Somebody check my brain.

There's a lot in there and I need to get it out in a somewhat-organized way. During our weekend with the kids, Denielle and I had some really good talks. One of those was figuring out how we each respond to the kids differently. OK, I lied; it was all about Miss S.

Her behavior can be described as Chinese water torture. It's like laying on your back and having a slow but constant drip on your chest. At first, it's no big deal. After 10 minutes or so, it's getting pretty annoying. An hour into it and it feels like there's a hole being dug into your chest. Well, the difference between D and me is that she only feels 2 or 3 out of 10 drips but I feel every one of them. Consequently I get very irritated very quickly. And when D doesn't notice it but she notices my attitude and behavior change, she doesn't understand why I'm ready to hand them off to a babysitter every day.

The other thing is that we understand and implement concepts very differently. If we were both sprinters, we could best be described this way: I'm the sprinter who takes 10 times longer to stretch out than everybody else, but when that gun goes off, I'm down the track like a laser towards the finish line. Denielle, on the other hand, stretches a little, gets right into the blocks, and takes off at the sound of the gun. BUT, she doesn't run a straight line and she won't get to the previously-decided-upon finish line, but she'll get close.

All that to say, she's very good at improv and seeing things that make Miss S tick. I'm good at seeing the details and understanding how Miss S needs to have things explained to her. It's very frustrating for the other person to watch what's going on, but that's where trust comes in. We're learning to do that more.

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On another note, she LOOOOOVVVVES gymnastics. She's only been twice but her smile is plastered on for the entire hour she's there and I think she's even getting a couple friends. We're really excited to see her put energy and enthusiasm into this. Hopefully it continues.

She's also getting very good at riding her bike. We've been practicing her riding in the street and then pretending a car is coming so she gets used to getting up on the sidewalk or into a driveway.

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Lil C is getting much better with his words too. He has a speech therapist come to the house every week and she's making big strides with him. It's cool for us too because then we know what to expect and we can reinforce during the week what she teaches him during the lesson.

We're also trying to potty train him. It's about 50/50 at this point. Sometimes he sits down and goes and sometimes nothing.

One thing we're getting a heavy dose of is daycare reality. I thought we had picked a pretty good one with pretty good teachers. They may be comparatively speaking, but I've seen plenty of things to know that I wish he could be home with us all day. One day a couple weeks ago, he was playing by himself with a shovel and a kid came up with a bucket and stole his shovel. The teacher told Lil C to go get it back. He looked confused so she said it again. Then he looked at me. I had nothin' for him. So he went and stole it back from that kid. Then she told him to run away...so he did. I was shocked. First of all, there was no teaching there; just an eye for an eye. Second, there were 2 more shovels within 5' of both kids when it was first stolen. The attitudes there are very concerning. It's all about "I'm gonna get mine."

I think I'm done for now. I'm trying to update this thing but it's tough to get on it every couple days. Hopefully I can stay on top of it a little better this week.