Find Kardus

We have two pirates in the Basham household.  Jumping monkey-on-the-bed-pirates actually.  These are their "Aaaarrg!" faces.  

This is what we did tonight instead of going to swim lessons since it was raining.  Swim lessons have improved, though, since the first two nights.  Nights 3 and 4 went a lot better with Lily.  Not sure if it was the ice cream bribe Joel used on night 3 that helped her turn the corner or what.  Whatever the reason, she participated and it wasnt a 30 minute cry fest so that was nice.  Unfortunately, were likely to miss out on the entire second week.  Between tonights rain and the next two days with a high of only 70 degrees, outdoor swim lessons arent looking favorable.  Bummer.  

Even after all that cuteness pictured above, Im in a funk from bedtime which is currently wearing me and Joel the hell out.  A few weeks ago, we came up with a new rule that we need to alternate putting each kid to bed - to get away from me always doing Lily and Joel always doing Tyler.  

Well, the kids do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT appreciate this rule.  They both usually melt down, scream, cry, hit, kick, run for the other parent, throw things, refuse to brush teeth or pick up toys.  You name it, we experience it.  It is miserable.  I keep thinking, surely tonight will be better with no drama.  Surely tonight, Lily will just willing go to bed and let Joel read to her.  Nope.  We should not dread bedtime just because its my turn to read to Tyler and Joels turn to read to Lily.  This is a tough battle to want to continue to fight.  Its one of those things that you KNOW it would just be easier to just go back to the way it was before - we were a well oiled machine.  But I felt like I was missing a huge part of Tylers development because so much gets shared at that one on one story time (well at least it should if we werent so busy dealing with tantrums.....).  I know well get past this, but man, I wish this storm would just hurry up already.

With all of that griping I should recognize that we are coming off of a really nice weekend where the kids were well behaved like 90% of the time - pretty remarkable stats I think!

Oh and there was this really cute conversation today:

Lily:  Mommy, did you go to your new job today?

Me:  Yep I did!

Lily:  Well I went to my new job too!

Me:  You did?!  What do you do at your job?

Lily:  I play with babies.

Me:  Oh, thats great!  Do you color?  

Lily:  Yep. 

Me:  Do you sing songs?

Lily:  Nooooooo.  Well maybe just a little bit of songs.

Me:  Do you watch movies?

Lily:  Oh yes!  We watch lots of movies at my work.

Me:  It sounds like you have the best job EVER!

Lily:  Yep.

Ok, now theres only a little of the funk left.  Good thing I have enough points left over tonight for cookies to completely eliminate the remainder of the funk.