May 31, 2003 - 2:23 p.m.

I'm Getting Sleepy...

The bosses are away on Nantucket for the weekend celebrating their anniversary, so I watched the kids overnight last night. It went very well until early this morning.

Yesterday's weather was extremely nice for a change (I was starting to think some strange sort of continental drift had occurred giving us the climate of Seattle permanently), so we spent the afternoon outside. I continued my assumption of extra duties on the job by pumping up the tires on the kids' bikes. They were so impressed with how much easier it was to pedal. It was adorable! I guess I earned some brownie points for that one. :) Hmm... too bad brownie points don't satify the sweet tooth like actual brownies do.

Anyway, after a long afternoon spent riding bikes, climbing trees, and drawing with sidewalk chalk, we headed off to Chuck E Cheese. I am so glad I took them. They had a great time. They're such great kids that they didn't even complain when we ran out of tokens! The had fun playing the games while the tokens lasted, especially skeeball, my personal favorite, but happily switched to the play area made of tubes and tunnels suspended from the ceiling after that. They spent a long time playing hide and seek up there, and were so happily involved that I even did a little reading while sitting nearby to keep an eye on them.

We spent a couple of hours there, and by the time we got home they were all very tired. I was worried they'd be cranky and give me a hard time about brushing teeth and getting through the bedtime routine, but they were amazingly cooperative. Their exhaustion actually worked in my favor, in fact. Usually, when their parents are away (which happens about once a year), the girls miss them most at bedtime and have trouble getting to sleep. But they were so worn out, that they both fell asleep immediately.

It was already 10:30 when I tucked the girls into bed (or rather into their sleeping bags on the floor where they insist on sleeping!), and I should have just gone to sleep then. I know B is an early riser, but I wanted some time to myself before going to bed, I guess. I had let the girls watch a little of the modern version of The Parent Trap while I was putting B to bed, and the bit I saw made me curious about it. As an adolescent, I loved the original, so I decided to watch the rest of the movie and see how it compared. I really enjoyed it. It's definitely a fluff movie, but even as an adult, it hasn't lost its charm or humor, and the newer version was pretty similar to the old, just updated.

Even after watching the video, I still didn't go to bed, but read for a while. When I finally put my book down and looked at my watch, it was after 12:30. Eek. Still, as tired as he'd been, and as late as I had kept him up, I figured B would sleep until at least 7. WRONG! First the dog got out of the crate where he sleeps and woke me at 5:30AM. I put him back in and latched the door more carefully, but just as I was getting back to sleep B woke up. It was 6AM! I tried to convince him to climb into the bed beside me and go back to sleep, but he was well awake. I finally decided to take the easy way out, and let him watch a video downstairs. For the next hour I tried to catch a few more winks, but B kept calling out with requests for chocolate milk or to tell me the DVD was skipping. By this time I was irritated with him for not being able to amuse himself until a more decent hour, at myself for not going to bed earlier, and at Blockbuster for renting a defective DVD to us. I decided to just give up and get out of bed.

By 9:30 I had baked some Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast, fed the kids, run and unloaded the dishwasher, and bathed the kids so that their grandmother, who is watching them from this afternoon until their parents get home tomorrow, wouldn't have to deal with that, and read a few pages of my book while the kids watched Scooby-Doo. Most of my friends probably weren't even out of bed at that point. I am so not ready to have kids of my own! :)

today's project: it's definitely time for a nap!

musing about: what to wear for girls' night out tonight.

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flutter back - fly ahead