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Kyri has entered the terrible twos. She is such a sweet girl and I thought we might avoid them altogether. But she does have a sin nature (go figure!) and the last couple of days have been horrible. She has a major pout and she has quickly learned that I hate screaming. She is also more physical than Ben and is usually the first to hit. Sadly, she entered this phase as her brother was at the height of one of his "testing" cycles. Every couple of months, he has to test the rules and determine if we are now willing to let him take control of his life and do as he pleases all the time. He gives it up after awhile and then forgets we mean business and tries again for a week or two. Again, I would have liked to have cloned myself to be working with both kids at the same time separately.

Fortunately I've been reading some parenting books recently. I'm not a big believer in one method but they remind me that I have to do something consistently or my kids will start down the path to destruction.

I also tried something new with Ben. He is so visual that we posted a schedule, a list of rules (that we talked about first), and a chore chart with a point reward system. He is very good about keeping his random mother on task and gets very disturbed if we are off-schedule. "But Mom, it is activity time...." The result is that I get very little done but at the end of the day the kids have each done an activity and Ben has accomplished his chores and had some school time with me. I have no idea what I'll do when Kyri quits napping because she wants to do everything he does.

I've also upped Ben's "rest" time from 30 minutes to 60 minutes again. He is in a big growth spurt and we've had a lot of meltdowns. He is determined to not sleep even though if we go out on errands in the late afternoon/early evening he usually falls asleep he's so tired. But he does sit on his bed and read or do puzzles. If all goes well, I get about 30 minutes of down time before Kyri wakes up rarin' to go.

And every night I crash into bed exhausted and wondering how people have large families without losing their minds. Or maybe they did lose their minds and haven't realized it yet. Some days I am certain mine is gone forever. But seriously, parenting is a daily exercise in humility and grace and I'm glad I didn't live my life without it.