Tuesday, thus far

Warning: this first paragraph is the hugest ever about the sleeping habits of my children.  I really wrote it out for me I guess.  You’re welcome to read it or skip on down.  :)

James has been waking up early, and I wanted to try and fix it!  Before the time change he generally slept from 7pm-6am, though sometimes he woke earlier and very rarely later.  I had hoped after the time change he would sleep from 8pm-7am with no need to adjust anything.  I was WRONG!  He was still waking up at 6 or so.  Boo!  I wasn’t ready to give up on the 8:00 (or so) bedtime though.  I kind of like him going down at about the same time as the girls.  Yesterday he woke up at 5:15, fussed, probably went back to sleep until 5:40 when Matt’s shower woke him up.  I tried letting him cry back to sleep but he couldn’t do it.  Matt changed his very wet diaper and jammies at maybe 6:30, put him back in our room, and he did go back to sleep until 8:40!  But in the process the girls of course woke up quite early for them.  So last night I decided to try and sleep him in a room alone so he could cry himself back to sleep without waking the girls.  I also (gasp!) put him in a disposable diaper since you can put an ocean in them without a leak.  We’re a little hit-or-miss on the cloth at nighttime… working on it.  Anyway, I decided the easiest option for temporary separation was to move a mattress to the floor of the playroom for the girls.  It took them a bit longer to fall asleep, mainly due to all the toy distractions, but they did okay.  And James slept until 7:00!!  Soooooooo, maybe the girls have been waking him up earlier?  Or it was a fluke.  We’re going to do the exact same thing tonight and see what happens.  I’m really not ready to split them up and have a “boys room” and a “girls room” yet, but if it means better sleep for everyone I will do it!  Natalie woke up at 6:30, which is not that unusual for her, especially since she had a huge nap yesterday.  She just goes potty and then will snuggle, so I don’t mind that.  Joanna slept until 7:00 which is a bit early for her.  She told me she looked over to see if Natalie was there and she wasn’t!  I bet she’d have gone back to sleep if conditions had been normal.  And I think it helped that Matt did he noisy getting ready pretty early and left the house pretty early.  If all of my children started sleeping regularly until 7:00 every day, I might start waking myself up at 6:30 to get a jump on the day.  It’s probably about time I grew up and started doing that.  :)  Mornings have just been so all over the place for years though!

So… everybody woke up and had breakfast.  I asked Joanna to give Junior his morning chew thingy and let him outside.  Then later, Natalie went to let him inside because it was sprinkling, but he didn’t come.  I thought maybe he’d found a bit of shelter out there, so I put my shoes on to go holler for him.  Which is when I discovered the fence between our house and the house on the end was down!  What’s worse is that I went over there and discovered their gate was open!!  AHHHHHHHH!!!  I can’t get it closed – it’s broken, and I can’t get the fence back up on my own in the rain either.  Anyway, I ran around my yard and out the front into the street but no Junior!!  (Honestly, I’ve lost him many times in my head; I’m clearly very paranoid I’m going to lose my friend’s dog…as well I should be.)  So I ran back in and grabbed the phone to call my mom for help.  Then I turned the corner and found Junior looking at me from the back deck.  Phewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!  I don’t know where he was all that time, but I’m glad he didn’t leave!  I’m not even totally sure he can get out the neighbor’s gate, but I’m not taking any chances!  I even taped a sign to my back door so I don’t forget and just let him out today.  :)

Shortly after that it started to POUR down rain.  It is days like this I think to myself, “How did I survive NOT parking in my garage?”  I was going through options in my brain on how best to deliver three children to school in the torrential rain, when it hit me – Gran!  Even though plenty of people park in the covered circle drive and leave their cars there to drop off their children, I think it’s totally wrong, especially because there are a hundred parents who’d like to do the same thing!  (Off soap box now – or as much as I can be on my own blog!)  Anyway, my wonderful mother had time for me to pick her up and let her drop us off at the circle, then drive around and pick me back up.  I still got soaking wet, but the children managed to stay pretty dry which is the most important part!  Yay Gran!!!  I’ve been thinking of what the best solution would be for dropping off all by myself in the pouring rain.  Anybody have any ideas?  I might try parking within eyeshot of a door (any door) and bringing the children inside one at a time, oldest to youngest, so I can carry them.  It would be yucky to be at school all day in wet shoes and clothes.  I guess I could also just bring them in jammies and flip flops, then change where it’s dry. 

I clearly don’t have enough important things to think about.  :)

I came home and cleaned the main bathroom.  It was GROSS.  It still doesn’t look particularly clean, even after spending over an hour in there, but it’s as good as it’s going to get!  I like to remind myself that I have many gifts and talents.  Cleaning well just isn’t one of them.  :)  It’s also not something I’ve spent a lot of time working on.  Ahem.

And now maybe I will catch up on laundry while watching some TV.  Woooooooo hooooooo!