My Little Bull

Amazingly, not a whole heck of a lot is new in these parts.

Saturday I met some friends at the local library, while Brian did some yard work. Although this library is very kid-friendly, the library is still not the best place in the world to take Zander. He is like a bull in a china shop.

We decided to spend Sunday at the beach, so I took some time on Saturday evening packing up all our gear . . . which is a lot of stuff when you are talking two toddlers at the beach all day. We got to the beach VERY early knowing that parking is limited and that it would crowded since it was a holiday (yes, even Mother's day). We arrived at 7:40 a.m. (which sounds super early I'm sure except that it's already in the 70's by that time here), and can you believe that there were NO parking spots left?!? So Brian waited in the car for a spot to open up (there are a lot of beach walkers/runners down there so we knew a spot would open eventually), while I took the kids down to the beach, got them all greased up with sun screen, and unpacked our gear. By this time, about twenty minutes had passed, and fortunately for us a huge black cloud quickly approached, which sent a couple families fleeing for their cars. So, Brian finally snagged a spot and then joined us down at the beach just as the rain was starting to fall. We all went and hid under a tree for ten minutes or so, and sure enough, the one dark cloud passed and the rest of the morning was clear and beautiful. Heather and her boys hit the beach that morning as well, so we all met up for awhile and snuck over to the hotel area to look at some hammer head sharks and sting rays that they have swimming around in a lagoon at the hotel. Zander was in absolute heaven since his newest obsession is sharks. It was a pretty fun day.

Yesterday we started back up with swimming lessons, so every day around 2:30 we head to the park for an hour and then head over to Charley's lesson for 30 minutes. Nothing too exciting, but the kids seem to enjoy the park routine quite a bit. Plus, it seems to wear them out a little, so they are more calm come lesson time . . . which basically means I spend less time chasing Zander around.

Speaking of Zander, we are suffering through a not-so-fun phase with Zander right now. I don't know what it is. I'm thinking a lot, if not all, of it has to do with taking the pacifier away. Or maybe the pacifier ordeal coincided with the beginning of a nasty phase anyway, I don't know. Either way, it's not fun. Charley was a pacifier baby too, so when it was time for the paci to go, we simply cut the nipple off and told her it was broken . . . and this method seemed to work pretty well because she seemed to get over it in a day or two and never really asked for it again. We employed the same method with Zander, and we thought things were going to go okay because when he realized his pacifier was "broken" he really didn't want to have anything to do with it and never really asked about it again. But slowly his overall attitude has been going downhill. My laid back, happy-go-lucky child has become crabby, moody, obstinate, and often just plain old unpleasant to be around. My only guess is that he was a lot more dependent on the pacifier for comfort then we ever realized. Or maybe this is just a nasty phase that hit at the same time as paci removal (two is right around the corner?). I don't know. But let's just all pray that this is simply a PHASE and nothing more . . . otherwise I really AM getting my paybacks. :)