Happy Thursday! I am still hanging with the nephews, but I’m also working today, which means I am chained to my laptop sitting on the couch. So I can write blog posts!
Nephew B is 11 months and in the midst of stranger danger/separation anxiety. He is a charming and delightful baby so long as “Mommy” is within arms length. He is a freakin’ NIGHTMARE when she is out of the room. This adds an extra complexity because Nephew A, being in a strange new place, needs some extra one on one Mommy time. So we have to hold a heartbroken tormented baby for half hour stretches while Nephew A and Mommy get their precious one on one time.
(this is nephew B, crawling like an arrow to the couch where Mommy is laying down and trying to get some sleep)
Nephew A also has a lot of energy. Did you know 3 year olds have a lot of energy? They do! Yesterday, for example, he played with a rocket toy, went swimming, went to the library and a bakery, got 3 new toys, had a 3 hour nap, went on a motorboat, had a tantrum at the dinner table, and then was up sobbing and slamming doors for two hours at bedtime. This is as much activity as I do in a week! And he did it all in one day!
My Mom/their Granny’s first priority before the kiddos arrived was getting hook and eye locks on every outside door, and boy was that needed! Nephew A spends much of the day pushing on doors to see if they open so he can go off and explore the world. So far, he hasn’t found one open, but he keeps trying. What a fun game!
We are at the lake house, which means you just need one open door to go run run run right into the lake. We are trying to enforce two rules for outside play, 1. you have to wear pants, and 2. you have to wear your life jacket with all the buckles buckled. Originally there was a third rule, that you have to wear shoes, but we let that one go.
(peacefully playing with Car Carrier in the yard, but wearing a life jacket just in case because the lake is RIGHT THERE. And Car Carrier has expressed interest in making a Big Splash many times)
I am cutting Nephew A a lot of slack because this whole experience is very traumatic. On day 2 he mentioned something about “the house where we used to live” so we made a paper chain to help him understand that this isn’t his Forever home, it’s just for 6 days. He will see his normal toys and normal bed and friends and everything again. But he is still sort of working on the whole concept of travel and visiting and things that aren’t forever.
(distraction helps, thus the many many many amazing new toys being constantly deployed. Check out this air rocket! It’s just a plastic tube with a Styrofoam rocket stuck on the end, you stomp on the plastic bag attached to the tube and the burst of air shoots the rocket all the way higher than the house)
Nephew B is also working on this concept of course, but more in terms of “when you can’t see Mommy, it doesn’t mean she is Gone Forever, she will come back”. We keep explaining to him but he doesn’t believe us and cries and cries and cries. Being a baby is very hard.
(and he is too tiny for any of the fun Nephew A distraction activities. Look how tiny Nephew A is in this boat, Nephew B would just be a dot)
So, that’s what I’ve been doing since Sunday! My hair is dirty, my clothes are stained, I am so tired all the time, but it’s been a BLAST.
Now, you ask me the Monday questions and tell me your Wednesday Watching things and so on.
