our first day back

today was my first day back to my normal (or previously normal) routine with my boys - just the three of us. i know that i am so so blessed to have a husband who is a teacher. teaching may not be rewarded with the biggest salary monetarily, but you can't beat the time off! i have had ben home, being a co-parent throughout the day since the beginning of july, and it has been great. not that we haven't had parenting struggles, but obviously it's completely different to go about your day with another adult there, helping out with the kids, and talking to you. i think i have taken the adult conversation for granted.

today was great in many ways. even though i had to get up early, finn came in and snuggled with me in bed for the last thirty minutes until we got up. i made pancakes and had a good breakfast with them. we had some chill time watching a bearenstein bears dvd from the library, and even a little outdoors time before the sun was baking us. then things got bad. sometimes i feel like i am truly going to lose it with nolan. it's so weird as a mom to feel so much love for someone, but then such intense frustration! ugh. he's just at that age. i really think that's a big part of it, and being a boy. i have never lived with an almost four year old boy, and it just seems like they have no gauge for annoyance/noise/rudeness. and then there is the seemingly-never ending whining! i don't mean to sound ungrateful, but these faults seem so much more compounded now that ben is gone, and when i tried to vent, ben was grumpy with me, thinking i was just complaining. i have a few theories on why nolan may seem harder/more annoying now: 1) i have less of a temper, and when ben is home, he steps into disciplinarian mode, while i am more calm. when he's gone, i am disciplining more and 2) there is no other adult to commiserate with when i am alone and nolan acts like a brat! sometimes nolan will literally communicate solely in whine for a long time, so i will show him how he sounds. this usually causes him to examine his behavior and change for like 5 minutes. today we had a talk about how "actions speak louder than words" because nolan always acts like he is so so sorry, but doesn't back that up with his behavior following up.

i am in new territory in my parenting now. how do you deal with this little ball of energy when it is 100 degrees outside? play dates always help, and i know that in two short weeks, school will start back up for nolan, and that should help a lot, but it was one tough day. i think he did like 4 time outs.