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 Jace and Cameron are not best friends yet as I'm hoping they one day will be.  While Cameron cannot get enough of his big brother, Jace has just merely tolerated the presence of his younger one.  Until recently.  They aren't best buddies yet and Jace would rather sit in the corner crying in time out than share his trains with Camers (as proved by the fact that he did just that today), but he is starting to show that he actually cares about his little brother.  Like when Cameron starts crying Jace will coming running from wherever he is in the house yelling, "What HAPPENED?!"  I'm not sure whether it's from annoyance or concern but at least it's something.  And when Cameron drops his toys Jace will usually run to pick them up for him, and even though he tries to give it back by shoving it into Cameron's mouth, I do appreciate it.  Jace has even started to ask where Cameron is if he doesn't see him in the room, and talks baby talk back to Camers when he's babbling.  So even though we have a long way to go before they'll be wrestling buddies, I think things are looking up.  Today we built a tent and when Cameron woke up from his nap I put him in there with his big brother.  They're all basically the same picture but I love how Cameron looks so thrilled in all of them.  He sure loves Jace.  He grinned the entire time he was in there.  Even when Jace ran him over with his Thomas train. 

                                              And this is how he fell asleep tonight. 

Today I mentioned to Brice that I really hope that Jace is going through a phase right now.  Because if this is how he is going to be for the rest of his before school starts years, I really don't know how I'll survive.  I'm probably just spoiled because overall he has been a really easy kid.  He wasn't a fussy baby at all and he was sleeping through the night by the time he was three months old.  He was also the kind of baby that I could just go lay him down and tada!-- he'd be asleep.  So I had it easy at the beginning.  I guess it's only fair that he is paying me back big time now.

Here are some things that he did today to try my patience:

I gave him a bowl of dry cereal to eat while he was watching his morning shows.  He dumped it out all over the floor.  I was giving Cameron a breathing treatment so I told him he needed to pick it up if he wanted to go outside.  So he proceeded to smash it into the carpet with his feet.  All the while looking at me like "I know you can't really do anything to me right now since you're in the middle of that with Cameron."

He found the lotion sitting on the table and pumped it into his hands, onto the table, onto the floor and all over everything on the table.  I found him in the living room with incredibly greasy hands and when I said, "Jace, you're getting that everywhere!" he wiped his hands all over the couch, leaving greasy hand streaks.

He threw at least five different fits just before our friends came over to visit.  They were about things such as, "I want more Dora snacks!" and "I don't want to go potty!" and "I don't want my pants on!"  And when he throws fits now he goes limp and falls to the floor.  And fake cries.  This is most annoying when I'm trying to take him to the bathroom because I'm usually holding onto his arm and when he goes limp and tries to fall to the floor I have to drag him to the bathroom which is why I think my lower back is always hurting. 

When he was finished eating his macaroni for lunch he dumped it out all over the floor.

When we were getting ready to go outside and he kept running away from me when I was trying to get his shoes on I said, "Okay, Cameron and I are going to go outside by ourselves and leave you in here alone," he said, "Okay leave me."

I walked into the living room to see him repeatedly whacking poor little Cam-cam with a green, plastic, baseball bat.  When I took it from him and said, "That's not nice, that hurts him!  Do you want me to hit you with this and hurt you?" he said, "Yes, hurt me."  I don't know how to respond to that. 

While I was giving him a bath he took a cup of water and dumped it out on the floor.

He has started saying to me, "Don't tell me that, you don't tell me that," when I tell him what to do.

Cameron was sitting on the floor and Jace was stepping on his back, causing Cam to lean so far forward he was basically laying down.

I wonder how much longer this pay back is going to last. 

 Jace likes to put himself under the laundry basket and pretend it's a cage.  Sometimes I wish there was a kind of cage specifically designed for nap time.  I sometimes feel like I should just give up the nap altogether but then every fiber of my being is screaming at me, "No, please, not yet!" And so I don't give it up.  Instead we just go through the same exhausting fight every afternoon until either Jace finally admits defeat and gives in to his tired eyes or I finally admit defeat and let him come bouncing out of his room.  Today I fought hard and finally won the battle but had to pull the sitting on the foot of his bed in stony silence while he peppered me with questions and excuses maneuver.  Then when his eyelids finally closed I slid slowly off the bed and tiptoed out the door.  I thought it was ruined when I accidentally kicked one of his trains with my foot and it very loudly thunked the wall, but luckily Jace did not stir.  And now I am enjoying the sweet silence of victory.  Because Cameron is napping too.  Don't worry, he's not just sitting somewhere being forgotten.  He is an angelic little boy who quickly and quietly drifted off to sleep in a matter of minutes.  Today, anyway. 



The not-so-angel boy washing his toys
in about two inches of soapy water.  He
almost always ends up soaked after I let him
do this but its worth it so I can do the dishes.





The angel boy in his crib. 
After me forcing him to sleep in
the bassinet for so long he
loves his space in the crib. 



My mom was able to come and spend her spring break with us for the last week which was GREAT!  Well, great for me.  I'm sure she loved it too but I don't think she really had much of a break.  Not much peace and quiet at our house.  We didn't get to do too much besides the every day grind of eating, and cleaning, and napping, and potty training, and entertaining, and breathing treatments for Cameron because he has a bad cough again, and changing diapers, and after-the-boys-are-in-bed exhaustion but it was a great visit.

 When my dad and brother came to drop her off for the week they brought with them their three dogs.  Bambi is, unfortunately for her, just the right size for Jace to grab.  He loooooves her.  She does not quite reciprocate the feeling.

 It stopped raining a few times throughout the week and it was nice enough to play outside, which Jace did.  He never wanted to come in.  Especially after Grandma taught him how to shoot the dogs with the water gun.

 The littler Camster enjoyed the visit.  Not as much as he enjoys food.  Though he has learned that what goes in. . .

. . . must come out.

Back to blogging

I'm starting to believe that Jace will never figure out pooping in the potty. Well I should re-phrase that. I think he does have it figured out. He's a pretty smart kid. What I should say is that I'm starting to believe that Jace will never want to go poop in the potty. Now, I know that's really unrealistic and he's not going to be washing poop out of his underwear still when he heads off to college (and I'm almost to the point now where I'm either going to start making him wash his own underwear out or just throw them away) but at this moment in time, having just washed out a particulary cute pair of Thomas underwear as Jace stood over my shoulder yelling "Don't flush him don't flush him! He's my best friend!" I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. All I see are endless days of following him around like a hawk watching for any sign that he might need to go Number 2 and then cursing myself for stupidly thinking I could take two minutes out of the "poop stalking" to go to the bathroom myself without dire consequences.

And yes that's right-- this is going to be my first post after a year of no posts. That's how frustrated I am with this whole potty training situation. But to leave it on a high I will say that even though Jace is struggling with the pooping part of potty training he does seem to have the peeing down. And despite his many many ear infections already this year he's a happy little boy who's quickly actually turning into a big boy.

And Cameron is as chubby, sweet, and cuddly as ever. And as Jace likes to point out to me often, "He's just a baby, he can't poop in the potty." And if I thought that my sarcasm would make any sense to him I would probably respond with, "Well apparently you're just a baby too, then." (I've actually tried saying that to him before but all I get is a skeptical look and a "No, Mommy, I'm not a baby. I have teeth."

And now here are some pictures.