Ahh...Quiet!

Here is one of my favorite recent stories; I'm starting with this story because it leads perfectly into one of the strangest - yet very nice - aspects of our Memorial Day Weekend:

Lyla is in the clingy phase...teething up a storm, severe stranger anxiety, freaks out whenever Mommy or Daddy leaves the room or even puts her down. In other words, that really fun phase. So our days over the past few weeks have pretty much consisted of her crawling or cruising around behind me, wherever I go, screaming or yelling at me because I won't pick her up. If I stop for a second, she climbs up my legs; if I don't then pick her up, she yells even louder. It's obviously VERY loud.

This means that putting Sienna in Time Out for hitting Madelyn could nearly put you over the edge, since the volume level more than doubles. But that's where she ended up the other day after getting a little too agressive. So, she was in Time Out (in a small hallway off the kitchen) screaming that she didn't want to be there. Lyla was crawling around behind me in the kitchen, screaming because I was dealing with Sienna and wouldn't pick her up. Thank goodness Maddie wasn't really hurt by the little incident with Sienna, and therefore was NOT crying and was instead satisfied by Sienna going to time out. Lyla managed to crawl her way over in the general vicinity of Sienna's Time Out spot, still yelling and screaming at me. Sienna momentarily stops carrying on enough to shake her little index finger and Lyla and yell, "HEY! NO, Lyla! I'M CRYING!! You don't cry!!" I had all I could do to keep the tears from running down my face. We've reached a new level...they're fighting over who gets to cry!

So back to this weekend...my parents offered to take Sienna overnight after Maddie's dance recital, so that she could have a special night too, in the midst of all of the fanfare over Maddie's performance. Since we've been getting so little sleep lately with her waking up at all hours, we were looking forward to a night of sleep and some time with Maddie and Lyla. Maddie was pretty upset about the arrangement, so my mom and dad ended up taking Sienna on Saturday night, and then Maddie on Sunday night. It really gave us some time to spend a little more in-depth time with each of them. But the thing I noticed most? It is SO much quieter at our house with only two children! I missed them both terribly, but we found ourselves appreciating just a bit of quiet SO much. Obviously we love the loudness and the chaos and pretty much everything about our three kids, but sometimes it's so loud I can't think straight!

So we did some fun things... while Sienna was at Grammy and Grampy's, we took advantage of having no allergy worries and actually going out for breakfast at Percy's Place. OMG, it was delicious! Maddie, Brad and I all had EGGS and loved every bite of it! And little Lyla put away so much pancake I thought she might seriously burst. Then while Maddie was gone, we took Sienna and Lyla to the duck pond and the Grist Mill for a picnic lunch. It was a gorgeous weekend, weather-wise, and we took full advantage. I missed each of the kids tremendously while they were gone (it was especially weird not to have Maddie around after spending so much one-on-one time with her over the past several weeks at dance recitals, rehearsals, etc.), but I think it's always nice to get a little more time to focus on each of them - especially if it's a little quieter and less chaotic!