What a Morning!

I've had two busy days of babysitting. Monday after my appointment, we had Eva over. Her presence reminds me just how much more demanding a toddler is than a baby. She's about 10 months old and is so great at entertaining herself. When Izey went down for his nap, she played with toys in the hallway for about 30 minutes while I cleaned up the kitchen and unloaded groceries. Isaac would never let me do that these days! Here's a pic of Izey and Eva having "music time." It was a rare moment that Isaac allowed Eva to keep an instrument in her hands longer than 0.5 seconds.

This morning (Tuesday) we had Kalea over, and I almost tore my hair out. Kalea was almost perfect (although she did subtly taunt him by playing with his toys right in front of his face), but my sweet son turned into a terror. As soon as she got here, he got all protective of his stuff and screamed bloody murder every time Kalea touched a toy. Then, every time I blinked, he was getting into stuff he knew he wasn't supposed to--things he's left alone for months until today. It's easier to just make a list of everything I caught Isaac doing:

1. digging in the fireplace
2. pinching Kalea's face (because she took a toy from him)
3. digging in the cat food
4. throwing playdoh
5. eating playdoh
6. throwing crayons
7. throwing paper
8. dumping food at every meal
9. throwing forks
10. stealing Kalea's food
11. licking Kalea's shoes
    
12. digging in the cat litter (UGH! gross!)
13. climbing on top of the kitchen table

After the last two, I had reached my wit's end. Time outs weren't working for either of us, and every time I told Isaac "no" he took it as a challenge to do it again and again. I put Isaac in his crib and closed the door while I vacuumed up the mess he had made around the table. It took about two minutes, and he was sad, sad, sad. Then we put in an Elmo video so I could sit down and put my feet up. I was having too many contractions trying to keep up with Tasmanian Devil. It was the rest and distraction we all needed.

After watching Elmo, Isaac and Kalea were in totally goofy moods. This video says it all, and this kind of play lasted no less than 45 minutes. I literally sat, watched, and laughed along with them. It was great! (In case you can't tell, that's a swimmy diaper--hee hee.)