summer tuesdays

Things have been busy here since summer started, with schedules changing a bit. This week is hot and humid. I opened a window this morning to let cooler air in, and immediately closed it again because it wasn't any better outside. I also haven't written in a while because I feel like almost every day is a battle with the kids. I guess we still have a while to go before we're free from the whining, yelling and tantruming stages they're both in at once. It's really fun. It's also very frustrating because Celia and Henry are perfect angels whenever we go out anywhere. They're angels at school and daycare. They are perfectly lovely (most of the time) when we have them one-on-one. But put them together, and bam! Instant fighting, whining, tantruming. And in my mind, the bad behavior overpowers everything else and I'm just exhausted. I can't always enjoy the good moments because I'm exhausted from the yelling and crying that happened earlier, and I'm waiting for the next round to begin. Anyway... Yesterday I had both kids at home. I knew it would be good to get them out of the house so we made an early trip to Target. Then we went to Debi's house because one of the daycare dads is a firefighter and was bringing a fire truck for the kids to see. We even went for a ride. 

So that was fun, and then we went home to play in the sprinkler. I thought this would be a fun activity that wouldn't lead to fighting. I was wrong, of course. I'm not sure if they had a good time or not, since they would be having fun one minute and then whining, yelling, or fighting the next. Ridiculous. It took fifteen minutes just to get them ready to go out. Celia had a full on, kicking around on the floor tantrum because she didn't want to wear the bathing suit I had for her. Isn't 5 1/2 way too old for that? And I call myself a child development expert... So she had a time out, which is the only way to demonstrate to her that her behavior really does need to stop, and we finally made it outside. 

We had lunch, Henry cried/fake cried for a half hour in his room instead of napping, we watched a couple tv shows to have some down time, and Chris was home so we went to eat dinner at Wegman's. The kids were happy as clams when we were out, of course. 

We went home and they rode their bikes for a while, and got ready for bed. The past two evenings we've gone for a walk/ride after dinner and it's nice. I push Henry on his tricycle and he tries to pedal a little, and Chris helps Celia with her bike. So, we ended up all surviving the day unscathed (except for Mommy's nerves- ha!) and we will live to see more days just like it.