Trashed

Yesterday was not my best day. The babysitter I spent hours searching for, who seemed so perfect for us, didn’t show up for her first job at our house. No phone call. No email. Nothing. I really, really hope that nothing seriously wrong happened to her, but then it would mean that she’s just extremely irresponsible. I’ve tried reaching her by phone as well as email, but at this point, I’ve gotten no responses. So, I’m pretty sure we’re done with her.

It was sad. Tiny and Buba were really looking forward to her coming (they’d met her once before), and I really needed someone to watch them so I could go and check out a pre-school nearby (which I didn’t love). Fortunately, a friend down the road offered to entertain them at her house so I could keep my appointment. The kids know her and are friends with her daughter, so they went readily. I so owe her- big time!

After picking the kids up, we went out for lunch (fun), but returned home to find that our power was out (not fun). It was a rainy day (the 3rd one in a row), so the house was quite dark. Good for putting the kids down for a nap, but not good for me to accomplish the things I’d wanted to do- like laundry and blog reading and catching up on Hulu (although my lap top had power, our wireless connection was out).

And then there was bedtime. Ugh! As I’ve mentioned before, Buba and Tiny were perfect little angel sleepers from roughly 9 months to 26 months. Then Tiny started having night wakings and Buba started climbing out of his crib and into hers (they were close enough together that he could easily get into hers without ever touching the ground). But we’d managed to get both of those things under control (yes, we did end up buying Buba the monkey soother and we’ve recently moved their cribs to opposite sides of the room), and bedtime was going relatively smoothly. But not last night.

We put Tiny and Buba in their cribs around 7:20pm. Around 7:40, I heard a thud. And then another thud. And then the sound of giggling coming towards our bedroom. Yep, that’s right. They were both out of their cribs (still in their sleep sacks!) walking around the house. T and I each picked up one and put them back into their cribs with a stern advisory that that is where they were to stay. I put up the gate in their doorway to let them know they’d not be wandering around the house anymore.

Within ten minutes, they were both out of their cribs again. They stood at the gate yelling, “Mommy! Where are you Mommy Mommy?” T wanted to go right back and put them in their cribs again, but I talked him out of it (crazy? perhaps.). I knew that was just what they wanted, and that we’d be doing it for hours. So I left them in their room. I figured they’d panic when we didn’t come to put them back to bed, and they’d cry for a bit, and then I’d put them back in their cribs. And that’s exactly what happened. Although, not until an hour and a half later and after they’d completely trashed their bedroom- emptying their closet and strewing things all about the room. The mess was bad enough, but in addition, they’d gotten their hands on a full container of Vaseline and it was all over everything, including themselves. But that was the end of it. They stayed in their cribs for the rest of the night.

This morning I told them that we would be skipping our activities today. No storytime. No playdate. And I made them clean up (or help me clean up) the huge mess that they’d made. We spent the entire morning in our house, and I continued to mutter how unhappy I was as I did my best to remove Vaseline from various items and toys. They weren’t perfect angels, but considering the lack of any sort of activity, they were very well behaved.

At nap time, we reviewed the sleep rules that we’ve had in place for months: 1) stay in bed; 2) lie down; 3) go to sleep. I told them that only good sleepers would get to do fun things this afternoon, and they’d have to be good sleepers tonight if they want to go to gymnastics class tomorrow. I put them in their cribs at 1pm and within ten minutes, they were out (probably due to the loss of sleep last night).

I can only hope that things go much more smoothly tonight. It wasn’t fun to miss our activities, and I would hate to have to enforce that again. If everything goes as well tonight (and for nights to come) as it did at nap time, then the whole thing will have been worth it (the letting them trash their room, the screaming and crying, the missing activities). But if not, well then this whole situation just really, really stinks.