I Claim Myself As The WORST Mother. ever.

Sleep is usually not an issue. I start our new little bedtime routine around 8. It goes a little something like this:

8:00 pm.- Take kids in bedroom, go back to Abbie's bedroom and get her pajamas, go to Preston's room and get his pajamas.
8:05- Put Preston in the bathtub and let him play for about 10 minutes.
8:15- Wash his hair.
8:18- Wash his chubby little body.
8:20- Let him play for ten more minutes.
8:30- Get him out. Dry off. Put in crib.
8:40- Get bottle ready.
8:43- give Preston bottle and go back to bedroom to find Abbie running around the bed completely naked. Well thanks, darling, for taking your own clothing off. That saves me five minutes of fighting with you.
8:45: Draw new bath water.
8:50 Put Abbie in bathtub and let her play for ten minutes while watching her out the mirror as I start to straighten my hair.
9:00- Wash her thick, curly hair. Poor child. She ended up with my hair.
9:05- let her play for five more minutes.
9:10- Wash her tall, skinny body.
9:15- Get her out, dry her off, dress, take to bedroom.
9:23- Start to read story.
9:30- She's out.
9:30- Check to see if Preston is sleep, and sure enough, HE IS :)

This takes extremely long. Longer than it used to. But we used to start at 7:30.

You may notice that I let Preston play in the tub longer. It entertains him and keeps him happy. Abbie gets bored playing the tub but she likes ten minutes of it. So, I allow ten boring minutes of playing in the tub.

Last night, neither of them wanted baths. I put Preston in and he SCREAMED so loud. He wouldn't stop. So I gave up. I took him out, dried him off and handed him to Ryan. I went to undress Abbie and she wouldn't. She screamed and kicked and hit. I gave up. Whatever. Preston wouldn't take his bottle. He wouldn't stay in his crib. He wanted Daddy. Whatever. Ryan and put him to sleep. He tried rocking him to sleep. That didn't work. He just screamed and screamed. I thought it was never going to end. He finally brought him in the living room and put him on the floor and left him play with his toys, which we have to clean out before Christmas. I took Abbie in her room and started reading to her and she jumped out her bed and threw the biggest tantrum I have ever seen. I was ready to just break down and cry. Preston was happy playing with his toys.. I figured, what the heck. Let him stay up an extra hour if he's going to be happy, and it wore him out a little bit. Abbie, she wanted nothing to do with any toys or baby dolls, which usually make her happy. I offered her a cookie. Nope. Milk. Nope. Brownie. Nope. Water. Nope. Juice. Nope. She wouldn't tell me what she wanted.

After listening to her scream and stomp around the house for an hour, I decided to take them for a car ride. It couldn't hurt. It always makes them sleep. I put their jackets on, Preston in car seat, bottle in hand, and out the door. Put them in the car, give Preston bottle and pull out of the driveway. Withing 10 seconds of leaving the driveway, the screaming started. By then, I had a pounding headache and just wanted some sleep. I had some gummy worms in the car and offered her those, and she took them. And that made her happy. I stopped to get some water at the store and Preston was sound asleep. One down, one to go. When I came out, Abbie was asleep. Mission accomplished. Finally, two sleeping kids.

I didn't care if they slept for an hour, or they slept all night. They were sleeping and I could finally go to bed. I decided to take Abbie in the house first because she always wakes up when she hears the garage door. She can't hear it from her room so in we went. I went and got Preston, shut the garage door and took him in the house. He didn't wake up until I woke him up this morning. Abbie, she was up half the night.

I really hope we get more sleep tonight.

I am now the worst mother ever. I bribed my kids with gummy worms to make her stop screaming and left the other stay up an hour later so he would be happy. Good grief. She was cranky this morning. Great. This is going to be fun. But we had no problems. I hope she's better when I pick her up from the sitter's.

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This has nothing to do with being the worst mother ever.. but anyway.

I got some comments on what to do about finding the gender of the baby.. we've decided that we are not finding out the gender. My mom really wants to know.. I might let her go with to the appointment and let her find out. Then she can get the stroller and crib sheets and everything. She planned on getting all that anyway. So that's what I think I'm going to do. We plan on waiting until after s/he is here to paint the nursery. We first have to transfer all the stuff from my office into either Ryan's office of the basement, then transfer Preston's stuff up there and then get the furniture. We're going to keep the furniture in the basement until the nursery is done. We're going to wait to get the swing and pack and play until s/he is here. We plan to take a day and letting my mom keep the kids, if she don't mind, and paint the nursery and move all the furniture in. This probably won't be for a good month after s/he is here.

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Hope you're having a good day! I'm ready to get out of here.
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I'll post wordless wednesday later.