systems down

Our laptop died (Matt is grieving, and slaving away to salvage important stuff off it's hard drive) so if you are one that sends me e-mail, I haven't received it in the past few days! You can contact me at my gmail account though and I might get a chance to check it every few days but no promises. [I now have to retreat to the very un-babyproofed back basement to get online.] bethmc3@gmail.com. Hopefully Matt will have luck in the next few days getting things back to working order. I wish I could understand what makes these things happen - one day it was running fine, then started acting all funky, and within 3 days it was a goner.

The good news is you can see pictures of the boys' first and third combined birthday party online at www.dpics.us (find the link that says ian 3 caleb 1 or something similar). The shots are courtesy Matt's dad.

Caleb took 3 steps yesterday! He is trying so hard and making progress every day. Unfortunate side effect being his head resembles a bumper car - skinned nose on driveway, cracked head under table and against wall corners about a thousand times now, bloodied lip and gums on a toy cell phone yesterday.

Ian is up to the same - occasionally going potty, most of the time not, and engaging in elaborate all-day-long fantasies about being a tractor driver and firefighter. Recent quotes of interest:
"I'm a fire fighting machine!"
(when he choked a little while drinking) "I used the breathing mouth"
"I'm not Ian, I'm sweet pumpkin! And Caleb is little pumpkin"
"Mommy, I want you to be a nice mommy, not a bad mommy"
he's also calling everyone "hon" while bossing them around, much to Matt's chagrin

I am relieved that the b-day party is accomplished and enjoyed, and now back to focusing on the day to day:
-trying but failing to keep my house in some kind of order
-being ever so encouraging about how wonderful the potty is and reminding frequently that you need to go during the daytime as much as you do at bedtime (Mr. manipulation likes to use this to exit his bedroom as many times as possible until he can't possibly force any more out, plus a few times after that point)
-walking around with a 1 year old boy hanging off my legs 95% of the day (see first point)
-trying hard not to discipline with anger when Ian incites the mama bear wrath by manhandling his brother.
-have recognized that responding by flying off the handle does not teach him to respond well to Caleb...
-also recognized I will not win this battle by my own strength......... more on this topic later.