What Am I Thinking!?

Not posting for so many days!? It's been a crazy week, but I also haven't felt very blogose.
However, I have some great news. We are now officially only buying one size of diapers. Ben just suddenly decided it was time. I kept being hesitant in believing he was trained, but I think the true proof is in when he stops to go to the bathroom while playing outside, and at restuarants, and in the play area at the mall. Or when he says to a van full of older kids and adults, "Everybody here goes poop and pee in the toilet now!" Or when he pushes the trashcan in the bathroom at McDonalds over to the sink so he can wash his hands, because his mom is busy chatting and doesn't even realize he's left the play structure to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I think it's safe to say he's trained.

I watched my friend's little 16 month old daughter all day Tuesday. We went over there since I vainly thought my kids would sleep anywhere, and better to keep the little girl in her element and let my kids adjust. Avery spent the entire attempted hour of nap singing, crying, with intermittent yelling that I am certain she was calling me names, and was undoubtedly saying, "are you kidding me lady? This is NOT my bed, NOT my dark closet, and you will NOT be bragging about my sleeping versitility to anyone." Break for song. What I was interested to learn was that my precious little peanut is not only michevious, but a little bit of an antagonizer. Sweet little, twice her size, 16 month old Reagan tolerated Avery's tyranting, then decided she need to let others know about it, and then finally started to hold her own with my little princess bully. I don't think Avery is innately a bully, I think she's just learned certain behaviors from Ben. Or so I will tell myself.

In the meantime, I am grateful to not have stairs in my house. I could not keep her off the stairs and she booked up them in record time, as though to get as much stair climbing under her belt as possible, before I snatched her away to "safety". Inititally I had a lot of patience with her fascination with the stairs. That was until I saw her dart off from the play area to the stairs, stop just in front of them and look back to see if I was coming after her. I didn't let her see me watching her, and she just waited, peeking her head around the bend to see if I was coming. After watching her peer around the corner at me for a minute or so, taunting me with her little dimpled legs set to zip off at moment's notice, I got up. Then and only then, did she dart up the stairs. I imagine she had some thought process like this, "Okay, okay, Oprah's on, the kids are playing loudly, mom's definitely not going to notice, on 3 I'm making a break for it. One...twooooo......THREE! Run Avery, run, you can do it! Fyoosh, I made it without her saying anything. Okay, now I'm here, let's see, I wonder how far up these stairs I could get before she grabs me. Hmm, I think I'll make this interesting, I'll even wait until she sees me and then I'll dash---that will be the real challenge. Just propelling my 27 inch body up these stairs at lightening speed for kicks is getting boring. Oh! Here she comes.... AHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!"

Jay has been home all week, but will resume his rigorous schedule of traveling next week. He's actually been working from home for the last two days and I'm one of those people you give an inch, I'll take the entire distance of Texas. "Hey Jay, the baby is sleeping, would it be okay if I just take Ben and run to the bank, I'll be back in five minutes?" An hour and a half later, I call from Target, "Could you debone and skin the chicken on the counter, cut up some potatos and season them with that marinade, the recipe for the marinade is in the recipe box and you'll have to actually churn the butter for the marinade because it's just better that way. Oh yeah, and there are two half finished thank-you notes on the counter, could you finish writing them and walk them to the mailbox? Make sure Avery's diaper is changed and she's had 2 servings of veggies and 1 protein and at least 3 oz of water. I'll be home soon, kiss kiss!"
Maybe Jay LIKES traveling.

I got an exercise ball and a video called "Core Secrets" and did it the other day. I was on the gigantic exercise ball and Ben did the exercises right alongside me on his oversized purple ball from Wal-mart. I loved exercising with Ben. For the first time in all the times I have worked out with someone, I was the more coordinated one. Anyway, it was an awesome workout. Relatively easy, as far as manuevering, but quite a work-out, muscularly. I think Jay secretly rolled his eyes (in his head) when I said how sore I was the next day, because he saw me doing parts of the workout, and it LOOKS really easy. He did it TWO days ago and guess who can hardly haul his hind end off the computer chair without loud groans of "agony"? Yep. Love that validation.