Responsibility

A couple of Christmases ago, Katherine received the Melissa & Doug Responsibility Chart from Santa.  I happily hung it up on the wall...and...that's where it stayed.  We've had a few false starts but honestly, we've been terrible at it.  I think the kids have spent more time playing with the magnets than we have actually spent tracking tasks and good deeds.

This week we decided to give it another go.  I lined up a bunch of responsibilities for Katherine (with the hope that Teddy would do some of them too).  Today Miss K specifically mentioned it during the car ride home.  In fact, she was eager to get going on it right away and earn her smilies.  I think she feels it's a direct path the an allowance, something that we also need to start but so far have failed at keeping up with.  I have never seen the kid run upstairs to "clean your room".  She easily completed that and "make your bed", "put away your toys", "brush your teeth", and lucky for her there was no homework tonight so "do your homework" was a breeze.  The next to the last thing on the list was "stop whining".  I think I've documented either here or on Facebook plenty the nonstop whining that seems to ensue around our house, especially when both of the kids are playing together.  Her reaction?

"Oooohhhhhhh, that's going to be so haaarrrdddddd!!!!"

Yup, whining over a task to stop whining.  Clearly we're starting from ground zero here.  Interest may not be that intense tomorrow.

And as a place to record it for all time, here's a few other cute things that came out of the kid's mouths over the past week:

K:  "I've got a lot of energy Mommy, I ate four french toast sticks this morning."

K, upon waking up this morning and realizing with was Field Day at school: "Thank you God and life!"

K, during a tea party she was having with Teddy last night.  They were slurping their "tea".  I said that that is not the proper way to drink tea.  "We're not having a proper tea party, we're having a slurpy one!"

And finally, Mr. T., who, well, farted while playing T ball outside, declared:  "That came from where I poop!"  Can't argue with that, kid knows his anatomy.

Back to Normal

It’s happened again.  One minute we’re sailing along, going through the usual day to day.  The next minute, I look at my kids and realize they've grown.  I’m not talking the big leaps, those growth spurts that happen or when you measure them up against last year’s mark on the wall.  I’m talking those minute little differences that probably only a parent notices.  I probably pick it up more on Teddy than Katherine just because I still pick him up here and there.  In the last month I've noticed a wider torso, another pound or two when I lift him.  I realize the days of having him on my hip are numbered.  Not totally a bad thing but I do pause when I realize that little baby is gone.  We took down the infant/toddler swing on the swing set  it’s sitting over at the dump (because it’s attached to the big swing that is supposed to be on the swing set but instead the two became attached together in a minor redneck moment Ted and had I last weekend involving the ride on mower and a tree stump.  Another time.).  Brand new big kid swing went up and this morning I caught a glimpsed out of the kitchen window of the two of them swinging side by side.  Sigh.

The kids spent a week up at Papa and Gram Coberly's after Easter.  I was worried that Teddy wouldn't make it, since he still is a bit clingy.  Turns out we all underestimated him.  When it came time for Ted and I to head home, the kids hardly gave us some much as a wave.  Teddy turned and was like “Go!” They were too busy inspecting their loot from the Easter Egg Hunt.  The report from the week was that he didn't miss us one bit.  Napped every day.  Went to bed without someone laying with him.  Slept through the night.  In other words, some kid other than our son spent the week up there.  He’ll been joining Katherine for the next trip up to my parents in Massachusetts this summer.

It’s been a weird nine months around here for me when it comes to the job front (we’ll skip the pregnancy analogies, please).  I’d call it a growing experience and yes, although I didn't want to believe it at the time, things did turn out for the best in the end.  I said goodbye to VR and started my new job on April 1^st.  Right now I’m still on the learning curve, going from knowing a whole lot about one division to needing to learn so much more about the entire department.  But I can tell ever day when I sit down at my desk that I’m in the right place, that this was the right next step for me.  I’m feeling centered again.  And I can tell this has made a difference for me on the home front too. I know you’re supposed to not take home into work and work into home but who really can do that? It all blurs together. I’m calmer, less tense, less on edge. I can leave the office on a Friday and happily not think about it until Monday.  And when I wake up Monday morning, I actually look forward to the week ahead.  It’s good to feel this way again.