2 and a half!

Well, the boys are officially 2 and a half now, does that mean we are halfway through with the terrible 2s? I could only pray so. Today was not a good example of fun times with the munchkins. Granted it was mostly my fault, it was nonetheless frustrating. When we got home from the gym I was feeling pretty good because I am finally starting to lose some weight (hooray!) so when Carter asked to play with the keys, I figured why not, it will keep him busy while I get lunch together. We have a remote keyless entry and he likes to push the buttons and watch the doors open and close. So once lunch was ready I went out to get him and lo and behold he is the van with the keys and it is now locked. For the next 2 hours I, and then Lowell proceeded to try to coax the child to unlock the door, pull up the latch, flip the auto door lock button, or hit the unlock button on the remote. And nope, not going to happen. He did however enjoy eating an entire bag of gummy worms right in front of me as I could do nothing about it. He also broke my cell phone jumping on it after making several long distance calls. Lovely child! I guess it was good he wasn't freaking out like I was--I think he truly was enjoying not having to be taking a nap like his brother was. The boys' wonderful Uncle Mike came with his slim Jim which got stuck so $45 later a locksmith had the child out. I was at work by this point but I don't think Lowell was very happy with him upon his exit. I do know he went straight to bed for his nap. Ohh, a story we'll laugh about some day right?

It was kind of a hard day for me in another way, I sold their Step2 Clubhouse Climber. A year ago this is all I wanted in the world, enough so that I did one of those online offers schemes, you know do so many offers get the thing you want for free schemes, in order to get it. And you know what, it did actually work. I spent about $150 on the offers including some things that I did actually want and some that I did enjoy and some that were perfectly useless. But at the end of it they did send my $600 climber for free and with free shipping, normally $150. So quite the deal but the kids never really did play with it. We moved to a bigger house with an existing swingset and better yet, trampoline right after I got it. I kept it inside to help us get through the winter, but still it was hardly used. So with much difficulty I decided to sell it so another child could get some play out of it and even more so that I could open up the space it is in for "another" playroom. Now they will have a downstairs playroom with most of their toys and their current playroom is going to be my "preschool" where we will have our little lessons and do all the arts and crafts. I am sure it is a good thing but it was hard for me to give up. The boys now have $400 (less 45 for the locksmith!) in their future fun account. I think some will go toward their Disney tickets next spring, possibly some for gymnastics lessons in the fall, and some for odd toys that come up between then like a toddler basketball hoop is on the list. We also sold the slide that was on the old swingset and one of the baby swings as the new swingset replaces those (and the climber for that matter) and the money from those will fund their zoo pass for this year. I like the idea that they are selling their toys and purchasing their own activities. They have no say or role in the exchange, but I like to think of it that way. Otherwise the money would go into my general fund and inevitably be spent on groceries since the prices are going through the roof!

Not too much more to say about that other than Lowell and I are going away overnight next week and I couldn't be more excited. Like I told all the poor suckers who will be watching the children, I just need to not be a mom of 2 year olds for 18 hours! We are going up above Ogden to stay in Robbie's time share (blessings on his head!) and plan to catch a movie (Leatherheads) and have a lovely ribeye steak dinner and some high calorie breakfast after sleeping in. Something about a hot tub is planned in there too. Most of all there will be no diapers, no screaming, no food throwing, no biting, . . .(but also no little boy kisses or hugs and I am sure we will talk about them the whole time and be excited to get back to them. Thus is the life of a parent!). Peace out, time to catch some sleep here at work before I head home to the monkey heads!