Oh, Lucy

I'm not officially doing it, but I was on Conversion Diary this morning and read that people are doing a blog post a day. I just happened to write one last night so I'll try for the rest of the week including today. I missed Sunday (had a draft but never finished and don't care to), but oh well.

Lucy's behavior over the past two days has been less than desirable. She has been overly rambunctious and especially bad at listening. She is only two, and I'm hoping two days of that was enough.

We went to noon Mass on Sunday. I don't think we'd taken our kids to Mass for three weeks (two roofing project 4:30 Masses - 4:30 isn't a great time for my energetic kids so they went to my parents' house; then a 9:00 in PA when Lucy was just barely awake and Andrew was still passed out during his sleepover with cousin Spencer) so that in itself probably added a lot to both her and Andrew's poor behavior. After that a little after 1, the Knights of Columbus had their instillation of officers; our friend Naciem is the new Warden and Chris is inside guard. Andrew was good once I took Lucy to the back (narthex may be the right term). Lucy walked around, shrieked, tried banging on the windows, etc. I had a sleeping Patrick (though she woke him up twice!) in the Baby Bjorn so I couldn't really make her stop wandering easily. I was frustrated and entirely relieved when the installation was over.  There was then a three hour reception afterwards at the K of C hall; the length was entirely unexpected for me. I would have asked my mother to watch Andrew and Lucy had I known it would be so long. They were hungry but food wasn't ready when we got there after 2. They kept trying to run around with Solomon and Linus, the only other two little kids there. Lucy and Andrew both had to be restrained in a high chair at points in time; by the end (5pm), Lucy had fallen asleep and Andrew was crying because he wanted cake and had finally eaten a lot of his lunch. Throughout the day, several people commented on how good they all were, but we were oblivious to that perception. I understand it's hard for a four and two year old to be well behaved for five hours, but they were flipping out from the very start of Mass.

Yesterday, wasn't any better for Lucy. She ran away in the grocery store twice. I had to have my kids paged because I had no idea where they went when I was checking out. They had grabbed the fly swatters, Lucy ran, and Andrew said he was going to get her even though I told him to stay. I had a store employee come tell me that I can't let them out of my sight because there are bad people out there; a woman had her purse stolen a few days ago and fortunately, they caught the guy after chasing him throughout the parking lot. I am well aware I shouldn't let them out my sight, but it's a little impossible at times. We then went to the mall anyway - bad decision on my part, because I'd said I was going to meet there. Lucy tried to run out of the play area once, dashed towards the bathroom without her shoes on after I said I was taking her, stepped on the escalator while I was trying to put Patrick in his carseat in the stroller and get Andrew his shoes and socks so he could put them on. I caved and spanked her, which didn't bother her, because apparently spanking is entirely ineffective for her. She cried as I buckled her in the front seat of the stroller, and continued to be mad about sitting there. She fell asleep on the ride home and slept for three hours.