My Two Kids, “No” and ‘Sit Down”

That’s probably what I’m going to have to change their names to. I mean, I called them those things yesterday more than their actual names! Let me back up. This was not my favorite weekend. We started it off with a trip to the pool Saturday morning. We decided to walk there – something we have never done (yeah, we normally drive – but it’s usually so hot to walk!) Zachary rode his bike and we put Liam & all our stuff in the wagon & we were off. We got to the pool & it wasn’t too crowded. Zachary wanted to put on his Spiderman swim gear that he had gotten for his birthday. We told him he could put it on as soon as he jumped in. We were there for about an hour & a half and he is so stubborn that he decided that he’d rather not get in the pool AT ALL than to jump in. So Josh & I played with Liam in the pool while Zachary just sat in a chair in the shade & never got to even look at his Spiderman stuff. I don’t know what his issue was but I’m pretty sure I had smoke coming out of my head by the time we left. On the way back Josh was pulling the wagon & they were a little ahead of Zachary & me – I noticed Liam sort of swaying back & forth. I called up to Josh & asked if Liam was falling asleep. Next thing I knew he just went face first into the pile of towels in front of him. Poor guy – he gets so wiped out & can fall asleep in an instant. I mean, we were literally just a few hundred feet from the pool when this happened. I did get a few pictures of him sleeping, but, no surprise here, I have not uploaded yet.

Then yesterday morning we were trying to get ready for church. Zachary has been able to dress himself for a little while, but he just normally doesn't. He says “I don’t know how to do it” or “I can’t do it”, so we just help him out. However, it’s getting to the point where we’re thinking he really needs to do some things for himself. Like getting dressed. He managed to get his shorts on by himself, but then everything broke down when it came time to put his shirt on. He was going to be wearing a polo-style shirt, and he kept saying that he didn’t know how to put that kind of shirt on. Again, smoke coming out of my head at this point. Finally we were at the point where we had to go. So we told him to put his shirt on & come to the car. He literally went into nuclear meltdown mode over putting on this shirt. He finally showed up at the car with his shirt on. Backwards. More smoke…Finally Josh helped him but he (Josh) was NOT happy. Zachary just gets something in his head and then will not budge from it. On Saturday he had decided from the start that he was not going to jump in the pool & if that meant he didn’t get in at all, so be it. Yesterday he decided he was not going to put on his shirt by himself and would rather pitch a total fit than just do it. Some days I think he would cut off his nose to spite his face.

Luckily he was pretty good the rest of the day. Josh headed out around 12:15 to go play in our neighborhood golf tournament. I put the kids down for naps (luckily they both took one – but only after Liam screamed for like 30 minutes…) and started working on packing for the beach. I know – we don’t leave till Saturday. But time is limited during the week & the last thing I want is to be up till 3am Friday night/Saturday morning trying to finish packing. When they woke up from naptime, we went out back & Zachary ran through the beach ball sprinkler. Liam wanted nothing to do with it (I think he doesn’t like the cold water) – he just wanted to climb on places he probably shouldn’t be climbing. And that was pretty much the rest of the day. Liam climbing. Zachary taking toys from Liam. Liam getting into something he shouldn’t be getting into. I spent most of the day saying things like “No!” or “Sit down!” (I did say “please” with my requests, just so you know). And Liam is STRONG! He knows when he is doing something he shouldn’t be doing – he will totally ignore you. And if you try to physically remove him from the situation, he will either a) scream, b) do this thing with his body that causes him to feel 10 times heavier than he actually is, or c) both. I was exhausted by the time Josh got home. It was later than I thought considering he teed off around 1:15 (it was about 6:45) but earlier than it could have been (one neighbor’s husband apparently didn’t get home till close to 11:00 – they had an after-party at the Irish pub down the street).

I’m hoping they got all of their shenanigans out of their system this weekend, so we don’t have to deal with stuff like that during our car ride on Saturday. I'm already mentally prepping myself for the longest round of the "Are We There Yet?" game that the Cahills have ever played...