life, apparently

The Sister and The Nephew visited last week (my excuse for not posting) and it was interesting. Yes, interesting it was. The Nephew is 6 weeks younger than The Kid which is to say that they will be forever considered the same age as soon as I'm allowed to count by years rather than months and weeks. (Am I the only one who hates that convention? I didn't mind counting weeks for maybe the first 12-16 weeks and I didn't mind counting months for the first 9-12 months but come on. He is a little bit over 2, why is that not a sufficient answer? Why do I have first remember his birthday and second remember the current month so that I can third count on my fingers the number of months since he turned 2? Why?) But I digress. Age is the only thing The Kid and The Nephew have in common.

The Kid is loud and rambunctious. His favorite activities are throwing a ball and playing baseball (sometimes completely imaginary baseball but more often we play by hitting a balloon with a wiffle ball bat and running around the "bases" in the house. Yes, I realize this is perhaps not the most appropriate indoor game but I hope it will move to a strictly outdoor game with the spring weather.) The Kid likes to be on the go - if we stay home for two consecutive days he becomes a monster. The Kid is very verbal, as in please stop talking already my ears hurt.

The Nephew is quiet and mellow. His favorite activities are reading books and playing with a computer. The Nephew is sensitive to high stimulus environments. He likes calm, quiet places with few people. The Nephew is not particularly verbal - he uses few words (and definitely no sentences). He prefers the company of adults. He is not particularly fond of other toddlers who attempt to play catch all day while yelling "Catch da ball Cousin" at the top of his lungs and throwing balls at him.

This presented quite a challenge for us. We went to gymnastics and The Nephew HATED it, he cried the entire time and kept saying "bye bye" as in let's get the f**k out of here puhlease. We went to Chuck E Cheese. The only redeeming quality of CEC is that they have pizza and so The Nephew was happy for about 45 minutes while he ate. The Kid spent most days taking toys away from The Nephew or tackling him (sometimes baseball includes tacking, no?) followed by "NO" responses from the grown ups. The Nephew spent most days upset and avoiding The Kid. (The Nephew was also sick so that of course added to his misery.)

TheSister is pregnant (2ish months). At some point we heard a commercial that said "Are you pregnant and scared about your future?" to which she responded "YES!" Two kids are exhausting, especially when they are exact opposites. The day after they left I fell asleep at 7:30pm. The following day I took a 2 hour nap. I think I'm back to full speed now. Did I mention that next week The Kid and I are traveling to visit FriendWithKid who, you guessed it, has 2 kids - one a year older and one a year younger. Maybe I should take another nap.

Labels: parenting awards

// posted by apparently @ 2:09 PM