Chocolates NEED to be higher

Bedtime Part Two:

I came out of Kiley and Kara's room last night, feeling a little proud of myself, wrote that nice little blog article... suddenly I see Abby walking down the hallway with my beautiful, tasty, luxurious Lindoor Truffle, milk chocolate bag. (I'm pregnant lol)

I asked her if she ate all of my candies. "No." (We're working on the lying) Me: "Abby don't lie. Did you eat my candies?". Abby: "Yes." Me: "That makes me very sad Abby, those were my special candies."

And suddenly it dawns upon her. Abby: "Mommy, next time you need to just put your chocolates up higher."

Yes she just blamed HER eating MY chocolates on ME! Thus begins a long conversation about taking responsibility for her actions... most of which I'm sure really isn't getting through, or some of it. She is three but a very smart three year old. In the end I tell her she needs to appologize, I forgive her, send her off to bed.

Exit back to bedroom. I hear a little sad crying.

A few minutes later she comes back out. "Mommy I thought of a  way to buy you more candy."
Me: "What's that Abby."
Abby: "You can give me money and I will go buy them for you!"

hahahaha--- I think the conversation born out of her eating my chocolates was far more entertaining then eating those last few pieces of chocolate would have been. Two take aways from this: 1) Mommy needs to put her chocolate higher or start hiding it.... 2) I know she did genuinely feel bad about eating the chocolate despite her trying to 'blame' me... and i'm not so sure she was trying to blame me, more rationalize the situation as she saw it lol.

Ok I had better get to work...

Sleeping through the night.... literally...

What is that I hear?... little girls sleeping peacefully in their big girl beds? So whether the book has magical powers... just nudged me a hair in the right direction (aka I was ALMOST doing everything right)... or I just managed to get a really good night... time will tell. So far I've really only read one chapter... lol. The most striking comment to me was regarding schedules (something always very daunting to me with three small children) ... if scheduling your day is too daunting... start off with the morning and bedtime.... something I think I could do.

So my current goal if you hadn't figured it out yet... is to get the girls and bedtime to co-exist. We were on a fast downward spiral... 30 minutes of bedtime turned to 1 hour... even 2 hours. And we are not talking about, peaceful sitting next to their beds, singing or patting their backs. This was something much more akin to a professional knock down, drag down, hair pulling match of wills.

NOT. FUN.

So what did I do.

Bedtime Routine. Uh yeah we kinda had one of these. I did find one minor but potentially fatal flaws. We were going directly from Start to Finish. What? ---- we weren't explaining steps.

1. We gave a 5 minute warning till bedtime (accompanied by many groans)
2. We walked them through the routine: (Pajamas, brush teeth, bedtime story, kiss and tuck in, music on)
3. If they get out of bed, take off pajamas or bounce on the bed there are consequences... no yelling, no getting upset. It is an automatic removal from the room and friend (aka twin). Where do they go? Dark bathroom.... it doesn't take long for them to realize this is NOT a fun thing.
4. Hugs and kisses... sitting on a beanbag outside their door... and zzzz ... happy sleep routine

(Ok... Kara still ended up partially naked... I still count this as a success) 

Disclaimer: This worked for Kiley and Kara... they did run around more outside because it was nice out today but I like to think that if we continue it might just work. I would at least like to have it calmed down a little before baby #4 comes. It will be a nightmare if he comes and we are still spending 2 hours putting our eldest three to bed.

Abby is a whole other bedtime tale. One that might not get solved until I can be home again. Naps might need to vanish for her. Otherwise I believe bedtime will continue to be a struggle. Time will tell...

Abby's 1st Day of Preschool

Abby's first day of preschool! Wow... where did the time fly off to? It was quite the morning getting her up and dressed and ready to go. A wonderful nurse friend of mine covered clinic for me so that I could run her to preschool on her first day. And I am so glad she did!

Abby wasn't quite sure WHY I wanted or needed a first day of school photo... I'm not sure she understood what exactly school was and why we were going in the first day. But this is the photo I got.

We got there early hoping that I could visit with her teacher or the director of the preschool a bit before class and I had to go back to work. No luck. We did a lot of wandering around and such but the teachers have devotions before school starts so I wasn't really able to visit with them. Abby jumped right in though and I couldn't help but laugh a little that I was the one ready to cry leaving her there...

I told her goodbye and she said "Ok Mommy, see you later."   There are 8 other students in her class and it looks like she had a good time. There was a little discussion about how she needed to pick up even though she didn't want to... (imagine that) but otherwise things went well.

She even brought home extra coloring sheets because she knew her sisters would want to color too. (I thought that was pretty sweet) Preschool is every Tuesday and Thursday morning. It will mean a busier schedule for Tom until I'm on maternity leave but it will be good for everyone to get out of the house too. So on to another busy chapter in our lives!

New Year... New things

Well... we had a wonderful time at Tom's parent's for Christmas. The girls weren't feeling 100% which didn't help. They were quite cranky when opening presents! Hoping that this bug doesn't hit everyone that was there this weekend. The girls are happy to be home and in their own beds tonight I think... I know I will be! It is wonderful to be away but oh so nice to be home.

The tree came down and Abby was at first a little sad... but now she is excited for her birthday (which of course is very soon... like in May...) We still actually have one Christmas celebration left, and still no snow on the horizon. In fact Thursday is supposed to be 68! How odd....

Abby has her first day of preschool tomorrow, I had a wonderful friend agree to watch calls for me for an hour so that I can take her on her first day... I would have been so sad to miss that. So for now I had better get things ready for tomorrow and crawl into bed myself. Pics from this weekend tomorrow ;)

Happy New Year everyone!