thoughts on a sunday

• I took the kids to the dentist this week.  Both are proud members of the no cavity club.  Both walked out of the dentist with stickers, balloons, and prizes.  I don't know how this dentist affords to run the kind of office he does, but the kids sure enjoy going to visit him.  

• What we need to work on: flossing. 

• Ellery got Beauty and the Beast for her birthday.  I don't know how many times they've watched it in the last six days. . .at least four times!  Although she's totally loving the movie, Ariel is still the one she brings everywhere.  But, Ariel now has a new "prince":  the Beast. . .which is actually a Baloo the bear from Jungle Book.  Ariel is not picky.

• McKay had a gigantic break down yesterday.  We were at Costco around dinner time and Brian and I were contemplating what to eat for dinner.  We thought about getting pizza at Costco (you know how much I love me some Costco pizza) but then decided to go to another place for dinner.  When McKay found out we weren't staying there to eat he LOST it because he wanted a churro.  LOST IT.  This is pretty unusual for him.  I was totally mad about it, but because of the incident, we had to just go home and eat canned soup for dinner, which made McKay cry and scream even harder.  After a really long drive home, we were able to teach him about using words to express himself when he's mad or sad instead of screaming/crying/going crazy.  We'll see if it works next time.

• Sometimes I feel like every other sentence out of my mouth is an ultimatum.  "If you don't clean up your room, I'm going to take your princesses away."  "If you keep kicking her then you'll loose your bike."  "If you don't stop screaming about a churro, we're not going out to dinner."  On the way home I mentioned this to Brian.  He said it's teaching them about consequences to their actions.  Agreed, an important life lesson.  But I still think that I am giving ultimatums way too often.  And I wonder, is there a better way?  

• Ellery is still learning that it's not okay to kiss/hug/touch Layla when her eyes are closed. 

• Brian got his clinical schedule for the next year and a half.  He will be going to different clinical sites every few months.  We knew when we signed up for this that he would have to do a rotation in Florida and Southern Oregon.  What we didn't know is that he would also have to go to Newport on the Oregon Coast (twice), and another tiny town in the South West tip of Oregon.  I don't even want to talk about it, but I'm really, really not looking forward to it.  

• I played memory with the kids this morning.  I wasn't even trying to let McKay win, but he smoked me!  When did his memory skills surpass mine?  

• Layla is still waking up at night.  She wants to eat at two am and again at four or five.  I had such big plans on doing Baby Wise but somehow it just didn't happen.  I also had plans that she wouldn't be in our bed at night either. . .but she somehow she just sneaks in there.  I am not conscious enough to know how it happens.  

• Today I definitely felt added stress as we got ready for church.  It was Layla's first day of church.  The first Sunday all of us went.  We left the house looking like a bomb had gone off.

• Part of that bomb was that I realized just before church started that Layla didn't have any tights to wear to church.  I had to go through my girl bins until I found some.  The kids used the bins as crab shells and crawled around the family room.  There were clothes everywhere.  

• Speaking of those clothes, I'm feeling sad for my third child.  She will live life in hand-me-downs.  There are worse things, I know.

• I'm also feeling sad for my third child because there is just not enough of me to go around.  I remember sitting and showing my other babies toys and playing with them and even watching them sleep when they were this age.  Poor little Layes is not getting the same treatment.  I do what I can, but if she's content and happy, then I'm usually doing something else.  I feel like we're both missing out a bit.  That's kind of why I don't totally hate that she sneaks into our bed in the early morning.  It's kind of a nice time to just snuggle her with nothing else on my mind.

Happy Sunday