Love thy brother...and for the love of god PLEASE STOP stealing his toys!

It's been about 3 weeks since we first arrived in New Hampshire.  We've been settling in nicely, exploring the area, making friends, and so far really liking everything here.  I love our neighborhood-- it's full of other families with kids about the same age as ours, many of which play outside in the mornings or late afternoons so it's easy to get together for informal playdates.  Donovan and Quinn have already started making fast friends with our next door neighbors, getting together nearly every day.  Everyone we've met has seemed really cool and nice and open.  It's about the best living situation and environment that I could hope for over these next two years.  It's also been great having Zach around, especially after the work schedule he had back in California.

The boys during a happier moment

What's not to nice-- I'm sure a lot of this is the boys adjusting to the million changes they've experienced in the past couple months, and part of it may also just be their ages and the current phases they're going through, but they have been on very short fuses with each other lately.  It's a constant up and down, up and down-- one minute they're happily chasing each other down the hallway, the next they're SCREAMING at each other over a toy or who knows what.  Today Zach was running errands most of the day so it was just me and the boys at home.  They played ok some in the morning, but then Donovan wanted to build with blocks and Quinn kept knocking them down which made D scream and yell and cry so then I was trying to keep Q away from what D was doing which is quite a feat in itself, so I tried to get him to play outside to give D some space but then Q got PISSED because brother wasn't coming out with us, and it's just on and on like this all. day. long.

Unhappy Quinn (temporarily soothed by a babywearing walk)

You can imagine how fun this is for everyone.

I'm not coping well with their fighting, and am kinda bracing myself because I know the next several months will be a challenge-- D will start school which will help, but Zach will be super busy with his schoolwork as well so I don't expect him to be around much at all once classes start.  And while I am a bit excited about experiencing a "real" winter, I know that will also bring a whole new set of annoyances and difficulties with it that won't exactly make day-to-day life easier.  I don't know, maybe those weeks in Austin with all the family help made me "soft" and now I need to toughen back up (not at them, but myself and my abilities to handle two demanding and active kids with patience and some semblance of grace).

The great thing is when they're happy and getting along, they are AMAZING. And adorable. And utterly heartwarming.  The other night they were taking a bath together and Q started washing D's back, then leaned over to give him this big hug.  D was kinda trying to squirm away, and I said, "Aw Donovan, he's just trying to show he loves you." So then Q kept trying to hug him, smiling and saying "Love! Love!"  And I nearly keeled over from how incredibly sweet that was.

So I think that's what I need to do-- focus on and hold onto those good moments to help carry me through the crappy ones.  I just may need reminders of this every 20 minutes when they start screaming again....