Frustrations

Today I am feeling frustrated.  And I know I have the power to change that, but sometimes it's just easier to wallow in our frustrations.  And I also know that I'm feeling frustrated about silly things - "first world problems" if you will, but I'm still frustrated.

Switching Emmett from bottle to sippy cup is not going as well as I had hoped.  When we first gave him a cup a few weeks ago, he drank from it like a pro, and I thought "oh, this is going to be so easy this time around."  Annika was a nightmare to switch from bottles to cups, so I was really hoping that we wouldn't have to go through all that again.  However, somewhere along the way Emmett decided that he doesn't really like cups, and it's been quite the battle since then.  And it's just more frustrating because this time around we're not just dealing with one kid and meal time issues - more often than not, it's both kids making a fuss at meal times.  Which can also make Carey and I irritable, and then we're all in a bad mood.  I just keep telling myself "this too shall pass", which I think is the unofficial mantra of motherhood, right?

The other thing that has been causing me major headaches is our car seat situation.  Now, I know that safety is important, and it's great that we've learned so much about how to keep our children safer in a crash, but sometimes I wish we still lived in a time when you could just stick a few phone books under the kid to boost 'em up.  Emmett is at the very limit of his bucket seat (height-wise actually, not weight-wise), so we need to move him to a different seat.  However, I still wanted to keep him rear facing for a little while longer.  My plan was initially to move him into Annika's seat (which is a 3-in-1 seat - rear facing, forward facing and booster), and buy Annika a new seat (just forward facing and booster, since she's not quite ready for just a booster).  However, when I tried putting Annika's seat into our car in the rear facing position (which we had never done before), it didn't fit.  Well, it fit if the person sitting in the front seat had no legs, since the front seat had to be pushed all the way forward, rendering it pretty much useless.  So that was no good.  Then I contemplated switching him to forward facing already (since he meets the height and weight requirements no problem and he'll be a year on Friday), but I heard that there's a recommendation (that will apparently soon be law) that you need to keep kids rear facing until 2.  :P  So we got a different rear facing seat, which I think will fit okay in our car, but it will be quite squishy in front.  Now I just need to return the new seat that I had bought for Annika (hope the store takes it back!), and convince her to go back to sitting in her old seat (which she doesn't want to do, but she doesn't get much say in the matter).  Also, I feel like writing a letter to all car seat manufacturers and telling them that not every parent drives a mini-van, so please stop making these car seats so big!!

I know these are silly problems, and there are people out there that have far bigger issues than me, but this is what I'm dealing with.  And sometimes I just need to vent a little. :P  Now to go eat some chocolate - that makes everything better, right?