We just finished 2 weeks of Ben being back at work, and we have 1 more to go before he takes the rest of his leave. This week was a little rough with Neil & Zinnia having spring break but Iris having school. Zinnia has been particularly difficult in terms of just getting into everything and not doing what I ask her to. It's interesting to see just how little she seems to care about pleasing me. Neil and Iris usually do what I ask of them, and when they don't, they see it as a big conflict and get upset about the whole thing. Zinnia just calmly ignores me or tells me "No, I don't want to." I have the feeling that her independence and not being a people-pleaser will serve her well later in life, but aagh! It's really hard to keep on top of her while taking care of a baby, so I keep finding her covered in yogurt or magic marker or climbing up the outside of the staircase or eating my gummy vitamins (only once - childproof caps aren't, it turns out). She's getting to be very interested in words and letters, and every time I read a story, she asks what some of the words mean.
Neil has been a little more independent lately. He started going to the bathroom on his own (rather than it always being at my prompting), and he's been trying to dress himself.
We dyed eggs today, which Iris had been looking forward to all week. Three small children, 18 hard-boiled eggs, solid colors, no big spills or dyed body parts.
I managed to get almost half of my garden weeded today. I'm hoping to get most of the rest weeded tomorrow and then start planting during the week. I think I have more tomato seedlings than places to plant them.
Wendell is continuing to grow, and for the past couple of weeks, he has been consistently sleeping from ~8pm - 2am, which is wonderful. I will be very happy when he starts going back to sleep easily after the 2am wakeup.