Shrek the Third, The Scarlet Letter and naptime

I woke up this morning and decided that I hadn't spent enough time with the kiddos lately (love the cousins, but I haven't had much alone time with my own), so I decided to let son play hookey from preschool and I played hookey from work. I called up SIL to let her know she wouldn't have to watch my two today and she said, let's all take the kids to see Shrek. Well, I wasn't going to have them see that movie (they haven't seen the first two) because it is PG and I thought it might be a bit too old for them. Well, I decided a movie with SIL and the cousins might be fun so I agreed. The kids were all really good in the movie theater and enjoyed eating too much popcorn and licorice, but I don't know about the movie. I thought it was alright, but a bit too mature for the little ones. Many of the jokes were more for adults and the animation wasn't quite animated enough for a 2 year old. I would recommend it for the 6 and up age range.

Speaking of movies, husband recently put The Scarlet Letter on our queue in Netflix. I haven't seen that movie in years and I read the book even longer ago. It was a really good movie, but it got me thinking... man, would it have sucked to have been a woman back then. Yes, times were more simple and kids had a lot more responsibility at a young age, but us ladies were treated like donkey-shit. Take out the witch trials and the hanging if convicted of adultery and you are still left with half of the population having basically no rights. My husband might have liked it, though, because his smart-ass, free-thinking, pants-wearing wife would have known her place:)

I'm writing this as two children moan and cry about 20 feet away. It's been almost a week since daughter napped and her tantrum-having booty needs a nap so they are both stuck in their rooms until they fall asleep. Since we gave up the binky she doesn't seem able to put herself to sleep at naptime. Also, I have to have both kids sleep together because my baby sister is coming to stay with us for a bit and she is going to be using son's room while she's here (Balz, if you read this, don't feel bad, they actually sleep way better at night when they are in the same room). It truly sucks because by about 4 p.m. daughter is just a screaming mess and by 7:30 I'm ready to drop her off at the orphanage. I try really hard to get into the frame of mind that it's her problem, not mine, when she's having a tantrum. I try to play soothing music in my head and count to ten, but man, it really does get to you after a while. And it's not like it's a once-a-day thing... that I could live with. It's five or six times a day with each tantrum lasting like 15 minutes. And loud, oh, god, she is so freaking loud. I just am about at my wits end. I'm trying really hard to use positive reinforcement and not yell (like my mom did), but I'm not sure what to do next. My son, who has his own moments, was not nearly as volatile when he was her age. I think part of it was that when he was 2, his baby sister was born and I just didn't have the time to deal with any nonsense from him, so he quickly adapted. I need an infant on loan for about 6 months just so daughter knows she's not #1 any more.