My babies are growing up!

So I have a slight issue around here when it comes to friends. Drew has a bunch of friends that he sees at school and they live on our block. He can walk to their house and they often come over after school and play here with him and Brayden. When they call for him to come over and play they always ask for Drew and not for Brayden. This is fine with me, but it obviously upsets Brayden because he doesn't have a friend his age to call up and go to their house, walking distance anyway...

So Monday when this happened after school I tried to distract him by helping him think of a fun thing we could do for Family Home Evening. He decided on bowling and luckily for him, they were open! So we went bowling and it was so much fun. We haven't been since Christmas when my family was here and my kids LOVE bowling. I was happy I could distract him with the promise of going bowling. We need to get a little group of his friends together one of these days though. Every time I've tried to call up one of his friends from his class they either aren't home or they can't!

If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see the score of the night. Everybody got over 100 except Taylor...she was close...she got a bunch of strikes though!

Speaking of Taylor, she has started this new thing when she doesn't get her way or doesn't like something I'm doing...she hits me, bites me on the leg, slaps me, screams at me, pulls at her clothes, crawls around on the floor...I'm waiting for her to start head banging her head on something as it seems that's the only thing she's left out so far! I have to ignore it of course since disciplining her does nothing. She just doesn't get it. Anyway when we were bowling the other night I held her up during one of her fits to distract her and told her to give Daddy a kiss for good luck before he bowled, afterwhich she abruptly slapped him across the face. So I took her hand behind her back and said "Give him a kiss Tay" and not expecting what came next, she pulled the other arm out in the blink of an eye and slapped him on his other cheek! I should have gotten mad at her but we couldn't help but laugh our faces off! Seriously, I think both of us shed a tear after that one! She is full of SO much sass!

As a result of these tantrums, she works herself up and needs her "soo soo" and "wankie" to console her since I won't do it! Well lately I have lost track of her during the day and find her up in her bed soothing herself with her two favourites as she lays in bed. She'll do this for like 30 min increments! On Sunday, she was all ready for church and couldn't find her soo soo which made her mad and she was crying looking for it. Once she found it she layed down on her bed with her wankie and just layed there until we were ready to go! I have allowed her to do this but it's getting to me now. It's such a crutch to her and starts to get annoying when she whines for it when it goes missing! I'm so sick of searching my house for some disgusting plastic smelly soother that today I said "enough is enough!"

She was whining this morning so I took it! Sean had mentioned that she was too old for it but like I said, I was putting it off because I didn't really care (by the way, both boys lost their's when they turned 2). Anyway, I took it and endured tantrums for the next hour consisting of all the lovely things I mentioned above. I just said to myself "no turning back now...stick with it and she'll get over it by tomorrow". Well at nap time today she cried a bit for it and then fell asleep and slept for like 4 hours! I thought tonight she would do the same but when I put her in bed with her Diego and Dora dolls she just layed there and talked to them while I tickled her tummy. Then she told me to leave (she says "door", meaning: close my door and leave), played with her dolls for a couple minutes, listened to her music and fell asleep just like a little angel! I watched her on the monitor (you can see the two pictures below) and she was so calm, it didn't even phase her! I am so excited! She has done SO well, way better than I expected! So my little princess is on her her way to being a big girl...now to just get the potty training finished!!!

Tonight the boys had a spring concert at their school and sang and danced for everybody. In the two class pictures Drew is on the front row, dead center pointing to a book. His class was reading from it and he was the pointer! Then when they started singing the song with actions he got all embarrased, or mad some might call it and just did the actions, no singing! What a ham! He totally knew the song! Brayden sang and did a dance all choreographed...he did awesome! When they all got together on stage at the end (kindergarten-grade 3) both boys sang all 3 songs and Drew actually blew me a kiss and winked at me once he saw me in the croud! Now that is my boy! I love to see his personality shining through...both attitude and sweetness!

Speaking of Brayden, when we got there tonight his teacher apologized to me because she had meant to call me last night about something that happened in the bathroom on Monday at school. She said that it was actually quite funny but she felt bad laughing at the time. Anyway, she continued to tell me that Brayden had gotten his knee stuck in between the urinal and the bathroom stall wall! This is so typical Brayden because he gets hurt ALL the time in the most unpredictable places! She continued to tell me that they had to get the janitor to actually unscrew the wall to the stall off of its hinges so that he could free his leg! HAHAHA...I only regret that she didn't take a picture!
So this story of course brought me back to about a month ago when I arrived home with my kids from running errands. I went to the front door, leaving the side door open for the kids to unload themselves. They always close the door (automatic) on their own. Well all of a sudden I hear Brayden screaming out and I turn around all annoyed at how loud he is being. When I look back he's standing there with the side door open, his head kind of cocked to the side..."Brayden get out of the car and close the door!" I yell..."I'm stuck" he says! When I got closer his head was actually stuck between the sliding door and the side of the van (if you can imagine)! His head had been in the exact position for the door to slide down the side of his face and scrape actual skin off! OK, this kid is unbelievable I'm telling you! He never looks for trouble but trouble ALWAYS finds him! It's a good thing he bounces back fast though...He's so awesome I love him so much!