Big Brother Henry

Henry is finally a big brother to a tiny little sister, Beatrice Isabella or Bea(Bay-uh) for short. He is so gentile and sweet with her and is always concerned with her well being. Early on we had noticed some subtle changes in his behavior for the good and not much bad, but recently he's been driving us totally insane to get our attention. Some of the cute things he's done with her are in the car he was very quiet because he was just watching her sleep and when Justin went to get Henry out of his seat he was holding her hand. He constantly kisses her and gently rubs her head. This morning he was downstairs yelling out, "mommy, baby sister! baby sister, mommy!" over and over until my sister went down to calm him down. He touched her soft fuzzy skin and said, "she's like a peach" (we eat peaches all day long around here) and before he does ANYTHING he has to go kiss her first. He is really enjoying her presence in our home. He, however, has been acting out a ton and trying to get away with things. He broke the refrigerator drawer, he's been climbing up on everything, not listening at all, won't go to bed anymore, won't let anyone do anything for him but me, and is pretty much driving me crazy. I hope things calm down soon because I miss my sweet little boy who was so tender, thoughtful, polite and helpful. Where did you go my son!

Beatrice now has her own blog with photos and the story of her arrival at http://beabella.blogspot.com/

Very, Very, Very Hard Day

I have taken away Henry's naps and for the past week he has been fine with it...until today. I don't know what happened but he was a little monster and I planned a huge shopping trip all day long. I thought I deserved it since I spent all week doing things for him. That's apparently not what he thought. For example, we were at The Strip District and his most favorite sample ever, mozzarella and tomato salad, was on the counter and because he was in such a bad mood he said he didn't want it, but when I ate it instead he screamed bloody murder and I had to weave in and out of people waiting to buy cheese to get another sample. That's when it started and it wasn't even noon. When we were at Babies R Us he saw some shoes he wanted to check out and instead of just saying, "mom, I want to see those" he burst out into tears and completely freaked out before I could figure out what he wanted. Then when I showed them to him, he didn't like them anymore and continued to bawl his eyes out. After a while I couldn't handle him crying right next to me so I took him out of the cart and encouraged him to cry a few isles away from me which threw all the mothers in the store in a panic thinking he was lost or hurt. I had to reassure them that the situation was under control and as long as I could hear his distant screaming I knew he was okay! Ugh. My friend that was with us(poor thing) commented that "at least no one will kidnap a kid that's freaking out already!" haha. He finally calmed down but he acted like everything he wanted to do was okay. He was taking things off the shelves and thinking that I was just going to buy them because he wanted them, so when we put them back he threw more of a fit. I don't know where he got the idea that I buy him everything he wants. I NEVER buy anything for him. He also got up into the display window at Children's Place and the employees were coaxing him to get out while he was knocking all the manequins over trying to hide. We finally got home at 7pm, so about 8 hours straight of bad behavior and screaming. It was probably the worst day in months and if this is what terrible twos are like, I feel for the parents who really get it bad. The only thing that was cute today is that he collected a bunch of things at Babies R Us and when he gave them to me, he said that they were for "baby sister." I think he's really going to love her! Can anyone sympathize with me? Has anyone gotten to the point where they felt like it was hard not to scream at their kid or slap them into consciousness? When we got home I just put him in his room for 10 minutes and let him cry while I cried and prayed for patience and wisdom. When he saw that I was crying he started crying, "sorry mommy" over and over which helped me calm down and then we talked about things and he finally fell asleep. Nightmare over!....for today.