The Storm Has Passed?

I hope!! Eli has had a rough two weeks. His two-year-old 'tude and defiance was present and accounted for almost every second of the last ten to fourteen days. Add that to his teething (yes, it is an on-going process that never ends, so I should just stop mentioning it) and you get one very tired, very frustrated, very overwhelmed Mommy!

I am so happy to report that this day has been 100% wonderful so far. We've had no time-outs, no chastising, no tantrums and only a few 'reminders' regarding obedience. Eli, Maddux and I spent the whole morning at the house, which is normally a recipe for disaster with Eli, as his attention span is limited. We all got up and had breakfast, then played with Maddux for about ten minutes before she took her first nap. Eli and I proceeded to play in the front yard with everything: rakes, baseball and bats, Eli's push-car, golf clubs. Then we moved to the back-yard and blew some bubbles before coloring a few leaf pictures for the refrigerator. Maddux woke up and Eli had blanket time for 20 minutes (which went PERFECTLY). We followed that by lunch (apple pancakes in the shape of letters: E and C today) and stories before his nap. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me! And I know it made Eli happy to regain rights to his sports equipment today. I am so excited to have my crazy, spunky, happy, mostly-obedient Eli back...I hope he's here to stay!

This weekend I counted with Eli every time we read the monkey book. I touch each monkey as we count them, and after 1, 2, and 3, Eli usually counts the rest on his own (with me still touching the monkeys). Yesterday I saw him reading the book with Lehr and Eli was the one touching the monkeys as he said, "doo, tee, fouu, pie-ve.." (two, three, four, five) When we colored on the back deck this morning, Eli touched each pumpkin and counted, though not always using the correct numbers.