Memphis

Our trip to Memphis (two weeks ago) was so much fun. We were anxious about the 13 hour drive, but everybody did so well! To break up the trip, we spent the night in Johnson City, Tennessee with Jake's cousin Arjuna. It was the perfect rest stop - the kids got to play, and we got to hang out with Kerry and Mike and Carol.

Here's Jake in Memphis, right outside of Deni and Patrick's restaurant, the Majestic Grille, standing on the trolley tracks. The trolley was a big hit with the kids.


Mike and Pat (aka Gram and Poppy) drove down separately, and gave us a mini-vacation by taking care of the kids for two nights. I wasn't too worried about Jake handling the craziness of the trip, but Sadie really surprised me with how well she did with sleeping in three different places, and with all the driving. Here are Jake and Sadie with Gram and Poppy on their secret late-night excursion:

We had such a great fun-filled week in Memphis. We saw the Pink Palace, a Red Birds game, took trolley rides, went out to great restaurants, explored the River Walk, ate all kinds of BBQ at Memphis in May, went to the zoo, and went to the children's museum. Here are Jake and Sadie playing dress up, and Deni taking Sadie down a slide:


We also did some relaxing at Deni and Patrick's, and here is Sadie having fun brushing my hair:


One night we grilled out on Deni and Patrick's lovely patio:


Sunset on the Mississippi. What you can't see is the organized chaos directly behind us which was the national BBQ championships held during Memphis in May. Patrick's team was competing and cooked something like 400 lbs of pork, not to mention chicken, lamb and Spam.


It was a great vacation, and I think we may make an annual excursion out of it. More pictures here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Wow! Thanks Ali for a GREAT birthday dinner! We had a beautiful roast rack of lamb with a balsamic red wine reduction, roast root veggies, and asparagus with lemon zest and parmesan and then these yummy coconut cupcakes!

Cheesecake

Since last week's post about the "incident", Jake has been completely back to normal. He saw some ripped pages from one of his books in the garbage a few days later (one of the casualties from the tantrum) and seemed pretty upset about it. But, my travels are over and now we're all looking forward to our big road trip to Memphis this weekend! We're calling it a "work trip" because I think Jake has felt left out from all of my work trips, so I told him we're taking the whole family on the next "work trip". I'm even going to make him turn in travel receipts so he gets the full experience.

In the above picture, Jake and Sadie are in Cheesecake Heaven, enjoying leftovers from my birthday cheesecake. Thanks Mom! And yes, Sadie is wearing a tiara. Earlier tonight she had on a pink princess cone hat thingy. She loves to accessorize. Jake is dressed up for the Mother's Day Tea Party his class hosted today. Ali said it was so much fun and that Jake was the cutest kid there. The story she couldn't wait to tell me was that Jake's teacher asked all the kids who their best friend was, and all the kids named someone in the class. But Jake looked around the room and said "Mommy!" And so he got cheesecake tonight.

Happy Girls

I think today might have been the hardest day of parenting yet.

The day started out great. Lyssa came down for a visit, so the kids were really happy and excited, and they apparently wanted to see what would happen if they woke her up four hours earlier than she's used to. Lyssa was a good sport and after some coffee we were all off to Frying Pan Farm Park to see the baby pigs, calves, lambs, chicks, bunnies, etc. The piglets were really cute. They must have had a litter just recently, because these little guys weren't much bigger than a pork loin from the store. They had a plywood cow that Jake pretended to milk and give us all fresh (pretend) chocolate milk. We ate lunch at a picnic table and then Jake led Sadie around the grounds to pick up any trash they could find (Earth Day indoctrination from last week). It was a really nice morning - except that Lyssa never got close enough to pet one of the baby cows. Sorry, Lyss!

Sadie conked out on the ride home, but Jake was still awake when we got home. These days it's about a 50-50 chance that he'll nap on the weekends. So, after some quiet time, he went out to play with the neighborhood kids. He was outside for 3-4 hours before we called him in for dinner. He came right in and washed his hands, and then...... it started.

There was whining about dinner. We cooked a really good spinach shrimp risotto tonight, and I wouldn't have been surprised (or upset) either way if Jake liked it or not. I just wanted him to try it, which he did, to his credit. He ate several bites, unprompted, before saying he wanted something else. Ok, fair enough, good try. We put in some chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. After that, I don't even remember the specifics, but it was constant whining about this and that, and he just would not listen to whatever we said in response. At some point he hit Ali, and I brought him up to his room. We gave him a second chance when he came down, but eventually he hit me when he couldn't get his way. So I brought him up to his room again. When he came down again, he was ok for a minute, but then demanded to go outside. We told him "no" (it was getting late anyway), and then he threw a toy car at me.

So then we brought him up to his room again and told him he'd need to stay there for the rest of the night. At this point, I think we were both wondering what the approrpriate punishment was for a 3, almost 4 year old. He was partly testing boundaries, and partly tired. But either way we needed to do something. So, we waited outside of his room while he screamed and screamed. Then we heard him taking his bed apart. He opened the door and told us to look at what he'd done. We tried not to react much, saying something like "it's too bad you've messed up your room". I think not getting a reaction caused him to go further, and he started throwing things and knocking down furniture and then I had to go in just to make sure he didn't hurt himself.

He was in a rage, hitting me, trying to bite me. It wasn't Jake. But it was hard not to get angry. It was hard to be a parent, and remember he's just a three year old. When he calmed down a little to ask if he could get out, I said we needed to talk about how he acted. He said he hadn't done anything. Jake's not perfect, but he's always understood when he's done something wrong before. I didn't know what to do, and then Ali came in and he said he was sorry for the first time. We put his bed back together. We cleaned up some of the mess. Ali took over and the whining and crying and screaming started up again. The whole thing lasted about three hours, before he finally passed out after Ali sang him a Kenny Rogers song. I don't know how she did it. Jake kept saying he didn't like this song or that song, but she was patient. More than patient. Jake was not nice. Meanwhile, Sadie was so cute and happy tonight, and then kept getting woken up with all the ruckus form Jake's room. I felt so bad for Sadie, and for Ali and me, and now that a few hours have passed, for Jake too.

I wonder how Jake will be in the morning. Will he acknowledge tonight? Will he say he's sorry? Will he think twice about how he acts? Or will he bounce into our room with a smile and ignore last night. It's so hard to know the capacity of a three year old's mind and the best way to teach them. And it's so hard to forgive such a terrible night. But we have to, and we will.

Overdue Stats and Deck Update

Yes, I know Sadie turned two a month ago. But my analysis team has been out on vacation. Here's the latest height/weight stats with Sadie's two-year numbers entered in. No surprise that she weighs less than both Jake and I did at two years, but she's still taller than where I was at this age (and taller than over 95 percent of other girls).


Sadie has grown so much in the past few months. She's definitely entering into that defiant two-year old stage, and something tells me it's not just a "terrible twos" thing. Her independence is shaping into a defining characteristic. Sadie and I regularly get into "debates" where she simply will not back down. I'll say something innocuous like, "Sadie would you like a pear" and she'll reply "No. It's apple." And back and forth maybe 20 times, with her staring me right in the eye the whole time. She stands for what she believes in, and does not back down. Great personality trait, but exhausting for a parent.

Our new deck is pretty much finished and we finally had our inaugural picnic this weekend. The hamburgers never tasted so good! The only thing that could top this al fresco experience would be some furniture.
Here are the girls practicing their yoga while the hamburgers cook on the grill.

Happy Easter!

We got back last night from another fun weekend trip down to the Smith Mountain Lake. We had "practice Easter" on Saturday with an egg hunt in the back and games and fun. Here are Jake and his cousin Arjuna getting ready for the egg hunt:


They had so much fun together and were best buddies, that is when they weren't engaged in their frequent, but minor, three-year-old ownership "debates". Here they are on actual Easter, leading the flower power parade at church, with Sadie and Poppy in tow.

And here's Sadie (and Ali), playing in the backyard after church. She loves being at the lake, and after an adjustment day, she really started having fun. She's still not quite sure how to play with the boys, but she tries to keep up with them, and I think in another year they'll all be playing together and causing mischief.


And here's our brand new deck! It's finally finished, and we love it! Come on over for some al fresco dining! All we need now is something to sit on...