A Tale of Two Do-Overs

Do-over One: The Chex-Mix

Joel and I have always been conscious of spending a little time together every day. It's getting harder and harder all the time. The boys are staying awake longer at night and taking shorter naps or no nap at all. I have dreams about the day we have money to pay a baby sitter, or when we're not so brain-dead by the time the children go to bed that we can have a meaningful at-home date time. For now, though, we have settled into a weekly TV routine: Monday- Jack Bauer, Tuesday-LOST, Wednesday-the Middle, Thursday-30Rock, Friday-a netflix movie. Since we got Tivo to record LOST during our small group, we have now added King of the Hill reruns to replace watching the 10 a'clock news. This isn't ideal, I know. But for now, it's the best we can do.

Over time, we've developed a habit of binging on chocolate and junk food once our children are in bed for the night. (Don't try to pretend you don't do it too.) We've even got a special tub that contains a normal stockpile of dark chocolate candy: stuff I bought on clearance at the drugstore after Easter, Valentines, Christmas, etc. Last night we also had shared half a bag of chex mix, I think around 10:00pm.

Somehow, the special tub was left out for a second night in a row.

Before 5am, I woke up to Joel throwing up. At 6:30, I woke up again to giggling in the hallway. At 7:30, I woke up to a chocolate covered face looking at me. At 8:30, I realized not just that the chex mix had been poured out on the carpet, but that my sweet little angels had eaten most of it and turned to what Joel and I have labeled "the artificial children"*.

The "artificial children"s behavior led to Liza waking up early
...which led to TOO fussy at breakfast
...which led to emergency coffee
...which led to facebook
...which led to the waffles being left out
...which led to shooshing the children downstairs to play unattended
...which led to the legos being dumped out on the floor
...which led to the legos being kicked from their point of impact to all 4 corners of the biggest room in our house
...which led to the realization that all the chocolate was gone
...which led us to getting the you-know-what out of the house to the playground
...which led us to getting rained on
...which led to the chic-fil-a playground at 10:40
...which led to the 600 calorie lunch I hadn't planned on eating and the $13 I hadn't planned on spending at 11:00
...which led us home for naps at 12:30
...which led to nap time being over at 2:00
...which led to this blog post
...which led to Micah sticking his fingers through a block of cheese, breaking it off and giving it to Silas
...which I assume will lead to constipation, but you never know.

Do-Over Two: Potty Training

We've waited and waited to feel that Micah was ready for potty training. He told me Wednesday he wanted to use the potty and he's done so ever since. As for "training" on my part, there was none. I'm really, really proud of him! Here's to hoping do-over #3 is just as easy...

*We've been able to identify artificial food coloring as a culprit for some- NOT ALL- unexplained, extraordinarily bad behavior. The FDA agrees with me so if you think I'm just being all kooky, you can stick it.