TWO little stinkers

Yes, Drew is in full stinker mode now, and he just turned 11 months old! What am I going to do?! When Grant would throw fits or act unruly before, at least I had my sweet little Drew to get me through. But now I'm wondering if he's going to be worse than his brother. Whew....the past few days have completely wiped me out. Grant WILL NOT listen when we tell him to do things.....sometimes I tell him five, six times to sit in his carseat before I have to spank him and physically put him there. And the same goes for pretty much anything.....diaper changes, getting off of Drew when he's wrestling with/laying on top of/physically abusing him. I usually have to go over and pull him off of Drew (who, by the way, rarely cries when Grant does this, but it still worries me!). It drives me crazy to have to say things sixteen times to get him to do anything!

And Drew.....oh my goodness.....that little boy is becoming so independent. He will put up a fuss and start fighting when he can't have his way.....I don't think Grant started that quite so early?? For some reason I think I remember that Grant hit this point around 13 months. Drew loves climbing stairs right now (in fact, if I'm holding him when we get to the stairs, he pushes against me to get down, so he can crawl up himself). And if he crawls over to the stairs himself (and the gate happens to be ajar), he'll try crawling up. When I grab him to bring him down, he kicks and fusses. And the same thing happens when he wants to go outside too.....and pretty much any time he doesn't want to be taken away from something he wants!

So it seems like my little snuggler is gone....at least for now. Tonight when I put him to bed, I tried to rock him for a while (like I do most nights), but he was not interested. He just wanted to be playing on the floor, and kept trying to wriggle out of my arms. So I put him in his crib and left the room (he was very tired anyway, and only fussed for a few seconds). I'm hoping that maybe he will learn the cause/effect.....he doesn't get to read stories or rock when he squirms and tries to get down.

But it's so weird.....at the same time, he is still super clingy to me at times. Today my friend Jen came over with her little boy, and he wouldn't let me walk 10 feet away before crying. But then I'd pick him up, and he wanted to get down again a few seconds later!

So anyway, this is just a frustrating time with Drew. I think he sees his big brother doing so many things that he also wants to be doing, but he's just not big enough. I've been (seriously) wondering how I am going to survive the coming years with both of them acting like this. Should I go back to work and put them both in daycare?? Because right now, I'd say that I'd be very content dropping them both off somewhere at 9am every day, and coming back to get them at 5pm. They are just driving me crazy that much. I love them so much but I'm not a good mom to them when I'm getting mad and yelling every five minutes. And I spend so much of my days completely frustrated.

I was thinking.....when we're at the house, we are truly having fun probably 10-20% of the time. When we go out, it's more like 80-90% (as long as I pick somewhere child-friendly and don't try staying at the mall for 4 hours). So I do think that as it gets cooler, we'll be able to make more trips to town to do fun outdoorsy things (on days that Grant doesn't go to school). Maybe the key is just getting out of the house (which is just plain difficult in the summer....it's nearly impossible to go play in the sprinkler in the backyard before 4:30pm, let alone anything else).

Okay, this is way too long but I needed to get that off my chest. I could go into so much more detail but will keep it (somewhat) short for the blog. The boys have actually been doing some fun stuff too, so I will write about more lighthearted topics next time!