The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Alexis has been with us for 11 days now. My mom left 4 days ago and I'm now experiencing life on my own as a mom of 3 kids under the age of 3. So I'm dividing this post into 3 sections, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly....

The Good:



The boys ADORE their little sister. It warms my heart to see the way they look at her and how they want to take care of her and love her. Bryce is especially fond of Alexis. He is at her side constantly and is always making sure "she's ok". Anytime he hears her cry he says "she needs more milk". Lexi got a toy in the mail the other day from her great aunt and uncle and Bryce carries it around with him to help play music for her and show her how it works. He is obsessed with making sure she's got a blanket over her (I give my mom all the credit for that one!)


Alexis is a very good baby. She is most happy when she is being held, but she will lay on her back and just look at anything. She travels well in the car seat and is a good little eater. It is a joy to have a new baby who is so fresh from heaven.

The Bad:

Tyler and Bryce have turned into TV junkies. Every morning they have certain programs that they want to watch and are glued to the television for as long as I will let them. This also categorizes into a "good" thing too, unless we're trying to get out the door and they're still watching a show.


Bless my mom's heart, she had really good intentions, but her timing was horrendous....the day after I came home from the hospital she decided that she was going to potty train the boys. It's been a nightmare. They went straight into underwear and were rewarded generously when they went in the potty, but we had too many accidents left and right and it was stressing me out too much. Things went a little better when we changed to pull-ups...Tyler wants to spend his entire life on the potty going a tiny bit at a time so he can get a treat each time. Bryce sees Tyler getting treats and that's the only reason he'll sit on it so he can have one too. The only reason I've stuck with it is that Tyler really has shown progress. The last couple of days he really didn't have any accidents (how could he, he was on the toilet so much to begin with!) But today we took 5 steps back (see the "Ugly" section). I hate potty training.


Alexis is not a fan of bath time! Hopefully when her cord falls off and we can fully submerge her in the water it will go a little better. She is a deep sleeper in the day time and will sleep for 4 hours at a time, I will try everything to wake her up and she won't budge. If only she would sleep that well at night!


The Ugly:

The baby is the easy part at this point. Her needs are simple, eat, change diaper, and place on side to sleep. My boys are a nightmare for me right now. I don't know how much of my raging temper and irritation is normal or if I'm experiencing some postpartum, but they've been really difficult for me to deal with. The fighting, and screaming, and disobeying is so stressful. My one desire each day is to escape to the shower for a few minutes of quiet privacy.

The other day I was making lunch for the kids, Alexis was starting to fuss because she was hungry, & Tyler was crying over who knows what. I put yogurt into bowls and put them on the table and Tyler just goes ballistic, grabs the bowl of yogurt and throws it on the ground. I had a crying baby in one arm and hauled a 40 lb toddler with the other to put him in time out....(repeat several times until he stayed in time out) after he finally settled down, I found out he wanted the orange bowl and not the blue one that was given to him.

This morning while Marc was at meetings, the boys were cranky and fighting over this and that. I was feeding the baby on the couch when they went down into their room to play. They were happy and out of my hair, so I didn't worry, until it was too quiet. I opened the door to a nasty smell and saw that Tyler had taken off his dirty diaper and smeared it all over his legs, Bryce's sheets, and the bedding.

Adding a new baby to the family is hard! We knew it would be, but going through it day after day with little to no sleep is almost torture. Things will hopefully get a little easier one day at a time. In the meantime, we're all alive, we're fed, and somewhat clean, and that's all this mom can ask for!