Crazy Love Gamble-Style

Today was hard, to put it mildly. Some days parenting brings me to tears, this was one of  those days.  I don't know what it is.  Ava is the sweetest most loving girl.  She can charm the pants off of just about anyone and has a million perfect little qualities...BUT She is driving me bat-shit crazy lately. She KNOWS she is driving me crazy and it seems to just fuel the fire.   Yes, I know what you are thinking, she needs more  attention.  This girl is demanding attention every. single. second.  With out fail, she is asking for something at  all times.   Usually you can find her on me, physically on me.   She is loud, totally obnoxious, sassy, back-talking, instigator of all kinds of trouble, liar, wild and  constantly disrespectful. I am at my whits end.   I talk to her about all these issues until I am blue in the  face, I explain what s...

I'm in so much trouble. This girl is super cute but...  She just discovered the art of climbing on to the couch. Something I have dreaded but knew was coming.   She gets up there, gets a huge grin on her face and runs  across, often crawling up on the arm or leaning her whole body over the arm.  All the while shrieking with laughter.  Today I walked into the living room after her sister, the safety police, started yelling to me something was  wrong and caught Norah just getting up on the glass coffee table.  She jumped to her feet and RAN  across with no regards at all for the edges or gravity or anything, least of all me screaming at her. I try to scold her and put her in time out.  She thinks the whole thing is a game.   She thinks she is freaking hilarious!  I think I have a few more gray hairs.   I wish I knew what to do to stop her. Over and over these...

This whole skiing thing is pretty crazy. I am not a skier at all, unlike the rest of my family, which are more like ski racers. That level of expertise is a bit intimidating to a non-skier like me who basically just wants to become proficient enough to ski with my 4 year old daughter, not start racing anytime soon, or ever, truthfully. When we started this I was perfectly happy staying on the bunny slope where there are no scary chairlifts.  Thankfully I have gotten past that stage, my daughter was ready to move on way before me.  She had mastered going down that hill with no harness, on her own, the very first day. I'm perfectly happy with her staying on that harness forever but can tell that my mom is WAY over it.  Turns out it's a lot of work snowplowing behind a child for hours on end. Mom was ready to let her off the leash, I was worried.  Mom kept saying this while we were on Mount Hood Express, which has all...

The first video is of Ava skiing,  she blows us away with her adventurous nature. I love how it totally looks like she is going to  run over those people but then swerves at the  last minute. She might just give me a heart attack but she is having a great time and that is important right? Oh and I bought her a super awesome ski helmet, so there is that... The next video is of Norah...

Packing, list writing, panicking.  Five & a half hours on a plane with Norah?? Love that girl but try to sit still with her for 20 minutes and you will see that we have a major problem here. She looks innocent enough right??? Hahahahahaha.  Ha. I'm not even worried about Ava.  Maybe I should be, but I'm not.  Even waking her up at 4 am is not scaring me (although it should) but I think my worry over Norah is over shadowing any concerns I have with how Ava will do. It's this Can't Sit Still Girl, Not Able to Sleep in People's Arms Girl I am worried about. I generally try not to indulge in worrying.  What is the point??  The bad thing either happens or it doesn't but worrying about it only makes it sort of happen either way, if that makes sense. If your mind is consumed with the fear of something happening you are basically living it twice, if it actually   does occur.  So I guess I am ...