February 22, 2009

The husband and I celebrated our 4th year of marriage on Thursday. He took the day off and we took it easy for most of the day. We dropped the boys off at our friend's house for a couple of hours and went out to dinner together. It was very nice and fun to reminisce about "four years ago today" type of stuff. My birthday is on Monday and my mom's birthday is on Tuesday and, of course, we just had Valentine's day too so this is a celebrating type of month for us.

The boys are still going at ninety miles an hour. They are at that age where they are constantly saying the funniest things. One of the things they say a lot these days is 'probably'. It is funny how they use it. We hear it most often as "I probably done now". It always makes me smile. Nick also used 'actually' the other day in a sentence. I can't remember the sentence, although his usage of the word was close to being correct and left me smiling again. They are very funny.

I have noticed that sharing has become much much harder lately than it ever has been between them. They are frequently at odds over something or another that they both want these days. It doesn't matter that we have a decent number of cars, trucks and trains. The issue is that "I want the blue one; it's my favorite" (or whatever color happens to be the favorite of the day). I am finding that the threes seem to be a bit more difficult in some ways than the twos and I'm not sure why. Maybe I just don't understand enough about child development and what to expect in the threes. Or maybe it is just that they are now old enough to have opinions and to be firm on what they want and don't want and they are too old for distraction tactics. They have outgrown my knowledge level:). I need some more tools in my tool box.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. She was a teacher of young ones not so long ago so she has more training in these types of things and knows better what to expect, what is normal, etc. She also has two sons; one who is a few months older than Ben and the other is around 18 months old. I was telling her how they are having more trouble sharing now and she said this is totally normal for their age. She said at this age they feel that the toy is a part of them so it is much harder for them to see another child playing with something they really like. I was glad we talked about it. It helped me to have a new perspective on their behavior.

My niece was in from college for the weekend so a bunch of us gathered at Papa and Mimi's yesterday. The boys always have a very fun day when we go to the farm. This time they got to see the cousins and had a very fun time wrestling with cousin Trenton. Uncle Kelly spent a good amount of time taking them for rides on his big tractor and letting them 'drive' and push all the buttons and honk the horn. It was very cold and windy but, thankfully, he has a very nice tractor that has heat. They also went with Uncle Kelly and the dad in Uncle Kelly's big truck to feed the cows. This truck can pick up two of the very large bales of hay at a time so it was another new experience for everyone, including the dad who said he also enjoyed watching how they did this. We all had a good time and it is always nice to get together with family.

Gotta go. Boys are waking up from nap and husband is at the health club swimming.