Friday, November 18, 2011

Camille:5 months, Paul:23 months

Well, I just wanted to update my neglected blog with a quick summary of how much the kids are growing.

Camille turned 5 months old on Wednesday of this week and she's made so many changes over just the last couple of weeks.  She can now sit up on her own for several minutes at a time and can roll around from belly to back and vice versa.  She is also trying various solid foods now.  She started at four months old with rice cereal. Then, each week after the first week of that, we added a food to it.  So far she's tried bananas, avocados and sweet potatoes.  She's also had a couple of "Mum Mum" crackers.  They are basically baby rice crackers that dissolve in the mouth.  She feeds those to herself.  She will also hang out in her walker or exersaucer for sometimes up to 20 minutes at a time, which is a nice break for me and Paul since we don't have to carry her around all the time anymore.  She's getting so grown up!

Paul is approaching 2 years old (3 weeks to go) and boy is he acting more like a "terrible 2" each day.  haha  Actually, he has some awfully cute moments and some just plain awful moments, too.  He's getting so smart and understands everything we say, even if we're not talking to him.  He picks up on everything, so much, that I have started spelling words out so he doesn't know that we're talking about him.  Only a matter of time before that doesn't work anymore.  He still isn't talking, but he is saying more "words" and makes up signs for things that he wants to communicate.   He also now communicates when he's upset with those wonderful temper tantrums that start at this age.  I usually don't get mad when it happens, because, truthfully it's hard not to laugh at him when some tiny thing frustrates him and he starts rolling around on the floor in agony about whatever it is.  The things that cause these outbursts didn't used to affect him at all, so I know he's just being dramatic.  It usually happens when he can't figure out how to do something all by himself and doesn't want help with it.

But, for each occasional outburst, there are always many cute things he does to make up for them.  He is being such a sweet big brother to Camille and she just adores him, too.  If she is upset, he'll try to comfort her or give her her pacifier.  He's getting better about sharing toys - still a work in progress, but he's learning.   Camille loves to watch him and sometimes if she gets upset and he comes in the room, or where she can see him, she calms right down.

Well, that's the update for now.  I guess I should get back to Camille, whose 20 minutes are almost up in the exersaucer and she's starting to let me know it's time for me to entertain her again. :-)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

some days are just like that...(my children and their sudden mood swings)

Well, half of today was good, the other half, not so much.  Let's start with the good.  For lunch today, I took the kids with my mother-in-law to Chick-Fil-A, because we got word they had a really cool play area for young kids.  Sure enough, there was a play area in a separate room for only kids 3 and under and it was very clean - one of the rules said you couldn't even eat in the area.  They also had a case of antibacterial hand wipes right outside of it.  Paul had a blast once he figured out how to climb on everything.  Of course, he threw a fit when it was time to leave, but he had so much fun just being a monkey and Camille had fun watching him and the other kids from her car seat.  Not too much longer and she'll be in there with him!

Then, we came home in time for naps.  I got Camille down and then went to put Paul down and he threw a fit!  He screamed and cried for 45 minutes (totally out of character for him - he's usually an easy napper), and in that time Camille woke back up crying.  I fed her and then she continued to cry for probably 30-45 minutes until I put her in the "magic" swing and she fell back asleep again within 5 minutes of being in it.  I don't know what was wrong with the kids, but good grief, the screaming about drove me batty.  They finally just had to cry in separate rooms while I hid in the office for 5 minutes to escape.  I did everything I could to quiet them, but sometimes, you just have to let them cry it out - if you have kids, you know this to be true.  Eventually they did both sleep for about 45 minutes to an hour.  That was when I sent Paul a text asking him to bring home a bottle of wine...lol

Then, this evening, all of us had fun playing and dancing around.  I'm glad today ended on a high note, because it got rough there for a while.  But, such is the life with 2 under 2.  I love my kids, even in moments of insanity, and I still wouldn't trade my job. :-)

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

"Cheese Criminal" ... a Wal-Mart rant

So, there are many reasons why I despise Wal-Mart, unfortunately the one reason I like it - that being the obvious fact that they are the cheapest grocer around - tends to outweigh all other reasons for not shopping there.  So, unfortunately, I begrudgingly drag myself there each week for groceries, sometimes more than once in a week.  It seems it's inevitable that something will go wrong each time I go, yet, I just can't see spending more money some place else when Wal-Mart is maybe only a mile or two further from the house than our local grocer.

It seems most of the problems arise when I am using coupons.  I typically try to shop with some coupons when I go to the grocery, and today was no exception.  I haven't mastered saving 95% at the grocery, but hey $10-15 bucks off is nothing to scoff at.  So, today I ring up my items in the self check-out line and go to scan my coupons and my third coupon doesn't scan.  It's for $1 off a pack of extra sharp cheddar cheese slices.  So the older lady who watches over the self check-out lanes comes and takes my coupon from me and tries to look up the item on her computer to see if it's on my ticket.  She says she can't find it and wants to see the actual item.  So, I give it to her and she compares it to the coupon and I say "I got the sharp cheddar" (the coupon was for various types listed) and she said "The coupon says it's for extra sharp cheddar".  Oh, I'm sorry, I left off the "extra" in my description, so sue me.  So then another, younger, lady comes over to look and she prints out a copy of my ticket in which I have to point out to her that I did indeed scan the cheese before putting it in my cart.  Obviously, I'm not going to try to steal cheese and then try and use a coupon on it! (Hence the name of this post - cheese criminal).
Oh, and while this is taking place, the older lady then proceeds to tell me that I didn't scan the big bag of dog food that was under my cart.  I told her, yes, I did, I scanned it and then put it back under the cart and clicked the "do not bag" option on the screen.  She says this isn't on my ticket either...geez...really, do you think I'd try and sneak some free cheese (while attempting to use a coupon) and dog food or what?  Luckily the younger lady got everything cleared up for me and I was free to go, with my completely paid-for (minus coupon savings) groceries!