No Yelling

Sunday morning dawned early, with Olivia waking at her usual 6:15 and me telling her, "Just give momma a few more minutes."

She patiently sucked her thumb beside me for about 45 minutes (yes, I'm on the verge of shame at that) and then said simply, "Mommy? Can I please have sumping to eat now?"

Oh yes, my shame was complete and I pulled my sorry butt out of bed to feed my poor neglected child.

Alyssa (who is in her OWN bed, which sits next to mine...but still!) sat up and said, "I need a shower!"

So Olivia and I headed downstairs to snag a banana which O could eat while A washed herself in the shower. I know, I know.

But Alyssa doesn't like to be upstairs by herself. And...it's a new house so, I indulge her. Don't question me in a year or so when the house is no longer new.

So while Olivia at her banana and Alyssa showered, I actually got dressed. Before 8am, on a Sunday!

Then, Olivia was done with her breakfast appetizer and Alyssa was clean so we headed to their room (HA! Okay, the room where their clothes are stored) and they both got dressed while I put laundy away and continued the never ending chore of putting away clothes from boxes.

Yes, yes, a month later and we're still unpacking boxes. Whatever.

Then, we all headed downstairs to stay. And once down there, the girls were in one room and I was in another and I heard Alyssa snap at Olivia.

That gave me an idea so I headed to where they were playing and told them, "I am declaring this a no yelling day. I won't yell at either of you and I want you to not yell at each other."

Of course, I was looking at Alyssa because Olivia doesn't tend to yell much.

And so, we went about our day.

I made some real breakfast because a single banana wasn't going to sustain Olivia's bottomless pit for long.

They played, I cleaned a few things here and there.

Then, at 11ish, I asked them if they wanted to go for a walk.

Alyssa has been begging to go for a walk since we moved.

We attempted it once before but we didn't have the stroller and I didn't have decent walking shoes and we made it about a tenth of a mile before my feet and my back protested loudly (the shoes were horrible and Olivia wanted to be carried before we were even out of the driveway.)

But this time, we had the stroller and I had good shoes for walking.

And so we walked.

We walked to the house just north of us, where the Jack Russel puppy named Olive lives. She's come to visit us three times now. Alyssa's in love with her.

We decided to walk a little further.

We ended up going to my mom's which is 3 1/3 miles away. It was wonderful.

There were moments when Alyssa rode in the stroller too, with Olivia on her lap, which was annoying to Olivia but she got over it.

It took us an hour to make the walk, but it was a lovely day for being outside, for enjoying the sunshine and the cool breeze.

My mom drove us home and let us take the double stroller too, for our next excursion.

And we got through the entire day without nary a single yell.

Yesterday, alas, by 8:30, I'd yelled three times.

At that point, I told them, "I've managed to get my allotted yells out of the way early, no more yelling today."

And...well, it didn't quite work but only because Olivia refused to eat her soup later in the day. She insisted she was 'making' soup and so kept stirring it strenuously, getting it all over the table and floor. But really, even those incidents were mild.

I'm beginning to think that I need to start each day by doing something that is actually necessary rather than spend a morning in pajamas on the couch. I need to feel like I'm making each day count.

And the last few days really, truly counted. These are the days memories are made of.