The Toddler Bed (dun-dun-dun)

A few days ago I tell Merrill, "I think Reita's ready for a toddler bed." He nods but doesn't say anything.

So today, I get to sleep in a little bit while all my early birds are up. As in, I was the only one interested in sleeping after 6 am. :/ While I'm sleeping, Merrill decides to take down the crib and set up the toddler bed in the kids' room. Without making sure I'm ready to deal with it yet. I said Reita was ready, I never said I was! >.< Merrill took my earlier comment to mean that he could set up her toddler bed whenever he was ready. FAIL.

Evan and Reita were pretty excited though. Evan more so than Reita, but still, she was pretty happy once it was all done and she could actually climb INTO bed.

So far, so good. Until naptime hit. *B00* Evan and Reita played in their room for almost an hour before I was able to go get them. (I was busy with Bruce...) I was able to get Evan to lay down and nap, but as far as Reita was concerned... EPIC FAIL. She was so upset that mommy and daddy both wanted her to take a nap in that bed. She got so worked up she wouldn't settle down while in her room, so in the interest of her sanity, we let her out. :/ Then we gave her a sammich. :)

Needless to say, I was NOT looking forward to bedtime. It took me 10 minutes to convince Reita to be ok with being left alone in her new bed. I wanted her to feel good about being in it, especially after how badly things went down this afternoon.

Sure enough, *as soon as I left the room Reita got out of bed and Evan jumped right out of his bed too. They started playing with the door. I went in, got them back into bed, left.* Repeat from * to * 2 times. (A little crochet humor, sorry if you don't get it. ;) After threatening to leave the door closed didn't work (it's usually open so they can get light from the hall) I then threatened to take away their babies. (When I was pregnant with Reita a friend suggested I get Evan a baby doll to help him understand about babies. It worked great! It's kinda like his teddy bear. Reita has a stuffed doll too; got it for her when I was prego with Brucey.)

Evan hates it when I take away his toys so he stayed in bed. Reita got back out of bed, so I had to take away her baby. I got her in bed and left. After a couple more times of this, with me taking away different stuffed toys that she had on her bed, I finally started putting her in the corner AS WELL AS take away toys. This happened 2-3 times. :( Out of bed again, I go in there, she sees me and immediately runs to the corner as though we're playing a game! O_o

Ok, I admit it, that was cute and I was amused, but only because I wasn't that frustrated yet. (Had to remind myself not to laugh though.)

Several toys and times out later, she runs out into the hallway with a toy IN HER HAND, sees me, holds the toy out for me and runs back into her room! ACK! o_O

Ok, I admit it, that was cute and I would have been amused, if I hadn't been so frustrated! I grabbed that toy, fwapped her tooshy - gently, because I'm not into spanking - and ushered her back into bed. I think this is when it really clicked that, while she felt we were playing a game, I WASN'T! We had been at it for at least 45 minutes, maybe 50, and I was getting FED UP! No more corners, no more Mrs. Nice Mom, "Get your butt into bed!" She came out crying, I plopped her back into bed. After a couple of times of that I reminded myself that she's just a little girl and I needed to be nice. It was hard to be nice though, because I was frustrated and her crying woke up Bruce. :( But the next time she came out I took her hand and walked her back into bed. This happened about 3 or 4 more times.

Finally, she decided to cry a little more in her bed, settle down and go to sleep! *Whew* (Nope, that one's not a crochet joke. ;) I'm really hoping that tomorrow works out better!

On a more relaxing and tender note...

Today, I've been working on a star washcloth. See pattern here:

http://bellacrochet.blogspot.com/2010/06/little-star-dish-cloth-or-wash-cloth.html

Evan and Reita like to get hold of my projects while I'm working on them and "crochet". I let them have their fun, because I think it will help maintain their interest and help them want to learn for reals when they're old enough to do it.

So Evan gets the washcloth and the hook out of my crochet bag and starts "working" on it. As he does, he says, "I'm making a star."

"Yeah," I say.

"Yeah, and Heavenly Father's gonna put it in the sky!"

Aww...!

(His Great Grandma gave us a book a few years ago called "There Was No Snow On Christmas Eve" about the birth of Jesus, so we've talked about the Star of Bethlehem. He being only 3, I've told him that it's "the special star Heavenly Father put in the sky because he was SO HAPPY Jesus was born". Hence, his comment.)

:)

The Joys of Home Improvement!

No, I'm not talking about the old comedy with Tim Allen. ;) I'm talking about my basement. My house was vacant for 3 years before we bought it and during one of those years it wasn't winterized properly and it flooded. :( So most of the walls and all of the carpet had to be torn out, which is fine really, because the layout downstairs was lame.

Merrill has been working on renovating the bathroom downstairs. It has no walls, no attached toilet or sink or tub. It's been pretty extensive. The tub is almost ready to be attached to pipes and yesterday Merrill was building some framework for installing shelves in the shower. He accidentally hit a pipe and, you guessed it, water went spraying out all over the place. *B00* He had to hurry up and turn off the water to the house. There was no warning and I just so happened to be doing dishes while he was doing this. D:

Happily, I had some water stored in juice containers. You know, the non-refrigerated 64 oz jugs. I have several of them full of water hanging out in my basement, so we still have water to drink and wash with. Yay! Which is great, because I'd really hate to have to go to my neighbor's house and ask for water.  I have great neighbors and all, but no one wants to answer the door 2-3 times a day to "lend" you water.

Me: Hey neighbor, can I borrow some of your water?

Neighbor: Sure, but I don't want it back!

Hey There!

So I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while. In my search for ever more cute patterns to crochet, I've come across a lot of really neat blogs which is what got me thinking about having one, but I thought, I don't really design enough stuff to actually do a crochet blog like all these other fabulous ladies I come into contact with...

But then tonight, I had an epiphany as I made dinner... I ALSO MAKE UP RECIPES! Plus, I'm really good at rambling and some people find it to be entertaining, so I that's when I decided that I really CAN have enough content for a blog. :D It's kinda exciting. Especially because I often feel kinda isolated from the world. I have 3 totally adorable kids, but with my van in the shop all I do is stay at home with them. :/ Having a blog will be just like talking to adults! If you're not a mom, you're probably thinking, Big deal, I talk to adults all the time. Adults, however, don't ask questions like, "Mom, what happened?" when they throw up and they don't hold cups full of juice like it's a toy doll and then walk all over the house with it.

Obviously, I have young children. They are 3 years, 19 months and 3 months as of this writing. I LOVE my children, but the occasional adult conversation is refreshing, like a nice cool glass of water when you've been thirsty for about, oh, a week. :P

So this is my first rambling, or thought, if you will. TA-DA! I am on my way to blogging bliss. :)