Five Minute Friday

I am so tired of whining.  Don't mistake whining for winning, no, no , no.  I did not have a typo.  Whitney's whining is out of control and I'm at my whit's end (ha, no pun intended, seriously).  It is nails on the chalk board whining like one of those old wind up sirens, it just increases in intensity.  We are pretty diligent about asking her to speak nicely and she can turn it off and ask nicely.  It that doesn't work or I simply don't have the patience to work with her she goes to her room with the door shut.  It's worse when we are at home.  I can recongnize the contributing factors to this whining  She is bored of being at home and jealous of the attention that Ellie requires.  Whitney is a huge cuddler and craves physical contact.  We stay busy, even during the recent heat.  We go to the park 3-4 mornings of the week and again at night if it is cool enough.  We go to the library, shopping, play outside in the hose, eat popsicles, etc.  She is pretty spoiled with everything I try to do for her (maybe that's the problem)  We are busy with family nearly every weekend and she adores her grandparents and cousins on both sides.  I gather I'm not alone, but someone with older kids, please tell me they grow out of this!

Ellie is sleeping really great now.  She goes to bed around 8:30/9 now and wakes up like clock work at 4:30, eats and goes back down for a few more hours.  She has learned to crawl.  Yep, she is 5 1/2 months and crawling.  Insane.  Not crawl across the room crawling, but she is on her hands and knees, alternating hand, leg, hand, leg.  Total text book crawling.  She only goes 2-3 feet before she gets wiped out and it will take her a minute or two to go that far.  I suppose it is mentally and physically challenging for her age.  She also can just about get into a sitting position from her hands and knees.  Again, insane.  We worked with Whitney to get her to crawl and she was just shy of 8 months before she crawled.  With Ellie it seems instinctual.  Whitney excelled with her vocabulary and early walking and I guess Ellie with her active ambition for motion.   Thank goodness Ellie is such a good and happy baby while I am dealing with a tempermental toddler who replies to everything with "NOOOO" even if two seconds later she means yes.  Then it's, "I DOOO IT!"

And I must say, I seriously love One Life to Live.  I look forward to the one o'clock hour every day.  I just may cry when it goes off the air.