You'd Never Guess

That I was back to work. I've completely given up on blogging. These days I'm lucky to check Facebook weekly, that's how little time I have to myself. Yes, it's truly been back to life, back to reality. (So you'd never guess that I'm on March Break right now and, despite a pile of marking on my dining room table, I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on blogging!)

Anyhow, the worst part of being back to work is how little time I have with my boys. Where I spent all day every day with them before, I now see them for a mere handful of hours in the evening. Because I am still commuting to Woodstock, two hours of my day are wasted in my truck - we're still in debate about the move, which I'll save for later blog posts. And so we're not usually getting them until 4:30 or 5, at which point I've got dinner to make. Then it's usually clean-up, bath time, a little bit of play and story time, and off to bed for the entire family (as Greg, for those of you who don't know, is also working in Woodstock now). Such is our life. Not ideal, but it's our reality.

So I've definitely been counting down to March Break - a whole week at home with my boys. I admit jealousy when I heard my colleague's vacation plans, but in all honesty I was looking forward to my break because it meant being home, just relaxing. And fortunately thus far we've had nice weather to boot. It's been low-key so far, though we did take them into London Sunday because Isaiah's godparents, our friends Altin and Candice, wanted to take the boys to the Children's Museum. It was pretty cool to see how much more interactive and excited Isaiah was about the exhibits (despite their lack of change since I myself went as a child) from the last time he was there, which was maybe a year and a half ago.

And it's been different being home with them from seven weeks ago (yes, I've been at work nearly two months) because Braylon is now walking. And climbing. He is obsessed with motoring up the stairs, and hussles at lightening speed to return once he is removed. He absolutely hates to be told no, and he doesn't quite listen so well as Isaiah did at this age. Isaiah was interested in the stairs too (we have gates at the top of each set, but never had to install a gate at the bottom for Isaiah), but gave up far sooner than Braylon when we kept taking him off. Braylon, I think, is desperate for his own sense of independence, and so it'll take awhile... though I blocked the stairs off today with the coffee table because I was having to retrieve him every few minutes.

Isaiah, too is changing, though we don't notice daily. He is definitely improving in terms of speech; Greg and I are constantly looking at one another with a bewildered expression at half the things that come out of him. He is really quite anxious to be able to master some of the things that are out of his ability at the moment, but it is nice to see he doesn't get frustrated about it. And the two-year-old temper tantrums that were happening quite frequently before have started to subside (though one flared up last night when we were coming in from a bike ride because he wanted mommy to unbuckle him for the jogging stroller and, heaven forbid, daddy did). I'm looking forward to being home come summer, that's for sure.

At which point the monthly Rebelo cousin picture will be different as well. Greg's sister Stacey is due at the end of next month. And our family is growing on my side as well, as my brother and his wife Leanne are expecting their first come June. So the boys will have lots of little cousins to play with...

Anyhow, I wasn't quite fortunate in synchronizing nap time today, and expect Braylon will be up any moment. So, signing off for now... perhaps I'll manage another post later this week!