviours have your kids shocked you with?

Sick Days...

One of the issues I've never been able to figure out is how a mom takes a 'sick day'.  My husband gets sick, doesn't feel up to working, so he stays home in bed and gets better.  How do moms do that?  It's not like we can call in sick or just not show up...  Can you imagine?  *Picturing Hope banging on my bedroom door... "Mom? Mom?" and me responding "Sorry, I'm not well enough to be your mom today!"*

Now Bruce is awesome, and tries to help out more when I'm sick, but he doesn't feel he can just take off work to help me.  So I've been sick for a week now... a yucky stomach flu/head cold combination.  My house is falling into a state of disarray and meals are becoming less and less nutritious.  I need a day off to rest and get better!  And then I need a day off to find my house.  And then a day to meal plan and grocery shop. 

So tell me Supermoms... how do you do it?  I need help (and sleep) (and a shower).  Too much information?

Adjusting to Life with a Sister

Hope is learning to be a big sister.  It's not easy for her, but she's trying very hard.  My husband and I, we don't think she needs to change anything, but she seems to think differently.  There are some areas where we see her acting older, and a few where she seems to be regressing...  I always wondered how she'd react to not being the only child and now I know!  Here are a few of her 'new' behaviours...

- Giving up her nap.  I'm not sure what makes Hope think that now that she's the older sister she shouldn't nap.  I've tried crying screaming gently explaining to her that mommy needs her to nap, but she doesn't seem that convinced.  It's concerning.

- Obsession with baby diapers and changing bums.  Hope seems to think that her sister is always in need of a bum change.  Quite frequently though the day she will bring me a diaper and say 'babies? bum?"  I try to explain to her that Grace does not need a diaper change every 5 minutes.  She always looks skeptical.  Hope also is obsessed with changing her babies' bums.  They are always poopy ("Ucky! Poop!")  We are going through many more wipes than we used to.  The "babies" require quite a few to get the poop off.  Every 5 minutes.

- Obsession with her own diapers.  We have been in the gentle process of potty training Hope for the last few months.  We are allowing her to go at her own pace, which has basically meant her sitting on her potty a few times a day for a few minutes without any success.  Recently, however, she has taken to taking her diaper off and telling me 'all done'.  She will then wander around the house naked, sit on the potty for a few minutes and then bring me a new diaper and say 'Bum'.  (She hasn't had another poop accident since my last post.)  The only problem with this is that she wants to throw out her diaper every time she takes it off - sometimes completely dry.  I cannot, for the life of me, convince her that her diaper isn't "ucky" if it's dry.  She just shouts "UCKY" and runs to throw it in the garbage.  Between her diapers and the baby wipes we are going to go broke!  (Not to mention fill up the landfill...)

- Bottles.  Hope has a vice.  It's a bottle of milk to help her go to sleep at night and for nap.  In the weeks before bringing Grace home we had convinced her to go down for her nap with a sippy cup instead of a bottle... that quickly ended when Grace came home.  Now she wants bottles all the time, and isn't above stealing her little sister's if we're not looking.  (For medical reasons I am unable to breastfeed).  I struggle with being flexible to help her transition and with not giving up what progress we've made!  It's hard to reason with a not-yet-two year old about why the baby gets bottles and she doesn't!  I'm trying to give her 'big girl cups' (real cups, not sippies) hoping to make her feel special in a more advanced way.  I hope it works!

I'm so lucky to have such a fun, helpful, loving, silly child.  I hope that she doesn't feel the need to grow up too fast; she's still my baby!

"I'm a bad parent" syndrome

Do you ever hear other parents talk, or read something in a book, or see something on tv that makes you think you're a bad parent?  I do!  My children are not enrolled in music, dance or baby sign language classes.  We do let them watch TV (although Hope has no interest in cartoons and Grace is too young to care).  I don't make sure they get outside every day, rain or shine.  I don't spend hours teaching Hope her colours, numbers, or how to read.  I don't read them the bible every day, or even remember to pray with them before meals all the time.  Do you think that makes me a bad parent?  Sometimes I do.  Sometimes I feel guilty about it. 

Then I remember what makes a 'good' parent, and it's not the things I listed above.

Being a good parents means loving your children.  Responding with kindness, not anger.  It means praying for your children every day.  It means understanding their personalities and loving them as individuals with likes and dislikes.  It means taking the time to play with your children, and allowing them the time to play. 

So I'm not perfect, and I'll never claim to be, but when it comes to doing the things that count, I think I'm doing okay. 

I'm not a bad parent.  And either are you.