Perseverance

Sometimes I can muster it up and sometimes it pays off.

To be honest, today I was just too lazy and tired to deal with Bitty Girl during the time she should have been napping, but it worked.

Timeline of Events:
1. I put her down for a nap around 12:45 pm. She chatted, arranged her dollies and chatted some more.
2. I give her one reminder around 1:15 pm that she needed to go to sleep, rearrange her blankets.
3. About 1:45 pm, I go in with more milk, read her another story, and did some wishful snuggling, and remove all but 2 dollies and blankets.
4. She is still chatting and wiggling at about 2:15 pm, and I'm convinced she won't nap, but am too tired and busy to go get her. Plus she's not crying and I haven't heard any sounds of Velcro diaper tabs opening which would indicate nakedness.
5. At 2:30 pm: All is quiet. Silent cheer!!
6. At 2:45 pm: I go in to peek and make sure it's not just a very quiet naked girl, and she's ASLEEP! All blankets and dollies thrown in the laundry basket, but she's asleep. I cover her up and tiptoed out, proud of my perseverance.

P.S. I may have to kill the neighbor who is daring to drill something LOUDLY outside as I'm typing this..

A night he will remember forever

In the last few days, he's been very interested in the whole red/blue states, and Daddy tried to explain the basic electoral votes thing to him.

He knows who we wanted to win, but he's been saying "I think McCain is going to win," mostly just to annoy us. But tonight he was all about Obama. It just became a "counting of the points," and since so much happened before bedtime, he was able to see much of it.

I did not stage this photo. He really went to sleep, Star Wars sheets and all, with the map. After he was half asleep and we dragged him out of bed to see all the people celebrating in Chicago.

For his sake and for her sake, I am extra thankful.

I am not kidding...There is light at the end of the tunnel

The following is 100% true.

Tonight I DUSTED my bedroom and put CLEAN SHEETS on my bed while the kids played.
In the other room.
For about 15 minutes.
Without anyone screaming or getting hurt or requiring my presence.

I thought it was Freaky Friday.

Pat left at 5 pm to have dinner with a friend, so we ate early. As I was cleaning up from dinner, the beautiful sibling non-rivalry started as they played together with what I lovingly call "the junk box." It's a big tub of The Boy's miscellaneous toys that were deemed "Not Bitty Girl Safe" when she was smaller, and so she thinks it's like a forbidden treasure. There are binoculars, walkie talkies, random latex gloves from his glove phase, neon-tinted safety glasses from Daddy's science teacher days, some necklace from a birthday party, playing cards, etc. You get it--junk.

But she loves it. They scattered the cards around the room, she came to show me the funny glasses, called Nanny on her play phone, and put on the necklace. I heard a loud "NUNU!" from her at one point, and turned to see her triumphantly holding up a magnifying glass. Last weekend she saw that my grandma (NuNu to the kids) had a magnifying glass in her purse to help her with reading. The girl forgets NOTHING.

I got a little overconfident and tried to take the clean sheets out of the dryer, because by some crazy alignment of the stars, I managed to wash our sheets this weekend. Bitty Girl runs over like she wants to help, and I cringe, because her version of helping with the laundry is like the line from the Free to Be You and Me song, "Helping," 'Some kind of help is the kind of help... we all can do without.'
But I realize she's making monkey sounds.
The rare Mama light bulb flash goes off in my head, when I actually figure out what she's saying! Monkey pants... Her new favorite pajamas have monkeys on them, and they were in the LAUNDRY last night, so I told her she couldn't wear them.

SHE'S TELLING ME SHE'S READY FOR HER PAJAMAS!!!

Upstairs, in jammies, she wasn't ready for bed. They wanted to play longer, so they moved into The Boy's room. I gave them 15 minutes and snuck into my room to do the abovementioned dusting and making the bed, thinking there was no way I'd actually get it done.

Here's what I heard from them during the 15 minutes of quiet, non-screaming, non-injury play...
"Bitty Girl, want to play hockey?" (Ok, I had to check--they were using Tinker Toys)
"Yeah"
"No like this. Hold it like this. That's not right. Shoot it here. Push it with your stick."
"Bitty Girl, do you want to play hockey or not?"

I'm going to call him The Boss instead of The Boy. But she was thrilled to play, and my room was dusted and the sheets were clean.

I was speechless, and that doesn't happen often. Maybe this will actually get easier someday. Maybe even soon.