Snow Wipe, Pinewood Derby, Don't Shop While Hungry, Midnight Alarm

The terrible twos are continuing on into the terrible threes with Sarah!  She is truly the Queen of Tantrums!  She wants things her way or it is an instant tantrum.  I have never had such a strong willed child before!!  She only wants to wear what she picks out and if you try to get her to change--heaven help you!!  Last week I was getting her ready for dance.  I luckily talked her into getting her leotard, tights and skirt on without too much of a problem.  Now with her ballet slippers she is not supposed to wear them outside.  That means she either has to wear her clogs over the top of them until she gets to dance or wear a different pair of shoes until she can change into her ballet slippers when she gets to dance.  Last week she decided she HAD to wear her ballet slippers and nothing else.  When I tried to put her clogs over the top of them she had a melt down.  When I tried to take off her ballet slippers to put a different pair of shoes on she had an even worse meltdown.  I finally had to just let her wear her ballet slippers and just carry her and Noah over to dance.  Luckily the dance teacher lives across the street from us, but by the time I got there my arms were just burning under her and Noah's weight!  However, when we got to dance Sarah was still in tantrum mode.  I set her down in the dance studio kicking and screaming.  I couldn't calm her down so I just told the dance teacher, "Um, I think she will stop once I leave."  On my way out the door I was thinking to myself as I listened to her still screaming, "Good luck with that!!"  When I came to pick her up after dance the teacher told me she refused to do anything and sat in the corner and pouted all during class.  AWESOME!  I can't wait until she grows out of the terrible twos and threes.  Hopefully they won't turn into the terrible fours, fives and sixes!!!

We almost had another huge meltdown before church this week.  Sarah saw everyone getting their church clothes on and wanted to get her own church clothes on.  She went and found her "Snow Wipe" (that's what Sarah calls Snow White) dress up dress and tried to put that on.  Luckily I caught her before she had her mind absolutely made up on wearing that particular dress and was able to steer her to a different dress without a tantrum.  Whew!

Why oh why do they make midnight the default alarm setting on alarm clocks?!  This is something that has always been a minor inconvenience to me as long as I have been dealing with alarm clocks.  However, it became a major inconvenience last week.  Josh and Daniel played with their alarm clock before they went to bed.  We didn't know about it until their shrill, beeping alarm went off right at midnight.  It took Aaron a minute to figure out what was going on.  When he finally aroused to consciousness and realized that horrible beeping noise really wasn't actually part of his dream, he ran downstairs to turn it off.  He had to fumble with it for a few minutes because he didn't know where the off button was and he didn't want to unplug it because he didn't want to reset the time.  He finally got it turned off.  However, it didn't bother Josh and Daniel seeing as they slept through the whole thing.  How you can sleep through that is beyond me!!  As soon as Aaron came upstairs and got back into bed Noah started screaming because it woke him up.  I thought if we let him scream for a bit he would fall back asleep.  I was wrong.  After 20 minutes of horrible shrill screaming that actually was waking everyone else up, I got up with him.  I held him in my arms while watching some TV.  Noah fell asleep pretty quickly so I tried to take him back to bed.  As soon as I laid him in his crib the horrible screaming began again.  We did this little routine multiple times until about 3:30 am when he finally decided laying in his crib wasn't so bad and stayed asleep after I laid him down.  Again I ask why oh why do they set the default alarm to midnight?!

Noah has since decided that sleeping through the night is not the fun thing to do anymore.  The bad thing about that is we live in a small enough house that you can hear anything from anyone at anytime on any floor.  I swear they put no insulation on any of the walls.  In knowing that, I don't feel like I can just let Noah scream it out because everyone suffers--especially the three oldest boys who go to school and Aaron who has to go to work.  Since I don't like having a family full of "Chuckles" (aka extremely ornery husband and kids) the next day, I get up with him. He likes to start screaming around 1 am and not stop unless he is being held at all times until 3-4am.  Then I have to get up at 7 am to referee breakfast and the morning chaos while Noah quietly slumbers on in his crib.  **YAWN!!** I can't wait until our house gets built so Noah will have his own room and will be able to scream it out while not bothering anyone.  Our house is coming along--they just poured the footings yesterday and should be pouring the rest of the foundation either today or tomorrow.  I can't WAIT!!  I need my sleep!! 

Since the majority of the summer Noah wasn't walking we didn't bother with shoes--or even socks for that matter because he would pull them right back off as soon as you got them on.  However, once he started walking he did need to start wearing shoes.  Last week I forced a pair of socks and shoes on him and he did NOT like it at all.  As soon as they got put on he refused to stand or walk at all.  It took him a few hours to finally decide shoes weren't so bad after all and start walking with them.  The little stinker!!

 

This is why you don't go shopping while your kids are hungry:

We ran out of grocery basket space so we started putting the last couple bags up by where Noah sits.  Before we knew it he had reached inside the bag, pulled out a package of hot dogs and started munching away.

We called him out and this is his I just got caught red handed or my guilty hot dog face:

 

Yummy!!  Chewed up hot dogs in an unopened package.  Can't wait to hear what the other kids will say when I try to serve this to them.  I am sure I will hear, "Ewwww!  What's wrong with these hot dogs?"  I will just tell them they got Noahized!

Noah has started mimicking a few more words.  He lately will say, "Tickle, tickle, tickle" and I think it sounds cute.  I could only get him to do it for the camera during dinner so that's why he is chowing down on his noodles.  He is a sweet guy as long as he is not screaming in the middle of the night!!

He also knows what, "Go bye bye" means and let's get a drink.  When he hears bye, bye he walks over to the stairs and starts sliding down them to get to the front door.  When he hears "drink" he immediately 'assumes the position'  by lying down on the ground wherever he is at and awaits his sippy cup. It's pretty funny to watch.

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for our scout troop.  Aaron wanted to do better than last year because last year Matthew was in the bottom three finishers.  This year, after borrowing a saw from a neighbor (since all of Aaron's tools are packed up never to be seen again until we move) he made both boys' cars.  He used the same outline Aaron and his Dad used way back when Aaron was in Cup Scouts doing his own Pinewood Derby.  Good thing, because judging by the results it looked like that model of car did fantastic!  After 19 races the Mancil boys took 1st and 2nd place.  I don't know who was more excited, Aaron or the boys.  This was Matthew's last Pinewood Derby so it is nice he can go out on a high note!  Matthew, of course, wanted to make his car YELLOW his absolute favorite color.  Josh's car was a silver/gray. 

 For their trophy they got a big model car to play with.  Once Matthew got that he wanted to race the big car instead of his actual Pinewood Derby car.  It didn't go nearly as well.

 Here's Josh's winnings:

 Mark, set, GO!!!  Josh and Matthew are standing with Aaron to make sure their cars are put on the track properly.

 Sarah, Daniel and Josh later on settled just to watch the races toward the finish line.

It was a fun night.