The chicken or the egg?

Does my frustration lead to Kara’s brattiness, or does her brattiness result in my frustration?

Saturday
Brat, brat, brat, brat, brat,brat, brat, brat, brat, brat, brat, brat.

Brat.
Brat.

Brat!

The day started way too early and disastrously for everyone. Lance broke the golden rule of never getting out of bed and walking past Kara’s room between 5-6 am. Kara started crying out for us, which then woke Sophie, who managed to sound as if she was really pissed. (Sophie, up until that moment, had been having her best night’s sleep in possibly 5 months). I was pissed too. So downstairs I went with Sophie while Lance amazingly convinced Kara to fall back to sleep for a while. But that set the tone for the day – Kara crying and me getting royally pissed, over and over and over again.

In everyone’s defense, we are all still sick. Kara is probably the least sick and is making the most of the situation – the situation being that mummy and daddy will do whatever it is that requires the least amount of effort and tears. What with Sophie’s diarrhea, Lance’s emesis, and my inability to stay upright for more than 5 minutes … well, let’s just say that Kara’s making hay.

Kara was just bored too! The first time I managed to get Kara outside for an airing in nearly 3 days was to the ‘supermercado’ and the park in the afternoon.

As an aside, the good thing about making resolutions, it seems, is that you are reminded of them everyday. Near the end of the day I was reminded that I was to enjoy my kids every day … meaning EVERY GOD DAMN BRATTY DAY too! I decided to bathe both girls at once, by myself (I would never had thought of doing this had my brain been functioning). But seeing them both splashing away in the bath and giggling beyond belief until the water turned cold certainly made my day and lifted my mood. So this is why you have 2 kids – bath time!!

Sunday
Sunday started out better, although just as early. Sophie woke first at 5:07 am and of course this woke her sister. I tried coxing Kara back to bed but she bargained with me which resulted in her coming back to bed with me. Surprise, surprise – she didn’t keep her end of the bargain (i.e. go back to sleep) but we ended up just shooting the breeze for 30 minutes which made up for the early start.

Kara wanted to hurry downstairs to say hi to Mr. Lucas because he was taking her highchair (that was the previous night). She told me that she threw up, Sophie threw up and daddy threw up and that she went to the Doctor who made her tummy feel better. I learnt that Kara is big, mummy is big and daddy is really BIG but that Sophie was little. I should sleep on my back … properly. Ms. Vickie is Teo's mummy; Ms. Ellen is Esther's mummy; Ruthie is Esther's baby (near enough); and Isabella is nice. Oh, and that daddy had to cut her fingernails as they were too long.

We went to the Natural History museum in the morning. Kara had a mini meltdown outside but to be fair it was an hour past her nap time and a mere 25 *F outside … waiting for dad to swing by in the car to pick us up … who got lost despite parking in the same block as the museum … grrrrr. Dad made it up to me in the afternoon when he took the girls to the Building Museum while I cleaned the house in peace (we have the home inspection tomorrow so it has to look good again).

Kara's Photo #2 - (unflattering) Portrait of Mummy

P.S. We’ll be moving Sophie out of our room tomorrow after the home inspection is complete, so as to avoid the chain reaction of everyone waking early. On a safety note, as soon as we got the offer on the house (which meant no more open houses) we got rid of the bassinet, so Sophie is safely in a travel crib. She’ll move into a proper crib once we settle in Seattle.