How Life is like the Movie Groundhog Day

I'm going to make this fast, because I feel like this is being typed on borrowed time as Blake is downstairs with Remington, and wants to watch TV with me.

I feel like many days, my life is like the movie Groundhog Day in that many of the events are the same in essence, but I keep trying to make little tweaks to avoid the previous days mistakes. Some tweaks improve the situation, some don't, but I keep learning and trying to improve on them.

One of the biggest examples with this is trips to the park with Grace. We have made going to the playground a daily excursion after her nap. She loves going to the playground, going on the slide, playing in the sand, and being pushed on the swings. She hates leaving. So, every day I try different things to try to make the trip home easier. Blake had some good results with a special snack on the way home, but I goofed it up by letting her see the snack first. When we got to the playground, she just wanted to eat the snack instead of spending time playing first. I even got a full blown tantrum about it. Lesson learned...don't let her see the going home snack first!

I have Groundhog Day moments with potty training too, trying to figure out why and when she has accidents so that I avoid those kind of accidents in the future. These moments happen with Remington too, mostly with his sleep at night. I keep trying to have his schedule worked out so I only feed him once at night, and he sleeps soundly the rest of it...but with the minor daily changes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I have to keep trying to figure out what causes the difference.

Grace's tantrums are yet another area where many minor changes are made in attempts to stop or avoid the tantrums that come when I say no to her, she doesn't get her way, or we have to drive in the car somewhere (so pretty much all day long). I have had some success with dolls and roleplaying, some with stickers, and some with playing the game of "guess what made Grace mad" and then talking to her about it. Sometimes I have no success!

But unlike the movie, kids change all the time, so my changes are just guesses, and I get to keep trying!

Enjoy the random collection of kid photos from the last few weeks.

Snapshot of Life at the start of 2014

Life with an almost four month old and a two year old is not always easy but it is fun. There are challenging times like when I was nursing the baby with my daughter on my lap and talking to someone on the phone to schedule a doctor's appointment. Or when I felt ridiculous using my daughter's doll to try to teach a lesson about what to do when you're mad or how to tell Mom when you need to go to the bathroom. This, by the way, worked rather effectively. And I don't particularly enjoy when I have to leave my son crying somewhere because my daughter decided that was the moment she neeeed to go to the bathroom.

But, I love when my son starts to talk to me or smiles at me. I love seeing his determination to roll over. Which he has done both ways now...but only once. It cracked me up to see my daughter try to give the stick back to the tree on our walk yesterday. Or when she copied my using the doll to take the doll to the bathroom multiple times during the day. I love seeing her vocabulary grow even when I least expect it, and the cute way she says, "helwo." The conversations we have about shadows or just about her favorite people is how we set the foundation for a great relationship in the future.

My days are filled with the mundane of bathroom trips, nursing times and keeping two little ones happy, but I wouldn't trade them for the world.