Well I most definitely did.
We have had a chilly last few days. The motor in our lower level heat unit decided to kick the bucket, conveniently in the midst of this insane polar vortex. Thankfully our upstairs has remained warmish (I would say chilly at best), but plenty of layers and a constant fire is essential for everywhere else. Olivia was none-too pleased over the cold when she had to eat breakfast with 47 layers on:
I can't get over this face. She was seriously pissed. It made me fast-forward to the evil glares that await me during teenage years...
Anyways, fires and layers on make it semi-bearable. On Sunday we wanted to get out of our chilly house and do something fun as a family. Normally I am so not a "go to the movies" type of person unless it is something I REALLY want to see (Katy Perry documentary: obvi). I just usually don't have the attention span, but I decided to bite the bullet to be with everyone to go see Frozen. We went to lunch, stopped by CVS for candy (I got five different boxes for $8... a much better deal than one box for $8 at the theater), and got to the theater about 15 minutes before movie time. We set everyone up, and prayed for the best. Twenty-five minutes of previews later, the movie FINALLY started. And it was phenomenal. It was seriously emotional, funny, suspenseful... just all-in-all really great. Livi was utterly mesmerized, and survived fantastically.
That night when Matt and I were lying in bed, I spoke my deathwish... I said, actually outloud, "You know, it really is getting a bit easier to DO things with all of them. I'm excited to be going in this direction."
Famous.Last.Words.
The next day Layla had a field trip with her class to the library. I got Summer off to school and packed the other two up in the car. We arrived and made our way inside to the little 'barn' room where the activities would be held. All started out smoothly... Livi wanted to sit with Layla but constantly turned around to wave at me, clearly thinking she was such a big girl.
They learned the chicken dance, and Livi was right in the middle of the circle doing her thing:
So great, right??? Then they read a book and she kept getting up to run over and kiss me. Then she kept standing up, blocking all the other kids' views. Then she started to try and take the book from the library lady. Then she started running over to another baby in the room and touching his face and wanting to sit with him. Then she took off her shoes and was trying to take off her shirt (I guess living in a heatless house has made her intolerant to normal temperatures). Then she flipped out when I grabbed her to try to get her to stop.
I took her outside the room to let her run around a little bit and play in the kids area. The class finished up inside the room and headed over to the cafe area to have snack. Of course she had to have everything all the other kids had, and proceeded to dump half of her goldfish on the floor and then try to eat them. I was still attempting to stay calm at this point but am slowly losing it. We all headed back over to the kids area where she just went buckwild. Spastically running around the kids, grabbing every book she could see, and of course screaming bloody murder when I tried to get her to stop. Did I mention that Layla's current teacher (who was Summer's teacher last year) will be Olivia's teacher next year? Yeah. So Livi is having a full-on blood-curdling screaming fit not only in a library, but in front of her future teacher. Awesome. I scrambled to get her shoes back on, coat on and zipped, hat in place, and then do the same for Layla... all while wrestling a screaming toddler. Of course there was awkward sweating. It seems to be the story of my life.
It is really truly amazing how Olivia can be so so good one day, and so very bad the next. Yesterday after dropping Layla off at preschool, Livi didn't want to leave so I had to actually pin her into her carseat to buckle her as she was shrieking at the top of her lungs (we had oh so conveniently gotten the parking spot directly outside the entry door... what I initially thought was a score ended up not so much). A dad joked as he was walking by, "Wow are you beating her??" People probably think I do--- she had a nice fat lip from falling off of my bed the day before (a huge crash, blood everywhere, sobbing... you know the drill). The whining is like nails on a chalkboard to me. The constant out-of-control insistence on independence (ME, MESELF, MINE!!!!) is wearing on me. The crazy crying if I do something that she had wanted to do herself. I know I can't fix it all at once, but it is hard to even know where to start. Especially when she appears to have two different personalities. My own personal Jekyll and Hyde. The angel at dinner that people come up to us and make comments on how well-behaved she was... and the evil, screaming monster that would make people not want to have kids. She has to be way too stinkin adorable and face nuzzle me at the exact moment I am going to pull my hair out. This girl most definitely knows how to work her charm.
Happy Thursday!
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