Our silly children

Brendan

Oh, Brendan. My fellow mommy bloggers have hit the nail on the head with recent posts. Brendan is a perfect angel at school and then will not listen to a word you say when he gets home. Yes he is very sweet with Kaylee and I couldn't ask for a better relationship between those two. But if I hear him "I said no" one more time, I might spontaneously combust. Seriously, he's been on my last nerve for a month or so. The other point that a fellow mommy made was how it's amazing that these two precious kiddos you love so much can also make you madder than you've ever been. Brendan also has absolutely no interest in potty training and yet we keep trying. So now we're trying to make a push and be more consistent and just grin and bear the accidents. I stole an idea from a friend. I have a jar and poker chips to reward good behavior with and decided 10 was a good number to reach in order to redeem for whatever prize. He's earned one so far. I also put up a poster next to his potty and showed him the stickers he'll get if he goes peepee or poopoo IN the potty. He has zero so far. I started both of these systems today. I'll keep y'all posted.

Kaylee

My great eater! She loves trying new stuff. She actually tried a bite of spaghetti the other night and liked it but then wouldn't take another bite. Hopefully I will make the transition to real food better than I did with Brendan. She actually didn't give up jar food completely. She still eats all of her fruit from jars. And she likes the Beechnut 2.5 foods which have textures and mix a fruit and veggie. Great for when I'm feeling lazy and don't wanna cut up "real" veggies for her. She eats green beans, carrots, squash, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and hot dogs! I did have a temporary lapse in memory as to what she could have last month and gave her a couple of bites of eggs which she loved. Hopefully she'll still like them when she CAN eat them soon. Kaylee is walking more and more. She still prefers crawling for the moment. She is my daredevil! She has climbed up on things a bunch recently. In fact, I'm watching her debate whether to climb up on their little table right now. Kaylee is also getting very attached to me recently. To the point that when Daddy came with me to pick them up from school (for the first time this school year, cause of work) she pitched a fit when he picked her up instead of me. That's the other thing she's recently acquired is the ability to pitch fits. She is good at it too. Been watching her brother. I've even seen her slap her leg when she gets mad (like he still does). She makes the funniest faces. She is so expressive. She still HATES having her feet covered. Which includes shoes and socks. When I take her shoes off after school, she starts rolling her feet. Cracks me up every time. Kaylee is liking school but her poor class is always crying when I drop her off so she almost always cries when I leave too. I think tooth 5 and 6 are about to make their appearances. They're top teeth so she has been chewing on everything and biting. In fact she bit my big toe while I was typing this. I think the phrases I say the most to her are "don't push those buttons" (talking about the TV receiver) and "don't be mean to the kitty". Our poor cat puts up with a LOT of abuse from Kaylee and usually doesn't bite or scratch her. I'm amazed.

We got a visit from Uncle Matthew a couple of weeks ago. So awesome. He brought his girlfriend Julie and one of her daughters, Lilly. Lilly is two so both of the kids had a great time playing with her. But after watching Kaylee with her, I'm wondering who is beating up on her at school. She kept pushing Lilly! Lilly was adorable. She talks circles around Brendan (he's getting better all the time with that) and her favorite word was "Huh?", said in a very high-pitched voice. Too cute. We all went to the zoo one day which was a lot of fun. Brendan's favorite animal that day was the Komodo dragon, or lizard as he kept calling him. Lilly's favorite were the monkeys and we saw lots of those. The Houston zoo has an entire area dedicated to monkeys and then they've just opened an area called The African Forest that has more monkeys. I don't think Kaylee liked the zoo too much. She was just mad that she kept getting left in the stroller. And then when we stopped to play on the playground in the Children's zoo, she fell and cut her head. Poor baby. We also rode the train at Hermann Park next door. That was nice and relaxing. Brendan was really excited but mad that we didn't buy any trains in the gift shop that we had to enter and exit through to get to the train (so dumb!). I was rather perturbed that the price for the train is the same no matter what age you are. I had to pay $3 for each of us.

I don't know how zoo memberships work elsewhere, but at the Houston zoo, you have to have named adults on the membership. So Grandma and Nana can't take the kids (for free) unless they're one of the named adults because they check IDs. There is one level that we're looking at that we might be able to make it to where everyone can take the kiddos. But I gotta call and ask about the wording. The lower levels say "two named adults and 3 or 5 children or grandchildren", the level I'm looking at says "three named adults and up to 7 additional guests". To me, that sounds like I could put me, Grandma, and Nana as the named adults and then whichever combination of Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and kids could also get in. And since Nana and Papaw will have four grandchildren as of the end of next month, this would be nice. Also, I love how I got the membership thinking we could go to one of the fun events like Breakfast with the Animals, only to discover that the tickets were almost as much per person (again no discount for children) as the membership cost! Ridiculous.

Now that I've rambled on forever, I'll stop. The kiddos are doing awesome and I'm loving the opportunity to spend more time with them. And even though they don't always show it, I think they love it too.