Luke's Bedtime Rituals

Step 1: Mommy, and only Mommy unless she isn't home, takes Luke to bed. She must walk behind Luke to his bedroom.

Step 2: Mommy sits down on the right half of the rocking chair, then Luke climbs in "all my by-self!" holding the book he has chosen to read. Luke sits next to Mommy, NEVER in her lap. Don't even consider it.

Step 3: Mommy reads the book, but must let Luke turn the pages. Mommy's hands are to be nowhere near the pages at any time, for any reason. They are, however, supposed to be holding on to the edges of the cover.

Step 3b: Occasionally, Mommy reads one book out loud while Luke holds
and reads a different one. When or why this scenario occurs is a mystery to
everyone but Luke.

Step 4: Book is over, Luke holds the book in his lap while Mommy sings "Baa-baa Black Sheep" or other song of Luke's choosing. Again, he sits next to Mommy, never in her lap

Step 5: Here we have two options (always chosen by Luke, of course). Option A is that Mommy stays in the rocker while Luke gets up. He takes his book to his bed, throws it over the bed rail, then climbs in the bottom of the bed. Mommy is to stay in her seat until Luke gives her the okay to get up. If, by chance, Mommy attempts to get up before given the word, step 5 starts all over again. Once Mommy is given permission to rise, she is to kiss Luke on the forehead then cover him. Lately, that means his "bunny blankey" over his entire body (making sure his toes are covered), then his down comforter over the bottom half of his legs.

Option B is that Mommy covers Luke with the bunny blanket while he is in the rocker and carries him like a baby to bed. Mommy should talk about what a lovely little baby she has while carrying Luke. The protocol for covering him up remains the same (and don't forget it).

With both of these options, Luke brings the book he read before bed in to bed with him to join the 1,037 other books, dolls, and stuffed animals that are already there. I really need to get a picture of his bed--it's slightly ridiculous.

It's a good thing we love him so much because, frankly, Luke is EXHAUSTING!

This Is How It's Supposed to Be

We're back!!!!!

The blog is up and running again! Life has been busy, but I have resolved to start keeping this updated again. More on what we have been busy with later, but for now

Happy 4th of July! Despite the 4th of March-like weather, we had a fabulous time. Matt's parents were in town and some of my family came over. We ate, had a bonfire and s'mores, and did fireworks. This isn't the greatest picture, but Drew absolutely LOVED the fireworks. Loved, loved, loved them. The louder the better as far as he was concerned. He literally peed his pants with excitement when it got dark and we lit off some rather big ones.

Luke, well, this picture pretty much sums up Luke's opinion of the fireworks.

We put him to bed before it got dark.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

You know that game you used to play at slumber parties when you were a kid? The one where you got in your sleeping bag the wrong way so you couldn't see anything and ran around the room? The one the mother who was hosting the slumber party hated because you crashed in to everything and she was convinced someone would hurt themselves?

Your friend's mom was right. It's dangerous.

Apparently impressed by Luke's staples, Drew tried to play that game by himself last weekend in Lake Chelan and cut his forehead open. No stitches, but they did have to glue it back together. Matt and I weren't there (the boys were with my parents), but apparently there was lots of blood and great concern for the condition of the sleeping bag. However, Lake Chelan hospital is the place to go for these things--Drew got a popsicle, ice cream, a bouncy ball with a happy face on it AND a paddle ball game. Sounds better than Chucky Cheese!

Luke came home with a roaring diaper rash. We might be rethinking vacations with the grandparents.

A Christmas Post is Not to Be

Luke's exploits have bumped the Christmas post yet again.

Today was a Kindermusik day and nobody got a bath last night. So, mostly to take care of Drew's wild hair, I decided to take everyone in the shower with me. I should know better. Luke was dancing around when his feet went out from under him and he cracked the back of his head open on the seat (otherwise known in our house as the shampoo/soap/empty shampoo bottle holder). There was lots of screaming and lots of blood. And not enough clothes. I spent the next 15 minutes trying to a) stop the bleeding, b) call the doctor, c) get everyone dressed. C proved to be the biggest challenge.

We spent the next couple hours at the walk-in clinic getting Luke fixed up. Luckily my friend Wendy came and picked Drew up at the clinic and took him to her house so he didn't have to wait. He needed a couple of staples, so they had to apply a topical anesthetic to numb his skin. This meant having to have a wad of gauze with medicine on it strapped to the back of his head for 15 minutes. As you can imagine, he LOVED that.

I think we made it to minute 13 before he got it off. He didn't seem to feel the first staple going in, but number two hurt. He recovered quickly though and is just fine. So fine that he colored on the fish tank with a crayon while we were waiting. And tried to knock a table over. And wear a magazine basket for a hat.

We're Still Here!

I know, I know. The blog has been neglected lately. We have been really busy, but things should start calming down this week and I promise I will get back to it!

Again, this should probably be a post about all our Christmas festivities, but, as usual, my children have done something far more interesting.

Last Tuesday, the boys were in the bonus room and were very quiet. I thought they were playing nicely together (for a change). Oh, how wrong I was. When I heard the crash that was the toy refrigerator falling over on Luke I immediately ran to the bonus room to see who was bleeding. I couldn't figure out why the victim was covered in green blood. Then I realized. Not blood, dummy. Marker. Drew had colored Luke's entire face and all of his toenails green. It took two days to wash off.

This Should Be a Christmas Post . . .

but that will have to wait.

My suspicion that Luke ate a marble two days ago was confirmed at this morning's diaper change. I'll spare you the picture. Drew is quite upset because it was one of his green ones and I decided it couldn't be saved. I was quite upset because there was a marble in Luke's diaper! Luke didn't seem to be upset at all.