This was a rough weekend for me and I have reached a level of exhaustion that I haven’t felt in a while. This is what the past 5 weekends have looked like here:
1 – Feb 25-26 – Scott hurt his back and it was basically a solo parenting weekend for me.
2 – Mar 3-4 – Scott had National Guard, more solo parenting.
3 – Mar 10-11 – I spent Saturday morning with the kids and then left for Germany. I was gone for 5 nights and got less than 4 hours of sleep 3 of those nights. Returned home to a sick child.
4 – Mar 17-18 – Ruslan had strep throat. Scott had a stomach bug and spent 90% of the weekend in bed, more solo parenting.
5 – That brings us to this weekend and Scott was at Startup Weekend Pittsburgh – Friday night, all day Saturday, all day Sunday
When I am home alone with the kids, it is nearly impossible for me to do anything productive. I love when the people with perfect houses say things like it only takes five minutes to throw in a load of wash or sweep a floor. Believe me I would love to get stuff done around the house on the weekend. But in the 5 minutes I leave the boys unsupervised, they can do damage that takes a half hour to clean up and while I am cleaning up they have moved on to make more trouble. I had no idea how easy of a child Juliana was when she was a toddler – the difference between her and the boys at this age is night and day.
Recently the boys are playing together more which is great! I love watching them interact and make each other laugh and occasionally they even share toys. Unfortunately this new found skill is being put to use to work together to make trouble even faster. Yesterday while I went upstairs to start their bath, they found the box of Capri-Sun and took two out of the box. They hid under the kitchen table (a sure sign they knew they were being bad) and managed to get the straws in and were happily drinking. My guess is that Wyatt is the one who managed to insert the straws for both of them – working together.
While they were eating their morning snack at the kitchen table today, I took the opportunity to use the restroom and I was only gone for a few minutes. In that time they got a stool and took turns standing on it to reach the water dispenser on the fridge, filling cups with water and throwing the water in the air. There were puddles all over the kitchen floor and their clothes were soaked. We were about to leave the house and instead I had change their clothes and clean-up the water. I also took a minute to learn how to lock the fridge dispenser – hold the lock button for 3 seconds to lock and 3 seconds to unlock – an extra 6 seconds for every fill-up now.
Trouble isn’t limited to messes, they still love to climb…another reason for continual adult supervision.
Thank God I’m not alone. I was worried my boys were the only ones being dinks like this with the climbing and mischief when I turn my head. I’ve all but given up trying to get any work done at home while the wife picks up shifts when she can.
I love when either parents with the golden child or people without kids try to understand what it’s like when you have 2 or more masterminds at work here. These boys think as a team and while you’re taking the brunt of it now you know that in the future they’ll be a great duo.
Now I know why my brother and I are 18 years apart. Hang in there!
Glad to see we have the same taste in sleepware also
Oh my goodness! Those last two pictures plus an exclamation point clearly share the concept and gravity of this post. Yikes! Good luck with those boys!
It has to be a boy thing. I can’t take my eyes off of Ben for a minute before he’s gone. Thank goodness Katie is a class A tattle-tale, it has saved my butt more than once!
It’s not just boys. When my sister was a toddler, she never stopped moving. I remember one particular day that she barely survived. (My mothers wrath that is.) She was two years old. First she painted the organ keys with red nail polish then she colored in the pictures in the encyclopedia. Next she spilled an entire bottle of dish soap under the sink…while my mom was on hands and knees cleaning it up, my sister walked over and bit her on the bottom causing mom to hit her head on the pipes. After spending the next hour in time out, she came into the kitchen carrying the hook from a christmas ball. When she smiled her entire mouth sparkled from the glass ball. After a visit to ER saying they couldn’t pump her stomach because it would cut her up on the inside, they told us to ride it out. So for the next few days her poop was very colorful and shiny. We had many such days.
i don’t know how you do it!