We Needed This

On Monday, Brian and I had a rough day at work. He was getting into everything and driving me batty. The worst part of the day was when I was snapping at him over something and a preschool parent walked in to ask me a question. I felt like saying, "I really am nice to children. I really do like them....just not my own at the moment." Ah! I felt terrible for letting his "terrible twos" get the best of me.

I was relaying this story, and the details of my day, to one of my teachers and she gave me the best advice I have heard in a while. She said, "Maria, you have to realize that we expect more from our own children than we do of others. Brian is two. You are expecting a 2 year old to basically self entertain for 3 hours a day. That's a long time and a lot to expect." She wasn't being mean, or reprimanding me. Just giving me some advice as a mother.

And I heard her.

Tuesday, we took breaks. We went on a walk on the ridge at church and I showed Brian the newly installed outdoor stations of the cross. He pointed out the picture of "Jesus" at each station.

We went on another walk with the kids later on and saw Father Jeff.

After our daily drop off at the Banta house, we went to the park for about a half an hour.

We went on our Tuesday "date" for pizza at LaRosas.

And tumbling was a joyful event. Brian listened. He didn't run all over the place the whole time. I wasn't exhausted after it was over.

It was a good day.

Tuesday night Brian invented a new game. His version of "football." This entails me or Shawn wearing the football helmet, Brian wearing his Bengals cap, and an orange and black nerf football. The basics are:

1. We hold the ball in place so he can kick it.
2. He retrieves the ball and throws it to one of us (the one wearing the helmet).
3. He tackles the parent wearing the helmet.
4. He commands the parent wearing the helmet to "get up" so the game can be repeated.

Occasionally he wants us to tackle him. We know this is the case because he runs off with the ball. And Ruben wants to play too. He can't leave us alone during the game. Brian spends half of the time telling Ruben to "go to bed."

Hi-larious.

And then yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch. We were outside the whole morning. Brian spent lots of time in the dirt. It drove me crazy. But he had fun. And he's a boy. And he's two. So I realize there is going to be dirt involved.

The best part is, we get to go back today! That's a fringe benefit to having a mommy who runs a preschool. There are two classes, so all of the cool things we get to do, we get to do two days in a row.

On a side note, last night Brian got a hold of my phone last night. He figured out the voice activation. Sort of. It kept asking him who he wanted to call and he would yell, "Call Dada." (Shawn was at class.) It would respond, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understood, call Shawn?" And he would yell, "Call Dada." Then it would ask him if he wanted to call someone else, and he would yell, "Call Dada." He's pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.