Consider all the elements:
-Kids on mattresses on the floor because we have not yet put together the new bedframes
-Kids in new, unfamiliar bedrooms
-Kids in a new, unfamiliar house without a routine, ingrained path to the bathroom for middle-of-the-night potty visits
-Kids in bedrooms with bubble wrap (more on that later)
In the middle of the night, Julia entered my bedroom to announce this important news: "Mommy? I woke up because I needed to go pee and I was thirsty."
Phew. Good thing she informed me of that. Because it would have been a disaster if I'd slept through it all.
About an hour later, while I was still tossing and turning trying to get back to sleep, Julia reappeared in the bedroom.
JULIA: Mommy? I just CAN'T fall back asleep.
Me neither, kid.
I reassured Julia that it was Saturday in the morning and she could sleep in, so she shouldn't stress the mid-night insomnia. We both were lucky enough to fall back asleep, but my slumber was short-lived, as Madeleine made a very early morning appearance.
MADELEINE: Mama? I didn't even forget where the bathroom was! Because...I needed to go pee.
I don't know why both kids feel like it's worth waking me up to tell me that they went pee. I really don't. But that's how they roll.
Madeleine came in several more times to tell me more minutiae, and I thought my chances of more sleep were doomed until Ethan declared that he would get up and shower and take the kids off my hands.
The only problem(s): we do not, as yet, have a shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom. So Ethan went down to the basement bathroom to take his (typically 20-minutes long) shower, and Madeleine continued to visit her buddy Mommy.
ME: Madeleine, honey, you can go play. You can play in your room or in the play room.
MADELEINE: (delighted) I can?!?
Yes, honey. You can actually go play with toys. You don't have to be stuck coming in and out of my bedroom to tell me things. Really.
I should have specified: "You should play in the PLAY ROOM," because Madeleine chose door number one and went into her bedroom, which shares a wall with my bedroom. What did she decide to "play" with? The bubble wrap in her boxes of trinkets. (See, I told you the bubble wrap would be discussed further.) And how did she decide to play with it? By exploding one. bubble. at. a. time. I lay in my bed, desperately trying to get back to sleep.
(From Madeleine's room)
-EXPLOSIVE POP!
-one second of silence
-EXPLOSIVE POP!
-one second of silence
-EXPLOSIVE POP!
and so forth.
ANYWAY, despite the lack of sleep, we settled into our day fairly well, and the kids were in paradise having an entire room full of their toys. As you can see, they have made it really neat and organized and not cluttered at all:
At least this stuff isn't all over my living room anymore!
The girls also thoroughly enjoyed having their own backyard to play in. What a treat to be able to just walk out the door from the kitchen straight to the deck and backyard:
They took turns using our Hop Ball to hop down the sloping yard:
ME: This would actually be a fun hill to sled down in the winter, if we had some way to protect you from sledding into the fence.
JULIA: (brightly) Well, we could just BAIL OUT!
Yeah. Not sure I would trust these two klutzes to bail out of the sled in time without somehow hurting themselves and/or pitching head first into the iron fence.
Since Ethan and I had spent the entire day unpacking, (me) removing the remnants from the old condo, and cleaning the condo out (Ethan), we were thrilled to hear our friend Mark wanted to come by with some take-out for dinner. The girls were excited too, vying for Mark's attention and showing off their new bedrooms.
And unlike Ethan and I, they were more interested in talking and goofing around than in scarfing down their dinners (which, for us parents, was only the second meal we had managed to eat all day, the first being breakfast.)
Madeleine, especially, needed some help focusing on her dinner. I took a seat next to her to coax her through eating her veggies and a few bites of meat, at the very least.
MADELEINE: (holding out her water cup) Look Mama. I put RICE in my water to DECORATE it!
And as if that weren't bad enough, in showing me her decorative rice pile at the bottom of the cup, Madeleine managed to tip the entire cup over into her lap and all over the floor.
I think it is proof of the fact that Ethan and I are just SO worn out that neither of us jumped for a paper towel. Instead we both just sat frozen for a moment looking at the pooling water in exhausted denial.
There is truly never a dull moment around here.
I'm happy to report that sleeping went MUCH better last night and both girls slept straight through the evening. As we slowly adjust to our new surroundings, I suspect everyone will settle into a good routine.
Now, if only Julia could understand that Daddy and I do NOT actively want to come see her pile of Indian-black-lentil-induced diarrhea in the toilet, that would be awesome. But I think, at this point, that might just be expecting a little too much.
More posts to come from the NEW Rowe Household soon!
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