The First Week of Christmas... Break

I hope your Christmas went well this year. Ours went better this year than last year. I'm not saying that last year wasn't a great Christmas, because it was. This year though, the boys were more aware. Because of the last few years, we decided to only wrap a few of the boys gifts, and leave the rest unwrapped. Well, this year the boys were more ready than us. Anthony got so into it that he ended up helping others open their gifts. Daniel still needed a little help getting into opening as well (Anthony was there and willing to help too), but unwrapped more than last year too.

Anthony was so focused on this gift...

Showing joy, I think we were more tickled to capture it

Daniel getting a helping hand

Well, now that Christmas is over and I've done all my baking for the year, (so to speak...) to which I know my boys are happy to have most of my attention again. I end up baking for about 4 days. Making the boys wait for items to go into the oven to get my full attention.

 

Now for the most part Anthony loves sweets, so he'll be patient enough when I tell him I'm cooking. Daniel couldn't care less. He wants my attention completely when "he wants it" and it doesn't matter what I'm doing. Anthony will also hit a point where he also doesn't care what I'm doing. The same as most kiddos, but the big difference is that if I don't balance my time properly, once the overload begins, they bounce between the two of them and it just escalates. I suppose most twins will do this in a similar way too. Now understand that I already know this, but like most people, I get going on something and I think "just a few more minutes".

With school out, and ABA on a couple of days break, the boys lose the structure for a few days. It can easily become complete chaos in our home. The morning starts out alright, then mid morning hits and the boys will do anything to avoid working with me. We use to work together on colors, number, etc., when they were younger, but now... I'm mom. They don't want to work with mom. If it's a day when we have ABA, they are set back on the routine and everything goes well. If there isn't ABA, the day will be a downward spiral of meltdowns if I can't keep them busy enough.

Since school vacation started we have had a total of 7 days off, of those 7 days, the boys have had ABA 2 days (would've been 3, but they weren't feeling well and I had to cancel one). So far so good. Now into the next week...  
:)