a midsummer's nightmare

i am very envious of all my friends' happy summer updates :S  for me, the summer seems to be a never-ending nightmare.  every day is a guessing game of mom vs. gabe - who will win?

my parents continued to babysit gabe over the summer, and they do fun activities together...whether it's outings to ikea/costco/metrotown/gourmet warehouse, adventures @ the beach, lunch dates @ nikkei, or just blowing bubbles and painting on their balcony. gabe has a great time with my parents and they never experience any problems.

on the flip-side of that happy coin is the terrible 3's and i seem to get them every day. we've been battling the nap/no nap situation for awhile, and i've decided he still needs that nap - whether it's in the car, in the stroller, in my arms, i don't care...don't wake him up!  dealing with gabe on a no nap day is no fun.

having said that, sometimes the day just doesn't start right at all.  on bc day, chris and i wanted to get some errands done and then try the steveston waterpark.  by 9 a.m., the day was a disaster.  gabe refused to let me put sunscreen on him, and he refused to put on his swim trunks. chris and i both used our nice, but firm, voices and he wouldn't budge so we cancelled our plans.  this was tantrum #1.  90 minutes later, gabe calmed down and we (well, me) are all going crazy stuck at home on a nice day.  so, i decide we need to go to brentwood - i need my watch repaired and we needed lunch.  10 minutes later we've parked the car right near the food court entrance, and gabe demands to be carried (we didn't bother bringing the stroller).  we refuse to carry his almost 40 pounds around the mall.  meet tantrum #2.  chris and gabe stay at the car while i get my watch fixed.  20 minutes later, and gabe is still sulking on the curb, so we hop back into the car.  not so easy with our almost 40 pounder...he's kicking and screaming at chris, who's trying to get him into the carseat.  by the time we get home 15 minutes later, gabe has bruised up both shoulders from the seatbelt straps (he got his arms out TWICE on the way home) and his voice has gone hoarse. he continues tantrum #2 at home, where he decides to unlock the door and leave home.  he does that twice.  after more battling, we finally get gabe into his bedroom, and after some door slamming and hoarse yelling on his part, he finally gets tired and goes to sleep for 2 hours. chris does the same (minus the door slamming and yelling) :) i think this was our worst day, so i'm glad chris was around to help out and we kept each other in check so we didn't cause too much damage to gabe. 

having said that, this was gabe's first experience with a spanking.  we never planned on being the spanking-type (even though we both grew up on the receiving end), but on this particular day, and after 5 hours of battling it out, it was the final straw.  he received 2 blows to the behind, and he had no reaction to it at all.  all he said was "it burns!", and continued to tantrum.  lesson learned, don't bother spanking.  we also tried to instill the naughty corner, but that didn't work out so well either.  so instead, we took away his privileges as well as everything that he threw at us (including his table placemat) :P

swimming lessons:  another lesson learned...don't bother until gabe is older :P  i'm sure parents were rolling their eyes at us as i dragged gabe into the swimming pool, and would randomly dunk him in frustration :P we had a lesson after vegas and he actually did well for half the class (front float, jumping into the pool).  then he melted down.  the following week, i got sick (more on that another time), and then for his last class, we simply forgot to go :S  we'll take a break for the fall and discuss it in january.

needless to say, i am definitely glad summer is coming to an end, and gabe is going back to preschool in a couple weeks.  even more exciting is that he'll have school on wednesday mornings, so i'll get a couple hours to myself...i'm looking forward to hitting the gym again and finding a zumba class!