Minor meltdown

Bedtime tonight was rough. Luckily, their favorite babysitter was here to help me and will be here tomorrow night and Thursday night, thank God. :s They are little and they are a handful!!! Wooh! Talk about wearing you down real quick.

They loved pizza for dinner and bath time went relatively smoothly.....but bedtime is where things started to go bad real quick.

First, the oldest knows that mom and dad aren't here and so she tries to test the limits. "Hmmm, what can I get away with? What can Miss Jen get suckered into believing?" He he. The first trick tried was if they could all sleep in one bed together. That's fine if they want to do that when mom and dad are here, but since I came Sunday night to "observe" how nights are done, that was not part of the plan.

So, after story time, Jo-Jo (2 yr old with the greatest smile ever...) had to say goodnight and that smile quickly turned to crying. But, after a few minutes he was out cold - completely asleep. Then, the next trick mastered by the oldest was to try and have the two girls sleep together. Again, because they fight so much, I realized that wouldn't be a good idea.

About 10 minutes after story time, prayers and all tucking in took place, one of the girls came down and started crying that she didn't have 10 stuffed animals on her bed and that mommy says both the girls only get 10 animals on their bed and that the other sister stole her animals and on and on. Long story short we sat there and counted animals and came up with a plan. One of the girls threw a fit and the other cried about wanting mommy. Not the best for your first night! :D

That's where I had lots and lots of mercy and patience. The thing is...these kids know that they are going to be moving back to the states soon and there's lots of transition going on. Even though I'd venture to say that the oldest one crying for mommy may have been milking it a lil' cuz I'm not the normal bedtime routine, I still couldn't just be mean.

So, after trying to comfort, come up with a solution, sing another song and finally make it better - I headed out the door, with the girl still whining a little for mom. But within 2 minutes, there was silence and they have been quiet for 25 minutes. I think they are asleep. Lord may they sleep uninterrupted through the night.
THIS MOTHER THING IS HARDDDD WORK!!!!

Having Andrea to help every day for four hours is the best thing ever! She helped get two loads of laundry folded and put away. There's still about 4 loads waiting.

Today around 4:30 pm I got out and ran 4 miles. Now I'm debating whether I should jump in their pool and get some pool time. Hmm, I think I might.

Kids will be up at 6:30 am and I'd like to get a head start on them so I think I'm going to shoot for 6 amish to atleast get a little coffee before we're off and running for the day.