Well, our first week without Austin has come and gone! We only have 13 left… umm, yeah… The week was both easier than I thought it would be and harder. I’m emotionally doing better than I thought I would be. I’m definitely hanging in there this time! The kids, however, are taking things MUCH harder than I thought they would! We are having MULTIPLE melt downs daily, which, in turn, really wears me out. We also have only had the chance to talk to Austin once so far. He is working until 9 or 10 most nights, so the kids have already been in bed quite a while before he even gets home. We are hoping to talk to him tomorrow, so hopefully that will calm the kids down a bit!
Now on to our week!
Monday was Labor Day. I had a couple of ideas of how we could spend the day, but it ended up being super dark and dreary and cold and rainy. So we went grocery shopping in the morning and then hung around home the rest of the day. Well, we attempted to go to Costco in the afternoon but they were closed! I didn’t realize stores closed on Labor Day! So it was a pretty boring holiday for us! I did take a couple of fun pictures at dinner time:
Mr. Max is our big salad eater—look at him cram that stuff in! He is also our diva (notice the necklace) and our messy, messy boy (notice the dirty shirt. I have to change that kid at least twice a day!):
Makenna was having some fun with her raspberries:
Tuesday was our Play and Learn (it was moved to Tuesday because of Labor Day). This week our theme was “All About Me.” We started by reading a book about different types of children and singing a few songs. Then we moved to our different groups. My kids started off working on an “All About Me” book.
Making a handprint page:
Dot painting their favorite colors:
Our next center was probably Makenna’s all-time favorite. Our teacher told the kids that it is important to take care of our bodies and keep them clean. So the kids got to give baby dolls baths! : )
I don’t think I will be letting Max bathe a real baby any time soon… ; )
Makenna did a great job though; and she LOVED it!!! In fact, she loved it so much, she wouldn’t move on to the next center!
So Max and I made another page in our book. I cut out some letters and let Max name them (no, he didn’t actually name ANY of the letters correctly) and then glue them to his page. That kid loves his glue! I love how he sat the whole time:
Where was Makenna? Still bathing her baby!
And this is where our day started to go down hill. After Max finished his alphabet page, we moved over to another center where he made a paper bag puppet. I asked Makenna (who was still washing babies) if she wanted to make a puppet. She said no. So I told her, “Okay, you can still wash the baby. But it is almost clean up time. So if you want to make a puppet, you had better come and do it now while you have time. So baby or puppet?” And she chose baby. So Max and I went and made a cute little puppet. Well, then the teacher said it was time for clean up. AND MAKENNA FREAKED OUT! She started screaming and crying and yelling, “I want to make a puppet! I want to make a puppet!” I tried to be calm and told her she chose to wash the baby instead of making a puppet. Well she just started throwing a full out tantrum. The teacher came and told her she could bring the materials home and make her puppet there. But nope, she wasn’t having it. AND THEN SHE HIT ME!!! No more Miss Nice Mom! So I brought her, kicking and screaming, into the lobby and put her on a chair. I gave her a big talk about not throwing tantrums and especially not hitting. Then I told her we would start her time-out timer when she could stop screaming. TEN MINUTES later she was still screaming, “I want my Daddy! I want my Daddy!” It took over 15 minutes before she would even calm down enough for me to start her 3-minute time out! That was some of the longest minutes of my life! It is SO embarrassing for your kid to be throwing such a crazy tantrum like that! Anyway, finally she calmed down and finished time out and we finished class with snacks, a book, and songs.
When it was time to go, I let the kids play for a minute while I talked to their teacher. When I came back, Makenna threw ANOTHER tantrum because she didn’t want to go! She threw all the toys on the floor and started kicking and screaming! I put Max in the car and came back and had to carry her, kicking and hitting me, to the car. Needless to say, by the time I got home and fed the kids lunch and put them to bed I was exhausted! The Play and Learn teacher said she was sure that Makenna was just acting out from her Daddy being gone. Whatever the case, it was a very stressful morning!
That afternoon we finally got our Costco trip in! I was able to find some warmer clothes for the kids at great prices! Good thing, because it has turned COLD here all of a sudden!
Later in the week, I helped the kids finish their “All About Me” books and laminated them. I think they turned out so cute! So cute, in fact, that I took pictures of them:
Makenna’s Book:
Do you like how mommy is twice as big as everyone else? : )
Makenna definitely has a lot of favorite foods! In fact, I finally had to tell her no more—we didn’t have enough room! Notice that not one single food is healthy! She has hot dog, spaghetti o’s, chocolate cereal, mac and cheese, and Cheerios:
Makenna’s favorite animals crack me up! She told me she likes pigs “because they are pink and little like babies” and cows because “they grow up and turn into moms.” Ha ha, silly girl!
Max’s book:
I’m kind of bummed out… I’m not sure what happened to the pictures of Max’s other pages! Let’s see, he told me his favorite foods were corn dogs and frosted mini wheats. And his favorite animal is a puppy. : ) And for his family, he drew a bunch of random lines and scribbles (but he made sure to make his “Makenna” pink!).
Wednesday was the first day of Preschool! For the most part, we are going to have school on Tuesday and Thursday. However, several moms had kids that started kindergarten Tuesday, so we decided to move our preschool to Wednesday and Friday this week. As I’ve mentioned, we are having a Joy School with some friends from our ward. This means that all of the moms will take turns hosting and teaching school. It was my turn to teach first. It was nice to not have to go anywhere, but it was definitely a lot of planning and set up! However, I did manage to take a few “First Day of School” pictures of the kids (and I later kicked myself for not noticing how dark and blurry the pictures were! Honestly, so mad! You only have one chance for first day of school pictures and mine just aren’t very good!):
Here is Max:
Max chose a Toy Story backpack and he loves that thing!
Max is going to be doing “school” with me while Makenna is gone to Preschool. However, since school was out our house this week, he just joined in with the big kids!
Makenna:
She, of course, chose a Princess backpack!
A close-up on her first-day-of-school hair:
We didn’t do anything Wednesday afternoon because I was POOPED!
Thursday I had planned on us going to the zoo. However, it was another rainy and cold day! I didn’t want to leave the house AT ALL in that rainy, flooding mess! Unfortunately, we had to go to the library to turn in books. It was such a yucky day, though, that we didn’t even stay and play. We dropped the books off and left! We spent the day playing at home and watching movies. ; )
Friday was our second day of school. This day started out HORRIBLY for me! I was rushing around, trying to get chores done as well as get us all ready and everything ready for school. I went into the livingroom to do Makenna’s hair (she likes to watch TV while I do her hair). When I finished, I had about 15 minutes left before school so I hurried to the bathroom to get myself ready. When I walked in the bathroom, however, I found Max… with my make-up. This kid had poured out all of my make-up in my brush and on the counters and floor and bathroom rugs. He crushed my blush and eye shadows and poured them in the sink. He had my make-up brushes in the toilet. He had mascara all over him and his clothes. The whole bathroom was a mess and my make-up was destroyed! Not to mention Max, who was already dressed in his school clothes, was covered in make-up! I rushed as fast as I could, but I was still cleaning when the parents arrived! Of course I was also completely frazzled! A few of the sweet moms stayed in the front playing with the kids while I tried to get Max changed and the bathroom clean enough that the kids could use it. Needless to say, I started school that morning looking like a mess (I didn’t have time to do my hair and I no longer had any make-up!) and feeling totally out of sorts! Then during school Makenna through a tantrum because she just wanted to play and not go to school. And Max was such a crazy distraction! So school was basically just a blur, with frustrations at my kids thrown in!
Here are a few pictures from school:
We are studying apples right now, so I made a cute snack for snack time:
Although some of the kids were nervous about eating “worms,” my kids dug right in! : )
Once again, I was pretty warn-out after school, so we spent the afternoon hanging out at home!
That night we had a really rough night. Max usually goes to bed at 7, but he was really whiney so I put him to bed at 6:30. Well Makenna’s bedtime isn’t until 8, but she told me she was ready to go to bed so she went at 6:30 too. At 7:30, I still hadn’t heard a peep so I was breathing a sign of relief that we were finally have a good, easy night! Well, I spoke too soon because Max started yelling at me. I went in his room and he told me he needed a green block… so I dug through the blocks and found him a green one. He put it under his pillow and went to sleep. Weirdo. : ) Well I went back to the livingroom. A few minutes later, I heard Makenna crying. I went in her room and she had wet the bed (it was only 7:30 and she went potty before bed, yet she wet the bed). So I get her and her bed cleaned up and headed back to the livingroom. Well, a few minutes later I heard her crying AGAIN. So I went in her room. She was sitting up, with tears running down her cheeks, saying, “I don’t want the yellow and white ice cream!” I brought her into the livingroom with me and apparently she had a bad dream about a bad man in an ice cream truck (I couldn’t figure out exactly what the dream was about). I was holding her, cuddling her, trying to comfort her, when she looked up at me and said, “I don’t like moms!” I said, “Makenna, I’m your mom. What do you mean you don’t like moms?” She said, “I don’t like moms! I only like dads! I miss my daddy!” and she started bawling. Which made me cry. I haven’t cried before this week, but seeing this sweet little girl crying over her daddy made my heart break! I said, “Makenna, Daddy has to work.” She said, “Mom! I just really need my Dad!” Seriously, broke my heart! I hate that our poor children have to go through this hard time! Kids need their Daddies! So Makenna ended up spending the night in my bed last night… and I ended up sleeping on the very edge of the bed with her sleeping sideways and pushing me off the whole night. : )
Today, Saturday, I used my Fandango gift cards to take the kids to see Smurfs. It’s actually a pretty cute movie, although Makenna told me at the end that she didn’t like it because “it wasn’t Cinderella. I just really would rather see Cinderella.” The movie was an hour and 45 minutes and Max did pretty well for the first hour. The last half of the movie was spent with me trying to convince him to come and sit down and be quiet. : ) After the movie it was already after noon, so I told the kids we could stop and get lunch. We went to Panera Bread. Makenna asked if we could eat there and I said we could so we headed inside. Well, after we ordered our food Makenna wanted to eat outside. It had been raining all morning, so I told her that it was too wet to eat out there. And she started crying. By this point I had Makenna crying and Max climbing INSIDE the fireplace, so I told the cashier that we would just take our food to go. Well, Makenna had another melt down. She lay her body on the ground and kicked and screamed and cried. Honestly, every person in the place was shooting me evil looks! I picked Max up and then tried to drag Makenna out of there (she is honestly getting too big and tall for me to be able to pick up while she is throwing a tantrum!). By this point our food was bagged up and I told the guy I would come back for it. But he came and pushed the bag in my arms and said, “Here, take it.” I know he was trying to get me out of there with my kid screaming so loudly and disrupting the diners! So I manage to carry both the food and Max and drag Makenna to the car. Once again, an embarrassing outing! This is getting OLD!!!!!
This afternoon I was doing some cleaning when the kids came running. They heard the ice cream truck! All summer, the second the kids hear the ice cream truck they come running from wherever they are to watch the truck drive down the street. Well, Austin kept saying we needed to let the kids get ice cream one day, but I never had cash. Well today, when I heard the truck, I ran outside and flagged him down! The kids were SO excited to get ice cream from the ice cream truck!
Makenna chose Tweety Bird:
And Max chose Scooby Doo:
So that was the week! With Max crying and whining every day (he is getting into that really independent “I Do It!!!” stage) and Makenna throwing tantrums, plus with the kids fighting and arguing all day every day, it has been a rough one! Everyone keeps saying that that is the kids way to express their frustration and sadness at their Daddy being gone and that it WILL get easier. I hope so or I don’t know if I can make it!!! I’m doing well with my own sadness of missing my husband, but I’m not enjoying these problems with the kiddos! Hopefully this coming week will be better!
