It’s shaping up to be a good day. (In our house, we consider the night a success if no one is up before 6 a.m. Sometimes I can’t believe our standards have sunk so low.) Everyone got enough sleep, we are finally making significant progress with Justin’s potty training and I just found out that the suspicious mole I had removed a couple weeks ago shows no sign of cancer. To top it all off, the kids are off to Grandma’s this morning, leaving me the whole morning to putz around the yard and watch the Wimbledon women’s final. Life is good.

So we survived another trip to Toon Town. Actually, we did more than survive; we had a pretty good time, and kudos to the kids for behaving remarkably well. Yes, there were hordes of relatives around at all times, but no one had any major meltdowns, and most nights everyone slept all right. Chris and I even managed to escape with Rob, Janette, Dave and Tanya for an evening, leaving Grandma and Grandpa to put the kids to bed, and that went just fine (hooray!) I was just starting to really enjoy myself right about the time we had to leave (sigh), but such is life.

Father’s Day kind of snuck up on me, but I did manage to find a DVD about Pearl Harbor and a Ken Follett novel that Chris seems to appreciate. We took the kids to the park this morning and got in just enough playtime before it started to rain; on the way home we picked up some takeout for lunch and I did all the cleanup (which would normally be Dad’s job). We’re off to my in-laws’ tonight for dinner and cake. I call that a good day.

I keep meaning to record this for posterity cause it was just so darn cute. One of Brayden’s favorite books right now is If You’re Happy and You Know It, with different animals on each page doing the actions for the song. He wanted me to read it to him the other day but I was busy making dinner, so he plopped down on the kitchen floor and looked at it himself. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but when I tuned in I noticed he was actually “reading” the book:

BRAYDEN: Duckaduckaduckaduckaducka (claps his hands)
(turns the page)
Duckaduckaduckaduckaduckaduckaduckaducka (stomps his feet)
(turns the page)
Duckaduckaduckaduckaducka (roars like a lion)

You get the idea. If he ever gets some actual words that kid will have plenty to say.

I don’t know how much longer my luck can hold out, but I love the fact that both my kids still nap in the afternoons. I don’t think there are many four-year-olds who still nap for two or three hours a day (go Justin!) We’ve actually had to shorten Brayden’s nap in order to get him down at a decent hour at night, but I still get one whole hour all to myself during the day. That’s generally when I work out, but some days I say to hell with that and I crash for a quick snooze instead.

Such was the case yesterday. Chris is out of town on business for a few days, so the boys and I are on our own. Justin sometimes asks where Daddy is, but I just tell him Daddy’s on a trip, and he seems to accept that. Brayden doesn’t seem to have noticed. I’ve even developed a bedtime routine that gets both boys bathed and into bed by 8:15 p.m., which is the earliest Brayden’s gone to sleep in weeks. Yay me!

Of course, all this sleep training will likely go to hell when we fly to Saskatoon next week. We’re off to Toon Town on a week-long family visit that will include a big party for my grandma’s 90th and my dad’s 60th birthdays. It sounds like there will be quite a crowd, which is both good and bad: good cause everyone I would want to catch up with will be there, bad cause there’s no way I’ll be able to catch up with everyone while I’m chasing kids. We’ll see how it goes.

I have many failings as a parent, but the main one that preys at me is how ineffectively I discipline my kids. We’ve tried timeouts now and then, but not consistently enough to make any difference, and at any rate I haven’t figured out how to make Brayden sit still. I usually ask them to do something nicely three, four, five, sometimes six times, then resort to yelling. It’s a nice blowing-off-steam experience for me but it generally just rolls off them like water off a duck. I know there are better ways. I know I can be a better person. But damn, it’s tough.

My Mother’s Day got off to a bit of a rough start, with both my kids waking up ungodly early (Brayden was up at 4:45 and refused to go back to sleep), but things have improved since then. Chris took the boys to the park this morning, leaving me free to do some shopping and putz around, and then after their naps he hustled them over to his parents’ house for dinner. I have three whole hours all to myself: I plan to grab some takeout, veg in front of the TV and enjoy the peace and quiet. Ah, bliss…

Maybe we’re just typical homeowners, but somehow we manage to find at least one thing every year that costs us several thousand dollars we weren’t expecting to spend. Last year we re-landscaped the backyard and had our roof converted from cedar shakes to shingles; this year we’re replacing all the windows in the house. We’re also planning to do a Mediterranean cruise next year. Let’s just say we’re doing our part to stimulate the economy.

Not much new is happening around here. Three of us have been sick with colds for the past week or so (Chris is the lucky one who missed it) so I’ve been busy wading through snot, vomit and various other disgusting things. Everyone finally had a good sleep last night, so things are looking up. I still can’t figure out how my own mom managed to raise three kids with only one humidifier (apparently they chose their favorite child and the rest of us had to suffer). We’ve survived with just one so far, but every time someone gets the sniffles we’re tempted to get a second one cause we know someone else is bound to get sick too. The boys seemed improved enough yesterday that I stole the humidifier from Brayden’s room and put it in our bedroom so I could finally get a reprieve from my stuffy nose. Ah, to breathe again…

Brayden is two years old today but we haven’t actually told him that — we’re doing the celebration with his grandparents tomorrow, so to avoid confusing him we’re just pretending that tomorrow is his big day. Chris spent the morning assembling the new full-size twin bed we bought, so we’ll see how he likes that. I suspect he’ll be thrilled to get a real big-boy bed (and perhaps even more thrilled that he’ll now be able to climb onto his windowsill if he so chooses…sigh). We also got him a little school bus, since that is his current obsession, although the one we bought is metal and I’m a little concerned that it’ll get smashed into walls and doors and so on. That one might have to be an outdoor toy.

So now I have a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Wow. That makes me sound so grown up.

There have been lots of new developments in the Lee household lately. Justin has more or less figured out how to pedal his bike, he’s starting to read and he has FINALLY decided to learn how to use the potty (hooray!) The reading thing is largely a result of a phonics game he plays online (which he would play all day if I’d let him). It got him started sounding out words, and now he reads everything he sees. He even spells out words when he’s playing with his magnetic letters: dog, duck, jet, jump, Mom, Dad, Justin, hug…it goes on. We’re pretty impressed.

Brayden is turning two this coming Saturday — whew. He’s really into books these days, even the longer ones that he never used to sit through, although for some reason he absolutely refused to let anyone but me or Chris read to him when family was visiting this past weekend. He wants to do everything for himself (climb into his car seat, close the car door, put his cup in the fridge, turn off the TV) which still blows my mind because Justin would be quite content to let other people do everything for him for the rest of his life. At his two-year checkup Brayden was 34 inches tall and weighed 30 pounds, so he’s shorter but heavier than his big brother was. The story goes that a kid reaches half his adult height at age two, which would make Brayden 5′8″ as an adult — no giant, certainly, but still tall when you look at his family tree.

Speaking of family, my parents, my older brother and my sister-in-law were all here for the Easter weekend. We golfed a couple rounds, played plenty of board games and hung out with the kids — good stuff.

Time to rest (yawn)…