A Twinge

Brice is bored. Bored with me. Bored with Anna. Bored with summer. He went from school four days a week with baseball at least twice a week to nothing, seriously, nothing except watching us watch his sister. Because that is what we do and kind of have to do right now. She is just at that stage where I have to keep my eyes on her at all times and it doesn't leave a lot of room for, "Hey, Mom, watch this". We've been going to the pool here and there with Anna but again, the "Watch what I can do" is put on hold because Anna is heading for someone else's pool toys.

Brice gets crabby when he is bored. Brice is also crabby when he's hot. So, we have here a not-nice combination! And when he's crabby, he is bossy. And doesn't always talk to me nicely. He also stores up a lot of unwanted energy. So, yesterday I took him to the pool, just me and him. Justin was home working while Anna napped so it worked out very nicely. Justin and I have been sensing some jealousy lately. I thought this might help out. We had a great time, swimming, diving for stuff and going down the slide (my first time!). Then we got home and I needed to fold clothes. Anna's, no less. And then Brice was really not happy.

"You never play with me. I told you you had to play "jungle" with me first and then you have to fold clothes and then you have to leave Anna in her crib until 5:00." It was 3:30 at this point and she was already awake.

I told him I was sorry and that I had to take care of both of them.

"Having a baby around is no fun." Kind of true, I guess. But, I was feeling really guilty.

And, so today we went to Monkey Joe's and the boy ran and jumped and played. I didn't even see him half the time he was moving so much. Anna stuck close to me and Brice didn't seem to mind. He told me on the way over there that is was okay if I had to keep up with Anna. After that we came home and had lunch and put Anna down. Then he told me, if I wanted, I could go work on his scrapbook. He's been dying for me to start but then when I mention working on it, he would rather have my full attention doing something else. So, today we headed to the basement and I scrapped while he worked with some modeling clay making me all different sorts of cakes. Kind of like Cake Boss! After that, his imagination was going and we pretended that he had all different kinds of factories in the basement and I was coming to visit all of them. Let's see, I went to the chocolate factory, the window factory, the grass factory, the cupcake factory, and "this will be your favorite, Mom" pink factory. He talked the entire time we were playing on and on about I don't even know what (kind of like this post is now feeling to me!) but I think he just needed some kind of outlet. He has been sweeter tonight so I am hoping that he understands that I can't entertain him every second of the day whether there is a baby in the house or not!

Some pictures unrelated to the post but of ways he's been entertaining himself. I think he will really enjoy basketball camp, not just because it's basketball but because it will get him out of the house!He is doing an "experiment" in the pictures below. He just gets a bunch of stuff and mixes it together and sees what happens. Usually, just a mess happens!

I know sibling rivalry/jealousy is normal and I should expect it but it still makes me feel bad as a mother even if it's just A Twinge.