Winter Days

We have been cooped up for a while now.  Between the weather and having only one vehicle, we haven't been out of the house much.  For the most part, this is all right.  The girls and I have had a lot of fun some days.  Currently, Sylvia is going through an "all mommy, all the time" phase.  Just now I went in to her room to say goodnight (after coming home from knitting-- my first "me" outing in three weeks).  I lied on the bed next to her and talked with her about her evening.  And then when I got up to leave, she pulled me back down and slammed her hand down on the side of my head, placing my face back onto her pillow.  Kind of sweet.  Kind of funny.  Kind of irritating.

Sylvia is also going through more, what I call, "growing pains."  She has been testing the boundaries a lot again lately.  We are trying a rewards approach this time.  She currently has a set of Elmo utensils taped to her bedroom wall.  She also has a six day chart taped to her wall.  For every morning she wakes up and she has not played in her dresser drawers during the night she gets one sticker for her chart and one for her to wear.  After six days, she gets her Elmo fork and spoon.  We'll see what happens.

Veda is sick.  She got a pretty nasty cold virus AND she has four teeth on top all trying to poke through right now.  She has been a pretty grumpy little girl and I don't blame her.  But it did mean that I was up with her most of last night.  She would start to scream, so I would go in and comfort her.  She would drift to sleep.  About forty minutes later she would wake up again-- either from pain or trouble breathing --and begin to scream again.  I knew she was truly uncomfortable and scared so I had to be in there with her.  And I needed to make sure Dave could at least sleep.  But it did make for a long night.

An interesting side note:  When I was filing Veda's stats from her twelve month wellness check, I also flipped through Sylvia's old numbers.  Upon doing so, I discovered that Sylvia had the exact same measurements at nine months as Veda did at twelve.

Veda is also beginning to climb!  She now climbs on top of the girls' little picnic table and she adores their little chairs in the living room.  She loves being able to climb in and out and to stand on them:

Truly, both of my kids are fun kids.  And I love spending time with them.  They make me laugh a lot.  And when the days are rough I just keep cycling my little chant in my mind:  "I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids."  And then I pray that nap time not only arrives soon, but that both girls will sleep for the same time for at least long enough for me to use the bathroom and drink a cup of coffee in silence!