Monday, August 27, 2007

I am a bad blogger







Oh boy, it has been awhile since my last confession. I guess because things have been pretty smooth going, hate to rock the boat with a jinx. I keep writing these posts in my head, but never seem to have the time to write them-ughh. It is dinner time now and have to go make something for the kids. Here are a few pics for the weekend. We had some great family time-love that!!!

Monday, August 6, 2007

Train "wreck, DUI, and lot's of pictures


A cone flower at the end of it's season. Will soon become a treat for the finches-my favorite birds to watch.





If you don't already have a butterfly bush in your yard-plant one!!!




Princess Ella-she couldn't possibly be a bully??-read on!

This little "Bambi" was on the edge of our yard under close watch from Mommy. Fuzzy cuz I took the pic through the slider not wanting to scare it.




Not often you see a blimp fly over your house. Assuming this was for the Firestone Golf Tournament in Akron-Way to go Tiger Woods!!!

















The "tomato jungle" as Ella likes to call it. We must be picking 5-10 different tomatoes a day-Cherry, Roma and Beef steak-yummy!!!


This post was really supposed to be all about me tooting my own horn. My acceptance speech so to speak. Knowing full well the two people reading this would want to award me with something for figuring out why Ella has been sooooo unhappy lately and making her happy again. After all, isn't going above and beyond to meet our children's needs award worthy?-ha ha!! Anyways, I had mentioned in a previous post that I have been having a very tough time with Ella. I have been making sure she is included in everything lately, especially if it involves whatever I am doing with Evan. On Saturday's we have been leaving in the morning when Evan takes his nap and doing lot's of fun Mommy-Ella things. Shopping, fancy haircut, lunch, feeding ducks-etc. She is like a little ball of sunshine during this time and that is when it hit me like a ton of bricks. She really just needs some one on one, undivided, Evan free attention. When Evan turned one, about two weeks later he started walking. Everyone was ooohing and ahhhhing over all of Evan's accomplishments and hanging on his every babble and word. I really think he just stole some of Ella's thunder. So I have been working hard on this with her and noticed a HUGE difference in her.

So this brings me to this past Friday. Ella woke up happy, and she is NOT a morning person. We had a nice morning and went outside and played together while Evan napped. When he woke up, Ella begged me to go to the playroom at the gym. I actually hadn't planned on working out that day, but was so pleased that she wanted to go there and had made such a quick adjustment to this as part of our new routine, I said, "yes". As we headed to the gym we got stopped for a crossing train. This was sooooo exciting for both kids. Ella must have asked me a million questions about the train. "Are there people inside"? Is the person driving the train and man or a women"? "What makes the train go"? and so on and so on. Evan was pointing and doing his excited ooooh's over the train. I was glad we got to sneak in a little learning experience in route. I dropped the kids off at the playroom and it was the first time where Evan did not shed a tear-I was relieved. I worked out for about 30 minutes and then went to get the kids. I took one look at Evan and he looked like he got beat up. I seriously gasped when I saw him. I then look over at Ella who is looking back at me sheepishly. I said to the daycare guy, "How did they do"? He said, " Fine, but Ella wasn't being very nice to Evan today and pushed him on the slide". So in my mind I conjured up a scenario that Evan must have been on the slide and Ella gave a push to get him down it and he must have fallen and got hurt. There is NO WAY my child would hurt her brother on purpose-right?!? I had to ask Ella to come over to me 3 times before she finally did, she knew she as in trouble. She looked at me and said, "Sorry I hit Evan in the eye and on the head Mommy, but he bonked me first on the head with a ball". WHAT did she just say???? Is this my daughter saying this right now??? I asked the guy that worked there if she hit her brother, and he replied in a very vague manor, "Not that I saw, I just saw her push him on the slide and then he fell". We walked out and I asked her again what happened and she gave me the same response with tears this time. She also said she pushed him on the slide. Evan had a swollen eye with a little scratch on it and a little scratch and the making of a small bruise on his forehead. He falls constantly and is a climber so cuts, and bruises are the norm for him, but this looked worse. I told her she would have to go to her room when we got home and talked to her a bit about her behavior and my disappointment. She sobbed like I have never ever heard her sob before. She must have said, "I am sorry" to me and to Evan 5 million times on the way home. She sobbed the whole way home and then in her room for about 20 minutes-the longest she has ever been in a timeout. We talked and talked about it over and over for the remainder of the day and then some more when Daddy got home. I really felt like she "got it". Saturday-had a great day at the pool and dinner pool side with Greg and the kids. Loads of family time fun!!! We were all being silly and playing in the family room and Ella gives Evan a swift push right in front of Greg and I, and Evan bonks his head on the floor. I felt sheer anger rip through me, but I calmly picked her up and carried her to her room. She hysterically cried in a timeout once again. She sat in there for about 15 minutes because it was bedtime, and then I sat on the bed with her and had basically the same talk I had with her the day prior. Greg and I talked quite a bit about this behavior. All I can say is that it makes me sooo sad. You can't help but put it back on yourself as a parental failure. Somewhere I am going wrong??? I always thought aggression was a learned behavior. We have never ever spanked in our home, and Greg and I have a very loving marriage-so that theory has to go out the window a bit. Greg feels I am over analyzing it all and that she is just a 3 year old getting frustrated by her baby brother and quickly reacting with aggression instead of using her words. I hope he is right...back to the drawing board of trying to figure out how to keep the peace and keep them both happy. That concludes my "train wreck" of a story.

As I was on my way to pick Ella up at camp I saw a man getting a DUI or DWI-not sure the real difference. Anyways, it appeared they had just finished the field sobriety test that he failed as they cuffed him. I was at a red light watching this, in case you wondered. I began to shake my head in that Mom tssk tssk sort of way, and then I reminded myself of the numerous friends and people I know that have had DUI's. All back in the day, but that doesn't really matter. It is so different now looking at it through a Mom's eye's though. I can't say that I am much better than that man, I can think of many times where I was drunk and got in the car with a drunk friend and was not sober or coherent enough to find harm in that. Does that make me an enabler of sorts? As a Mom, I couldn't help but let my mind think about the "would ifs". Would if that man would have crashed into me with Evan in tow had the police not stopped him, etc. How sad that it takes being a Mom to realize I was just as much at fault as my friends who actually drove drunk, because I was an irresponsible drunk passenger. Luckily no one was hurt and he was cuffed and stuffed by the time I had picked up Ella and was on my way home with both kids safe and sound.

Have a wonderful Day-
Brooke

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Summer flowers and bugs:





Ella having fun
chasing butterflies


I love to take pictures. I have lot's to learn about photography and swear someday I will take a class. For now it is just fun to take millions of pics and delete the one's that suck! My kids and nature are my favorite things in the whole world to photograph. If pics of other people's kids and flowers and bugs bore you to death then time to move onto another blog.