Trying

Oh my children how I love you, but could you give Mama a break please?


Nate has discovered climbing with the purpose of opening doors.


So far I have been able to thwart his efforts before any knobs have been turned.

Gabriella, oh my dear. She has been going through a testing phase. She screams and cries and fights over the smallest of things. And bedtime has become her number one battle ground. Typically annoying it is harder when children share a room because she's also causing trouble for Kate, which means no down time in the evenings.


Here she is running away and crying...again.

Kate, never one to be out done, has been writing on walls.


After I removed the Sharpie marks last week with alcohol swabs, she moved on to the more permanent than permanent marker approach, etching. She took a tack used to hold up some art work and scratched a picture into her wall, oh and smeared on some lip gloss on for good measure.


In case you can't really tell there are two stick figures, smiling, which I wasn't when I found it. Smiling that is, nor a stick figure for that matter.

Needless to say creative discipline has been getting a work out. And my oldest tells me that her lips will be chapped forever, you know because I made her toss the lip gloss that caused the lovely pink smudges on the walls (yes, plural).