I doubt she's ever going to want kids

I have a sweet, hilarious God-send of a girl staying with me right now.

She's an old family friend and flew out from Alabama with my Grammie this week. Hannah Beth is staying here with me for ten days while my Grammie stays with my parents.

We've had a crazy-fun time the past few days doing a lot of laughing, swimming at my parents' house, eating ice cream, laughing, watching TLC, staying up too late, cracking up, discussing the finer points of all things from clothing to convictions, and spending much time... laughing.

Notice a pattern here? I thought so.

I'm telling you, this girl is fuh-uh-NY, peeps.

For instance.

Last night, while we were all swimming by the light of the porch/pool light/moon, she asked, "People can't get sunburned at night, right?"

She was serious.

She's never going to live that one down. And she's okay with it. She's taken it and run with it.

Soon you'll being seeing her product when she patents her own moon-screen. I'll be first in line.

So anyway, today we decided to go shopping.

(Hannah Beth's daddy laughed at us tonight over the phone and told her, "You sure are suffering out there in California, taking care of those kids, aren't you?" She IS helping though. Believe me. She is. She waits on me hand and foot--she just got up to fill my drink while I remained seated on the couch. SPOILED--and is absolutely awesome with the kids. She is working hard. And without her, I wouldn't be doing the stuff I'm able to do WITH her.)

But we went shopping today. And we took my brother with us, since he seemed to get a double portion of the fashion sense I was born completely without. I figured with both of them, I couldn't go wrong.

(And I was feeling rested and peppy thanks to the boys' good night of sleep last night. I wish I could blame it all on one of your awesome suggestions, but last night was just a result of the swimming. Next week, peeps, I'm going to start in on those suggestions. Let me just say you all are AWESOME. You are wonderful. You know how to come to a girl's rescue when she's in a jam. I couldn't do it without you, peeps.)

So we started driving.

We got halfway into our two hour drive and stopped at a stop light. We were talking and laughing, as we tend to do and the kids were asleep when... we all screamed. (Except Zach, of course. He's a seventeen year old guy. They don't scream. They yell.) We'd been rear-ended.

It turned out we were okay and the truck was okay, though I still got the other guy's info, just in case. But he was wearing a really cool plaid hat, so we all thought he was purty cool. Makes it all okay, right?

After my fragile nerves calmed a bit, we went on our way to the mall.

We pulled in and parked, laughing and talking, once again, as we are prone to do.

We got out the stroller, the diaper bag, the purses, and all the other paraphernalia necessary to shop with two children, and the sweet, hilarious, helpful 16 year old girl pulled Merritt out of his carseat and set him in his seat. And then she felt that her hand was wet.

Need I even tell you what was on her lily white hand?

Poop.

I scooped him up and tossed her the wipes. Then she looked down into the stroller.

GOBS of it, peeps.

My brother walked over and checked out the carseat.

MORE GOBS.

I needn't tell you what the diaper itself looked like when I cleaned up the baby.

It took us a bit, but eventually we got cleaned up. Hannah Beth used about half a bottle of her Purell in the process and we only had three wipes left by the end of it, but, hey, we were clean, we were done, and we were on our way.

We took two steps toward the door to the mall and heard, "Eh. EWWWW!"

The poor girl had looked down at her shirt and saw ONE MORE GLOB. On her shirt.

Okay, I'm the mom and even I was disgusted. It looked.... yummy. We won't tell you exactly WHAT it looked like so you can enjoy your tortilla chips and, ahem, dip next time you have Mexican food.

Thankfully, I had a shirt she could put on and then, THEN, we were on our way.

I'm sure she was recalling such things as the other poop incedents she's read about here and making a firm committment against ever having a child of her own.

Both of them commented on the fact that I was pretty calm and collected throughout the whole ordeal--a fact for which they were both thankful. But what mom hasn't dealt with blowout diapers in public before? It comes with the territory. Kinda like being up all night. What they DIDN'T know and I did was that the poop incident was only the beginning.

Neither of them had really been power shopping with a two year old and a baby before. Ha.

But, hey, all in all, we were hugely successful in our power shopping attempts. We found a whole ton o' sales and a whole ton o' cute clothes in them. Zach--ever the trooper--even dared send two girls into the fitting room with armloads of clothes and waited patiently while we cracked ourselves up trying them all on and modeled them for him, expecting an opinion more than merely a "Uh, sure, looks good."

I felt like I was sixteen for a while. Except for, you know, the two kids whining in the background.

But, hey, a few bags full of new clothes and some new shoes make everything better in my book.

In which I eat my words: The Toddler Bed Saga

Help.

Ahem. Let me re-phrase this.

HELP.

You know that toddler bed thing? Weeeeell, it's not going so well.

I know I said that these things are just par for the course and don't faze me. I know.

BUT.

The fact of the matter is this--for the past two weeks, after the initial novelty wore off, we've had nothing but a BATTLE on our hands when it comes to getting that toddler to sleep in his bed. Okay, well, I have had nothing but a battle on my hands for the past two weeks, being that, you know, I'm the only parent around these days.

At nap times, The Battle has been lasting, on average, three hours. Sometimes The Battle lasts longer than three hours. That is three hours or more, peeps. Whew.

At first it wasn't affecting bed time. He'd go to bed and stay in bed. But the past few nights, the sight of a little towhead peeking around the staircase has become the norm. And as I'm typing this, it's after 10pm and he is STILL awake. This is the kid who used to go to bed around 7:30 and conk out.

I'm at a complete and utter loss. I've done everything I know to do, everything my favorite parenting books suggest, and believe you me--I've prayed more over this ordeal than any one parenting issue thus far.

(Parents of teens: I know what you're thinking. "You ain't seen nothin' yet. little mama!" I know. But this is a BIG DEAL at this point, remember??)

I am absolutely, 100% exhausted. Wiped out. The emotional battle of all this is just a way much for my fragile nerves. (Okay, slight drama there. But it IS driving me Up. A. Wall.) Before I had a two year old, I vowed I'd never deal with this. Why? I dunno. I was going to be a perfect parent, of course. I'd never have a two year old with sleep issues. I just wouldn't.

Ha.

So since I know most of you have been through this stage before, I'm soliciting some help. What did/do you do with a toddler who won't stay in bed and doesn't seem even remotely influenced by any form of discipline.

And if you don't have a toddler tip, I want your best toddler story. Or something you vow you'll never allow as a parent. Just so we can toss it back atcha when it happens to you later on.

So anyway. In a word,

HELP.

I think I need a coffee drip

You wanna know something funny?

Someone recently asked why I haven't posted any "crazy life with kids" stories lately. She said, "I mean, things can't have become less crazy, right?"

Oh yeah. Remember those stories?

Like the time Troy locked me out of the house when he was 18 months old and I was nine months pregnant? Or the day the dogs tracked mud all over my white carpet and Troy lapped up water from their water dish? Or the first time I went to the store with after Merritt was born?

Ha. No. Things certainly aren't less crazy than they used to be back when, you know, I only had ONE CHILD and my husband wasn't halfway around the world.

The fact of the matter is that I just don't think much of the wild times anymore.

They're normal now.

Par for the course.

Every day is a bit crazy now.

Take, for example, last night.

I didn't get to sleep until 4am, because Troy was sick and feverish, and he woke up just as I was about to go to bed. For a while, both boys were awake. So we ended up down stairs, with pillows and blankets, watching Cinderella (or, "princess movie", as it's known around here) and trying to get to sleep. Not exactly as post-worthy as I used to think. It was crazy, but it was kinda fun, too. It's not every day I get to snuggle with my babies for hours at a time.

And, hey, I got my new bloggie look set up while Troy clicked away on his little V-Tech laptop. What fun is an all-nighter without a bit of bloggin' thrown in?

I'm tired as could be today, of course, being that Merritt wasn't up quite as much as Troy and I, and thus still wanted to wake up while it was yet morning. But it's nothing a little coffee can't take care of.

What an interesting thing it is the way perspectives change, wouldn't you say? Ask me in ten years and after a few more kiddos and I'll be telling you sleep and sanity are completely overrated.

Until then, I'm just going to go pour myself another cup of coffee.

Sorta here, Sorta not

It's the start of a crazy busy day, followed by a crazy busy weekend, folks.

I'm about to head to the gym, followed by watching a friend's baby, making food for a church activity on Saturday, getting ready to leave crazy early tomorrow morning for a homeschool convention, having a friend and her little boy come to watch Troy while I'm there, coming home Saturday and heading straight to that church activity, being in the nursery Sunday morning and then getting ready for company to arrive Tuesday, all while carrying a mile-long list of all the other little things to fit in between the big ones. Whew.

So today my brain isn't all there.

Instead, it's here. Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer graciously asked me to write a guest post, so that's where you can find me today, talking about deployment.

Thankfully, I have a little more of a brain over there. I think.

Somebody help me! I'm being eaten by stuffed animals!

I've spent the past two days rearranging the boys' room.

I figured that since, you know, Merritt's eight months old and all, it's probably time to start moving him into his crib. And now that Troy's in his big boy bed, we're all set. All that's left to do is convince the boys they can sleep in the same room and not wake each other up. The way things have been going this past week, I'm thinking it might be a while before that one happens.

But, hey, at least the furniture is set up nice and purty, and the pictures are hung on the walls.

Okay, well, the pictures are on the walls, but there's a few I'm thinking I'm going to have to move around. Because I'm nice and decisive like that. For once, I can actually be thankful the walls in this house were painted an ultra-chalky uber-white flat paint before we moved in. Spackle works wonders when there's no paint color to worry about.

And get this! I even hung a wall shelf--by myself! This is a great accomplishment, given that the last time I made such an attempt, the right side was about a half in lower than the left. John came home, looked at the shelf, smiled at me, and proceeded to do what he told me I should have done in the first place... get out the tape measure and the level thingie.

Eh, eyeballin' it works just fine.

(As evidenced by the fact that the shelf I hung yesterday required no tape measure, no level and is perfectly even. I even checked it using the highly scientific method of grabbing the nearest toy ball, setting it in the middle of the shelf and taking note of whether or not it rolled off to one side or the other. The smarts, they astound me daily.)

But anyway.

Now that the room is put together (unless you count the pictures I'm going to have to rehang in new locations), I have a whole new problem.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THE BUCKET LOADS OF TOYS!!!

We have a little cubby/shelf thing in the room that houses most of the toys, being that I'm not a fan of the broken toy syndrome that seems to accompany toy boxes, and a small toy area down stairs, so there's a stash in both places. The idea was that, this way, all the toys would be contained.

Ha. Well. Then there was Christmas. And then there was a birthday.

Now we're overflowing again.

The truth of the matter is that the toy issue doesn't bother be nearly as much as another issue I'm facing. With the toys, I have a plastic tub in the garage into which--theoretically--I can rotate out half the toys, thus keeping things "new" every month or so. Of course, that would require actually DOING said rotating, instead of letting all the toys accumulate.

But the OTHER issue is this: The Stuffed Animals.

Now, you must understand. The boys have approximately 9,876 stuffed animals. Or, you know, somewhere around there. And Troy adores every. single. one. By the time he reached two years old, he'd named most of them, like "Dog" the white sea lion from Sea World, and "Hoppy" the purple bunny whom he thinks comes from Bunnytown. Then there's Snoopy, and Eeyore, and a stuffed Mater... and 5000 others. He loves them all and they are his friends.

But they are invading every square inch of my house. To be quite honest, there are a few I could probably add to the garage sale pile and he'd never know the difference, but most of them would be sorely and sadly missed. The stuffed animal thing is a highly sensitive issue around here.

So what do I do with them? What would YOU do with 9,876 stuffed animals?

The option my husband keeps suggesting is something I'm not entirely a fan of--the stuffed animal wall hanger thing hanging high in the corner. I've seen them in stores and such, so I'm sure they are still great and people use them all the time, but for some reason, to me, that just screams 1989.

But I'm still at a loss to figure out what to do with this pile of stuffed animals currently sitting outside the boys' bedroom door, waiting for me to find them a home.

Ideas? Tricks for vacuum packing them and storing them in closets? Or hiding them somewhere where they'll never again be found?

Oh, and suggestions on how to avoid ever again having another toy or stuffed Nemo darken the doors of this house would be welcome, too. Although somehow I don't think that would go over too well with the grandparents...