The Instigator

Lilah spent the last week in Tulsa, OK with her grandma and Josh's sister, Vanessa, and cousin Victoria. She had a blast and I hope she was well-behaved. Seth was supposed to go along for the trip, but did not get to because of his hospitalization and hip situation. So I had a week with just my boys. Isaac is at a kind of challenging age right now because he's just into everything. But he did well for the week and had fun with Seth. It was a really quiet week. Seth and Isaac played really well together. Everything was so calm. It was calm getting the boys dressed and ready to go places. I was able to keep up on housework easily. I read a book. Seth and I played games and watched movies and cuddled and talked and Josh and I took the boys out several times for some fun activities to help pass the time without Lilah. (We were trying to soothe the sting of missing a fun roadtrip to see cousins and stay in hotels, etc). It was all very relaxing. Now, let me preface my next paragraph by saying that we adore Lilah and are so happy to have our girl back home. Seth really missed her and the kids were thrilled to be back together. We all love Lilah and, overall, she is a sweetheart. But I learned something important this week...

Lilah is The Instigator. (sound effects, bum bum....) The kids played great together last night on her first night home. But then today started. I have been watching the kids and their interactions more closely today because I was trying to figure out why the stress level jumped about 5 notches overnight. Lilah instigates. She's sweet and angelic to your face. And then when she thinks you've stopped looking, she goes to work quietly and stealthily to manipulate everything around her for her benefit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be mean about Lilah. If anything, I'm impressed with her execution of such advanced manipulative techniques and this makes me adore and admire her even more. =) But it does make my job harder. She just picks and picks and prods and pokes and says the things or does the things that she knows will aggravate her target the most. Whether it's Isaac and taking his favorite toy in some caniving way or hiding Seth's Buzz Lightyear and mispronouncing words on purpose (a special irritant for OCD Seth), or even pushing mine and Josh's buttons on purpose... Lilah instigates. And her propensity for creating drama is making our lives more stressful. I'm not quite sure what to do about it all just yet. I need to think about it and watch her more. But for now, she has earned the title of The Instigator and we give it to her fondly. Our lives might be a little more relaxing without our Lilah Ann, but it sure is more interesting with her! We love our girl!