Sibling Rivalry

Abe blogging here trying to make things a little easier on Lily since she is still very sick.  She is so sick that she drove to school tonight before her class to take care of a financial aid appointment and tell her teacher she would have to miss due to illness.  Apparently her teacher was not so forgiving during their conversation because she ended up staying for all of class.  She definitely has less flexibility because of all the class she missed due to our trip.  But, she just got home and I’m happy to report she made it through!

During the day, Lily read book 3 of Fablehaven, ate cupcakes with the girls outside for breakfast (reminding her of a Bill Cosby skit about chocolate cake) and babysat for Sarah (who has the most well-behaved kids in the world).  During class she had her knife skills test and she passed!

As far as my day, work is going very well, but the pace is very dizzying.  It’s not just my pace, it’s the company’s pace.  We are trying to double revenue and staff every year.  I started 5 months ago when the company had 400 people and now they have about 500 people.  Everyone everywhere is running around working as fast as possible to try to make history at building an extremely successful tech company.  Our quotas are aggressive and there is literally no time to come up for air.  I absolutely love it, but today I felt the strain of the pace a little more than usual, I think possibly because my allergies were kicking in.

At home I played with the girls.  Lily and I have put a lot of thought and prayer into Lydia because she has been such an emotional and behavioral mess lately.  She cries all the time and refuses to do anything we ask.  The challenge for Lily and I is to know how to respond (and to have the strength to respond the ways we think we should).  Well, tonight I didn’t get any major epiphanies about how to help Lydia, but I think I learned what all of her distress centers around.  Do you remember a few blog entries ago when Lily mentioned how with Mary’s new rule that she only gets binkies in her crib, she climbs in there multiple times a day sometimes for hours?  Well she did that tonight.  She climbed in and proceeded to read a book for twently minutes while she joyfully sucked her binky.  At that point (with Mary effectively removed from existence, trapped in her crib), Lydia became the most angelic well behaved girl.  She’d say please and thank you and oblige any time I told her we had to do something else or that play time was over.  I couldn’t believe it!  As soon as I retrieved Mary from her crib (she can climb in, but not out) Lydia resumed her screaming, crying and throwing toys.

I think I’m going to try to give Lydia a little Mary-free time each day.  I think she needs a little space!

Pictures!!!

 

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Lydia told me that she had a playdate with Nathan and he was very nice and she (Lydia) was super sweet
Lydia told me that she had a play date with Nathan and he was very nice and she (Lydia) was super sweet
Hannah talks really well just like Lydia and she's not even 2 yet!
Hannah talks really well just like Lydia and she’s not even 2 yet!

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Lily made the salad towards the front and spent the rest of the time on her knife cuts mid-term
Lily made the salad towards the front and spent the rest of the time on her knife cuts mid-term

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