We had our party on Saturday and everyone had a good time. Kayla loved having her friends over to play with. All kids (big and small) were well behaved.

Then Sunday – I finally got the motivation (not sure from where) to organize all my bank statements and register books and balance my check-book. Now, I won’t admit how long it’s actually been, but there was a very large pile of statements. This is what I’ve been doing since Sunday. Basically, when I wasn’t playing with and taking care of the kids, I was on the computer entering in the multiple registers and balancing away. But…I am happy and relieved to say that I finished last night. And although, it had been so long there were bound to be some mistakes, it was not too bad. I was pleasantly surprised. And now that I am in a good place routine-wise with the girls, I vow that in 2007 and forward, I will be back to my “old self” of balancing once a month. I can’t let it get out of hand again.

My next project is to organize all my coupons again. I was so good here until Alysa came along. I now have stacks of coupons, most of which are expired. For a while, I was the coupon queen – we saved a lot of money with them. So now I have to sit down one afternoon while the girls are napping and go through them all and start cutting and organizing them, so I can get back to saving.

I’ve also been dealing with the increasing “Terrible Two’s Syndrome”. The past 2 weeks, Kayla has been very defiant. She just refuses to listen. It can be on something simple as coming over to be changed (she still refuses to have anything to do with the potty) or something more important such as standing on things that are meant to be stood on. And then there’s the part where she feels it’s her duty to push her sister away from anything she wants to play with by herself. Yes, I know this is all perfectly normal behavior, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The hardest that I have to deal with is her standing in her seat at the dinner table. This is what I have a hard time curbing b/c there is nothing during meals that I can punish her with immediately. I can’t take her out of her seat for a timeout b/c then she’s getting what she wants – away from the table. And sometimes, threatening to take away Dora (if it’s breakfast time) will work, but if not, she then later has no clue why she’s being punished. So this is a moment by moment thing. I take it as it comes and try to gauge what I can use as leverage.

So the past few days has been a struggle as I’ve been exhausted from keeping up with Kayla’s newest antics each day and from staring at the computer screen. But I’ve managed to slow down at times and enjoy the girls and their laughter. Alysa now loves to “sing” Row Row Row Your Boat. Well, her version goes like this… “Row-row-row-row…”. Of course, it’s the most adorable thing. And Kayla, as exasperating as she can be lately, she is also getting cuter by the minute. She comes up with some pretty wacky things to amuse us all. No one can say being a Mom of a 2 ½ year old is boring. LOL

That’s pretty much a quick catch-up on our house. I probably should have used the checkbook balancing as a first Tackle it Tuesday. Oh well… Next time…