Oh Boy

Sammy is 2 months old this week. It's been a crazy wonderful few months. Things have sped up in some ways and slowed down in others. The weather (sans today) has been mild and nice and we've been getting out as much as possible. I finally broke down and bought a fantastic double jogger and it has given us mobility and freedom to move around so much more lately. I've decided to start training for the Provo River 10 mile race in June so having wheels is essential right now.

As far as home life goes, things are good but oh so frustrating. Every night I go to bed feeling like such a failure because little Eli is having such a hard time adjusting to having a brother around and Mommy is having a hard time adjusting to Eli' lack of adjustment. He is, to put is lightly, unmanageable. To be more direct, he is hell on wheels.

We worked really hard to get Eli out of his biting stage and thought we'd succeeded. But alas. it's come back with a vengeance and hardly a day goes by I don't end the evening with a few bite marks on my arms. Added to the biting now is his growingly unpredictable temper that manifests itself in all out physical meltdowns. When Eli gets frustrated with something and reaches his breaking point he just looses it and bites, kicks, hits, head butts and punches. I hate it. I never know when he might have one of these tantrums and I have to watch him like a hawk when he plays with other kids. He can be such an angel and such a good kid when he plays with his buddies but every so often he has one of his tantrums and it makes us, shall we say...unpopular in the play-date circuit?

Dan and I sat on the couch tonight shaking our heads after Eli went to sleep trying to make sense of our little whirling dervish. We both agreed that we have never felt more frustrated and at our wits end than we do right now with Eli. We love him. of course, more than anything else in the world but dealing with him on a day to day basis is getting so challenging.

To get a sense of what I'm up against here's a little sampling from the last few days of our stint with the terrible twos. Yesterday as I was putting Eli down for his nap I noticed a lump under his pillow and reached in and pulled out...yes...Dan's power drill. Yup...he was hiding it to try to make a break out from his room when I left. Horrifying. Today after I thought he'd been asleep in his room for about an hour I heard a loud noise and ran in to find that he'd pulled his closet door off. Then later today I was in in the car driving home from an appointment talking to my sister on my phone and happened to look in my rear view mirror in time to see Eli wiggling our of his car seat.

I told Dan tonight that I never get more than about 2-3 minutes of sitting down time in the house before Eli is into something. I've heard people say, "oh just ignore him when he's naughty and he'll soon stop". I ask then. how do ignore him when he's found my sewing scissors and is cutting up my bed spread? Or when he's dumping yogurt on the floor, or trying to hit his brother, or unfold two loads of clean laundry that I hadn't put away yet....or the other ten thousand things that keep my on my toes and off the couch every day?

Anyway, I apologize for the ranting. I love my little boy so much. I just hate that I loose my patience with him so often. It's the worst things I've ever had to deal with. Today when I raised my voice at him after the 3rd time of going into his room when he was supposed to be napping to find him emptying his drawers he looked at me and said, "Mommy...mad." It broke my heart to know he can recognize when I'm reaching the apex of my temper. Poor kid. I'm just a novice mommy. It's going to take some time to get passed this learning curve.