Today

It was a rough start to the morning. Violet woke up on the WRONG side of the bed...started whining immediately about being hungry, got upset that I didn't race downstairs that moment to get her food, she got mad that I made it downstairs before she did, she got mad that I wasn't wearing the right pants, she got mad that she couldn't slide backwards down the stairs, she got upset that she couldn't sit in what chair she wanted...I swear...it was EVERYTHING. Then I made the mistake of asking her to finish a 1/2 of a banana before she got pancakes (I knew she wasn't really crazy about bananas, but I asked her to anyway for some reason), she didn't finish the banana, so she got nothing to eat. She's either on, or off. She's got 2 extreme sides...really whiney, controlling, irritating, and enough to make me want to put her in her room and shut the door and leave for awhile, and the other is extremely sweet, fun, kind, thoughtful, sharing, and considerate. I don't know what makes her tick sometimes. Carrie had the impression that Violet was such a sweetie all the time, but after living with us for a week she realize she is just a normal kid who throws tantrums because she's three years old. I didn't have plans to work out today, but after that horrible breakfast episode, I just had to go and drop her off for an hour to burn off some steam. She was happy to go. She just loves leaving the house. That seemed to "reset" her for the day, because the rest of the day was much better. Maybe she didn't get enough sleep, or had a kink in her neck, or SOMETHING. Man...it was just a bad morning. I'm glad it didn't continue on the rest of the day. Calvin was super tired by 6:45 pm so I put him to bed a little earlier than usual. That gave Violet and I some time together with out distractions. I was waiting for just the time like that to get out one of her birthday presents - a paint set and a notebook. She LOVED painting. She sat there, focused, breathing steadily, and painted almost every page in that book. She kept saying "this is fun! I'm so excited!" So I'm glad we got to wrap up the day on a nice note. I am praying tomorrow is a little better in the morning. She has this new thing she says. Its sort of placed randomly throughout the day, but she runs around, pauses for a moment, shakes her hands and her head together, and says "freak out! I'm freaking out!" I have no idea where she got that! Calvin is such a little delight. I think I'm really enjoying the stage he is in right now because I know it won't last long. He's so happy (if he's fed and not tired). He is gleeful about just everything he discovers. He likes to point at things and say "ooh!! ooh!" and when I start singing a tune, he jumps right in and starts humming. I think he can hum some tunes. Call me crazy. But when I start the "abc" song, he almost gets the tune right on, and if I start humming the tune to "this old man, he played one, he played knick knack on my thumb..." he hums right along and finishes the stanza. We'll see if that develops. Dave has been gone all day. I am pretty tired. He met a friend for coffee this morning at 6:45, came home, and let me have a break to take a shower. He went to work, and I called him up for lunch (I made pizza) so he could eat together with the family. That was a nice time. He worked until 5:15 and then left for Cedar Rapids to have dinner with Jay. He called a few minutes ago and said he would be home around 10:15.