Mommy auto-pilot

Today I caught myself totally going on Mommy auto-pilot. I was trying to get Jacob changed into some fresh clothes. He had opened up a closet he's never gotten into before, and discovered a Super Soaker squirt gun. He was playing with it while I was trying to change him. I started getting annoyed, and said to him, "Don't play with that, it's not a toy!" .... pause to think .... Oh really, Becky? A Super Soaker isn't a toy?? .... shakes head at herself .... I need to think before I open my mouth, I guess. Take more pauses throughout my day instead of plowing through things trying to get them done just because I don't want to be bothered by distractions.

My A/C game ended in a rather unspectacular and sudden fashion this afternoon, also. Alex was crying beyond my ability to soothe him, Melinda and Jacob were fighting, and I was feeling extremely flustered on top of being very very warm and sticky. So I threw in the towel and turned on the nice cool air for almost 45 minutes. And it only cooled the house down to about 78 degrees, lol. But it made the rest of the day bearable.

We turned in our lease application for the new apartment this afternoon. The apartment is on a second level and doesn't look as "green" as our current complex does (there seems to be a lot more concrete and a higher density of buildings), and I think it will be really hard to say goodbye to our ability to walk from our porch out to the common green area here... not to mention the lack of any stairs to get into our apartment... but I think the switch will still be worth it. I sure hope so, at least.

We went to the pool this evening after dinner. I was surprised that the water was actually very comfortably warm already. I didn't have to take my time getting in. It felt great. Melinda really wants to be able to swim. But even with a life vest on, she still got a few face-fulls of water. I should probably pay for swimming lessons for her someday. I really should have done it while I didn't have an infant to care for. Jacob was mildly interested in the big pool, too, but he's more touchy than Melinda right now about water in his eyes. He also got a few gulps and sputters from water in his face, even though I was holding him. I took him back to the wading pool after just a couple minutes. And then he figured out how to open the latch on the wading pool gate, and I spent the rest of our time there having to guard it so he wouldn't run out to the big pool. Not because he wanted to swim in the big pool, mind you, but because he wanted to go get a pool noodle that he saw on the edge (that belonged to someone else).

Both kids happily crashed asleep without any effort tonight. Yay, quiet house! Now if only I could get Alex to stay asleep without wearing him in the sling, we would both be much more comfortable!

One other random note I wanted to share, is Alex's favorite song. This is a Laurie Berkner song called Blow a Kiss, from the album Under a Shady Tree. Every time the song makes a kiss sound, I give Alex a big kiss. Usually on the mouth, because that's his favorite, but sometimes I try to kiss the song-appropriate body part instead. He gets the biggest grin when I sing this, and opens his mouth really wide in anticipation of the kisses. And today it was almost like he wanted to sing along with me, because he was talking while I was singing! :)

For whatever reason, my embedded music simply won't follow the do not autostart rule of HTML, so I'm going to go with another option. Please CLICK HERE to play the song. You'll be asked to either open it with a Windows Media Player or save it to your computer. Less annoying than playing automatically as soon as you arrive at my blog, despite my telling it not to.