Trying

The last couple of days in the IacoHouse have been challenging, to say the least!  Jackson has been big into pushing everyone's buttons.  I realize he's at an age where he's going to test every boundary put before him.  He's doing a GREAT job of that.

Today was a really REALLY bad day.  Putting aside Jackson's behavior lately, there were just a string of bad happening--nothing major, just a lot of little things: spilled art project on the floor, broken plates, forgotten appointments.  Add in the orneriness of a certain 3 year old and it's just a bad chemistry experiment.

It's hard for me to put things into perspective when these things are in the midst of happening.  I mean, yes, we have our good health, we live in a beautiful house in a great neighborhood, I get to stay at home with my child.  I know I have a lot to be grateful for, and I AM grateful.

The hard part is remembering all that when I'm trying to wrangle Jackson out the door to go to speech therapy and he's refusing to go potty and we're late and he's mad because he has to wear pants and he's screaming at me....

Ugh.

Top it off with Jackson's injury from yesterday--a split lip.  Fell off his bouncy ball and face planted into the hardwood floor.  It looks like someone beat the shit out of him, and while there are times I think I'd like to knock him to next Tuesday, he'll tell you the story himself about how he fell and needed ice on his lip and got to drink a bottle and it was hard because his lip hurt...

Ugh.

Tonight, he even got to Paul.  Paul, bless his soul, who NEVER EVER EVER gets mad or raises his voice, and has more patience in his little toe than I do in my entire body...he blew his stack tonight and yelled more than once at a screaming child who refused to sit in the bathtub and subsequently had his entire bath while standing up. 

I think we need a break.  From each other, yes, but from this shitty weather, from this house and all its distractions, from the weekly activities, from everyday mundane life.

I guess things can only go up from here, right?  ☺

I'm cold.

Well, well, well.  It's safe to say that Jackson has potty training mostly mastered!  He still wears a diaper or Pull Up at nap time and bed time, but the rest of the time, he's about 95% on target when it comes to going on the potty.  Funny how it's such a RELIEF to have that hurdle jumped!

Spring break has passed.  It was mostly uneventful (a visit to my sis, visits from the neighborhood mothers helpers), and I'm sad to say that spring break isn't really a break after all.  Not like when I was in school.  I can remember counting down the days until break!  I did that both as a student AND as a teacher.  I won't lie.  I used to enjoy it.  Now?  Meh.

Paul had Friday off and it was a nice day out, so we were able to get outside for a while.  Saturday was even warmer and more time was spent outside.  I'm ready for the weather to take that turn into spring--sadly, the last few days, it's just reverted back to winter temps, though it helps that the sun's been out.

Easter was ok.  We spent the day at my MIL's.  It was nice to see that side of the family, especially for Jackson.  He sees my mom almost every week, but he doesn't see his other grandma very much these days, more so since his park district classes and speech therapy have been taking up so much time in the morning hours during the week.  We do see Paul's dad once a month--he visits on a Sunday afternoon...comes to play with Jackson, and in return, we feed him well.  It's really nice to have him visit like that!  He lives quite a distance from us, and I don't know how much longer he'll be able to make that drive, so we'll enjoy it while he does.

Speaking of classes, Jackson's have started up again.  He's taking a reading readiness class, which is basically just a review of the alphabet, which he does know, but it's never a bad thing to reinforce those lessons.  He'll be starting soccer next week, too.  I'm going to be a soccer mom!!  I've honestly dreamed of doing this my whole life.  I'm so excited to see him learn and play!  Speech therapy continues on Wednesdays, but I'm not sure if they'll continue into the summer.  I think they school has a 6 week time period where they work on speech, but kids have to qualify, and by that, I mean the school has to decide if a student will regress from not having therapy for any amount of time.  All students would benefit from it--that's not the issue.  It's whether or not he'll do worse by NOT having it.  We'll just have to wait to find out what they say.

Other than that, life is nice and quiet.  We're having some work done on the house (mostly roof--replacing missing shingles, replacing our sky light, etc) in the next few weeks.  We're planning a family vacation to Mackinac Island sometime before the heat of summer hits.  That should be a lot of fun!  Oh, and a quick weekend away to Milwaukee for a Cubs game.  We'll stay overnight and possible go to the zoo as well.  FUN!!

Keep your fingers crossed for some warm weather to come this way!!!