Shannon-25 years old . . . perfect Mom? Hardly.

Weston-2 1/2 years old . . . perfect child? Hardly.
Davin-5 months old . . .perfect child? Practically.
These have to be the most adorable, sweet children you've even seen, right? Oh wait, one of them is 2. I am having such a hard time being a happy, pleasant mommy with my Weston. He drives me absolutely crazy about 85% of the time. I am grinding my teeth, my blood pressure is spiking and, if I wasn't so sensitive about my already thin hair, I would be ripping it out. I just don't know what to do with him. I try to keep us busy (as you may have noticed) so that Weston doesn't have as much of a chance to make me nuts, but it doesn't really work. He is at this stage where he is ungrateful, disobedient and laughingly does exactly what I just told him not to do. Every time I give him a punishment or even speak sternly he starts crying and freaking out and saying "I want to be nice." It's like it's almost not worth his reaction to call him on his crap. I still do.

I have been trying to drill into his head that even if he wants to be nice now, he wasn't acting nice before and he still has to deal with the consequences of that. EXAMPLE: Walmart with 2 kids. We had the big cart with a place for Weston to sit. I told him if he could be good (not get out of the cart, not touch stuff, not whine) then when we were done he could play in "Elmo's car". Well I had to scold him the whole trip and remind him about the bribe. At the end he did pretty good, but I decided I couldn't let him have the reward because he was too much of a brat for most of the trip. He screamed and cried when I told him the verdict.
As it turns out I forgot one bag at Walmart and we ended up going back to pick it up and because he did really well with that little aside, he still got a ride in Elmo's car that day. Does that negate the earlier lesson?

I'm pretty much at a loss of how to get through my day without completely losing it. Another joy about Weston is that he is a TALKER. I realize you are probably thinking, "Well look at his mom. She talks all the time." I realize this, but he is incapable of being quiet for more than 5.3 seconds unless he is sleeping or pooping. Even while eating he talks non-stop (and consequently doesn't eat more than would feed your average mouse). Today we had nowhere to go this morning and I was planning on taking him to the park for free lunch, but he said he didn't want to go, so we stayed home. By 10:30 I was contemplating leaving Weston on someones porch with a sign that said "FREE." Anyway, any suggestions would be welcome, or even just a phone call in the middle of the day to distract me from my crazy mommy moods. :)

Davin is a great baby. Very happy and content to just observe and babble. He LOVES Weston and thinks everything he does is great. Davin is my favorite child right now because he doesn't talk. He would be perfect if he could just start sleeping through the night already.

In other news I am trying to get my life together in other ways, thinking that maybe this will help me during the day with the kids. I have started getting up early every day to exercise and read my scriptures before the kidlet bombards me and destroys any quiet time I may have. So far, besides being kind of tired, it is working out great. I really am a morning person and I enjoy being up before anyone else and having that peaceful time. Sorry if this post struck you as pessimistic. I'm really not all that depressed. When Weston is being cooperative we are fine and I'm not such a nutcase.