Noah about to read, Evan about to roll over

Noah has gone from being totally unable to sound out words to trying to sound everything out in a matter of days. Yesterday, I gave him a set of magnetic letters and a board, and we played around with two and three letter words, experimenting with changing one letter at a time. "Box" to "fox" is high entertainment. Two days ago, he wanted David to read him the Mother Goose book. David told him to bring it and told him what color it was. Noah said, "No, that's not it. Wait. Oh yeah, that's it. M-O-T-H-E-R spells "Mother"."

Evan is almost four months and really wants to roll over. When he was lying on his blanket today, I put Noah's Thomas flashlight that also makes "choo-choo" noises beside him and he was quite intrigued. He kept arching his back and kicking his hammy little legs and almost got onto his side. He continues to be The Big Easy - totally lovable.

This stay-at-home mom thing is getting harder. My world has shrunk to be just this house, my two kids and, what seems like occasionally, my husband. I still feel like I don't have friends here. I get no outside validation of what I do (my three year old is not going to come out with, "Good job raising me today, Mom"). So anything that rocks the boat, like Noah having a cranky, bratty day (like today), sets me off. Then I lose my temper, and I feel guilty because my only job now is to care for my kids and I'm not even very good at that sometimes. And I panic because I feel my productive time slipping away as I change diapers and cook dinner and collapse in front of the TV, and there's nothing to be done about it.