This is why it's worth it

My kids have been fighting all week from the moment they wake up to the moment we finally get them to go to sleep. A normal person would think that children with almost a five year age difference would get along better since they would want different things.
You are wrong. They will fight over things they don't want simply so the other child will not touch it. And they will tattle on everything despite your telling them that if no one is physically hurt or about to be physically hurt you don't want to hear it. And they yell at each other
But then, sitting in the car, you hear a toddler screaming. So you yell at your older child to stop because you have heard enough screaming. Your older child simply says, "she was playing." Your husband says, "you need to stop touching her." Because they do that whole 'I'm not touching you' game. Your toddler responds by yelling at you since they were just playing. And for three whole minutes, the kids quietly play "dancing phalanges" in the back seat.
That is worth it. You may be thinking that celebrating your children ganging up on you is bad. But right now they are small and you will have a few years to instill a fear of parents. And the yelling stopped. Just enjoy it.

New Pet

Honestly, I think I am the craziest person in the world. We have so many projects going on with trying to build a fence (alright, all I did was do a bunch of research online and help out one or two days), a ball coming up, my son's birthday party, and Christmas right around the corner. Not to mention things we are talking about but have to wait to see what is going on with my husband's career (he is in the Navy, but he's already passed the date he is supposed to be out).
We went to a friend's house and saw their puppies, so cute, and I agreed to take one home. Now, we weren't sure about our older dog and younger dog getting along, so we decided the older dog would go in her kennel at night like usual and the younger dog would stay in the kitchen in case he peed or something. That night did no go well. The puppy whined all night, my dog kept whining and shaking her cage, my son kept waking up and crying, and my husband was on sleep meds so he wasn't really much help. That morning, when he woke up, he sat there and almost laughed while I said we had to get rid of the puppy. He told me to go get some sleep and that we'd talk about it later when everything was more calm.
Needless to say, I was outvoted about the dog. It's okay now because they both sleep in the kennel, though the puppy does not have the dog's manners of not barking at all hours. I still get my sleep so long as the chores don't get out of hand, and the dog now has someone to play with all the time. Potty training this dog is still work, but it's not as hard as the older dog because we just take the puppy out whenever we take the dog out and there are much fewer accidents.
Now I can officially say, no more pets. Maybe fish, but they aren't pets. In my mind, fish are like plants, it's just a waiting game to make sure they don't die because your child overfed them.

Children, Charts, and Chores

Okay, so I just read an article about setting up children for success when it comes to chores. Now, my son will throw something away if you ask him, put his dishes in the sink if you ask him, help with dinner sometimes, and may pick up some of his toys. He used to be much better about the trash and toys, but I stopped making sure they were picked up every night. Now I just start picking them up at night if there are too many all over or if his room really looks like a disaster.
After reading the first article, I read a couple more. I would quote what they put on here, but there are hundreds of articles on this subject and they are all very similar. Kids who do chores (age appropriate) are more aware of others and work harder as they grow older. You can Google it online and find all the same ones.
I just thought it was interesting. I've seen the cute charts you can buy at the store that are just way too cute, but I have only one child and it's a little crazy to buy a chart made for around four kids for just the one. I also saw a mom on Wife-Swap who gave the kids in the other house a rock (they had jars) every time they did something well and for every so many rocks they got something (their toys back). It worked pretty well.
I did something similar for potty training. I made a chart with the days of the week on the side and several boxes all along. For every time my son used the toilet, he got a sticker. For every time he had an accident, he got an "x." On the days that he got only stickers, he got a fake dollar. Then, he could trade them in for things.
Now, I am excited and want to make a chart with possible chores and fake dollars. Who knows, maybe I'll even start paying my son in spare change (he gets it all for free now) and let him spend it at the store. Honestly, I probably won't do that because we never keep cash on us anymore.
I'll try to fix my printer and get that working. If I can, then I will post pics later and my son's progress. I'm sure he'll do okay at the very least because he loves stickers and chores aren't really chores yet.