Not a surprise we wanted.

Owen had said his belly hurt after dinner but we didn’t think much of it since he says that now and again and it’s never anything.

So I forgot all about it and went to bed excited (though late), thinking there’s nothing like falling asleep at midnight planning on your first, nice, deep, uninterrupted sleep in nine days (post-vacation)…only to be awoken at 12:30 by a kid crying in your doorway saying they’ve puked and need help cleaning up.

Holy hell.

It was everywhere. And it was some of the worst I’ve smelled. I knew right away there was no way I could handle it all by myself, so I had him wait there while I quickly went to wake up Tom. Between the two of us, it still took a good 30 minutes to clean up.

We had put a huge bowl next to his bed (“just in case”) but there was no point as he had obviously just puked and then rolled over the edge of the bed and puked again. There was puke covering about a 4′ square section of carpet, he was covered (hair, PJs, face), all of his bedding (including bed skirt!) had to be removed…and it had even started soaking through the mattress protector. We had to clean the carpet as best we could without getting out the Rug Doctor (which would surely have woken Katie up) and we had to get out (and blow up) the air mattress (since I wasn’t going to put him back in bed without a barf-proof mattress pad cover). Then we covered the floor with towels and started a load of laundry. And hoped that would be our only wakeup call.

The only thing I could think was “At least we were at home and not at the condo or in a hotel or in the car.”

The calm before the storm.

I hate to wake a sleeping kid, but if we were to stay on any kind of a schedule, I had to. 

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She actually woke up quite easily and agreed to go see Gramma Jean. And that’s when it all fell apart. She was sitting with GJ, but gently wimpering and whining…which eventually turned into full-blown crying with tears and everything. Hoo boy. It went on and on and on. She didn’t want milk, the iPad, M&Ms, or her B. After a half hour, talk of going to the pool finally got her attention. 

Owen’s first sleepover

Owen’s first sleepover was tonight—and it was the first for both of his friends, too.

The kids played for a bit, then we started Fruit Ninja, which they all thoroughly enjoyed.

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It’s somewhat exhausting—and they can only really play one at a time—so then we did Crash Course which they could all play at the same time.

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Manuel doesn’t have pets, so he was ENTHRALLED with ours (you’ll see more pics later). 🙂

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Getting ready for cake!

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Time for a movie! Katie enjoyed the sleepover as much as the boys did!

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Getting the boys ready for bed about 9. They lined up for a picture, each with one of Owen’s stuffed animals—and here Owen was realizing that they each had one of the primary colors!

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Overall, it went pretty good. The boys were boys (roughhousing and such) but they are all fairly similar—very nice, polite, not too terribly rough, and they listened well. We were most worried about putting them to bed and what happened after that since neither of the boys had had a sleepover before. Of course, their parents were on call to come get them, and I had been updating them via text and pics throughout the night. So they all got their PJs on, brushed their teeth, and decided who would sleep where. We told them they could stay up and talk, but they couldn’t be too loud (since Katie was sleeping next door). I read them a story, pointed out all the night lights, told them that if they were scared at all or if anything was wrong to come get us (and we could call their parents), asked if they had any questions (no), and then turned out the lights, crossed my fingers, and went downstairs.

Within minutes, we heard them coming down the steps. 🙂 Apparently the boys were scared of the big stuffed bear, even though they had all been playing with him. But no biggie, Tom just went up with them and threw it in the guest room.

The second trip down (again with all three of them!) was because the kid who decided he wanted to sleep on the top bunk was apparently suddenly afraid of heights and didn’t want to sleep on the top bunk even though we went over that before. But no biggie, we asked if he wanted Owen to sleep on the top and he said no, he wanted to. Ooookay. Back to bed then, and we sent them upstairs.

The third trip down was to tell us that somehow the top-bunk-kid needed his bed made again (turns out he had pulled off all of his bedding to sleep on the floor). Okay, no biggie, Tom went up and got the bedding issue settled.

At this point, I told Tom we should go upstairs to our bedroom so the kids didn’t have to come all the way downstairs each time. So we did. 🙂

Minutes later (the fourth time out of bed), two had to go to the bathroom—even though they all went before getting in bed.

The fifth time, someone was scared of everything in the room. We added another night light (in addition to the three already in there).

Then we heard them talking quietly and we thought maybe that would be the end of it…but then we heard loud thumping and lots of noise so Tom went down and and found them all out of bed! They got told they could talk but they had to stay in bed. We heard more talking but nothing crazy.

About 10, we finally noticed they were really quiet. Tom checked on them and they were all out! We crossed our fingers and hoped it lasted!

We have bunk beds!

We’ve casually thought about getting bunkbeds for Owen’s room (one with steps instead of a more dangerous ladder) but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on them because we didn’t need them. So one night I happened to see on a Facebook yard sale group that someone was selling a set for a decent price. The bonus was that they were shorter overall so the top bunk was not super high. Long story short, we ended up getting them. It was mostly a spur of the moment decision, but Tom and I both agreed on it so there you go.

Well, have I mentioned that I hate bunkbeds because they’re a total PITA to make? But I thought maybe I was misremembering or blowing it out of proportion and even if it was awful, I’d suck it up for my kid…but holy crap it’s just as awful as I thought.

And.

I thought I’d like that they weren’t full height beds…but holy crap are they low. There’s no way Owen can sleep in there (under there) long term because he can’t even sit up—he can barely roll over. And there’s no way adult guests could fit comfortably in there (when we need an extra bed, we’ve put someone there and move Owen to Katie’s room). And of course that makes making the bed even harder.

So at this point I was thinking we’d made a huge mistake.

But.

Thankfully Tom is handy and he can lower the base of the bed so there’s more room.

Worst case, we take it apart after a few weeks of testing and sell it (hopefully getting what we paid). :/ Best case Owen loves it and we get a lot of use out of it. (Mommy guilt sucks. I’m tempted into things I’d otherwise not be.) And for now, the kids loved playing on it while we were assembling it…

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“I can touch the ceiling!”

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Bed time!

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She stopped my heart.

I went upstairs to get Katie up from her nap because it was almost time to go get Owen. I asked Tom (who was home early but in the bedroom reading) if he had heard her and he said no. So I went to her room and quietly opened the door and peered into the bed—where there was nothing. SHE WAS GONE. I think my heart momentarily stopped as I thought WHERE THE HELL COULD SHE BE? HAD TOM BEEN FOOLING ME AND HE REALLY HAD GOTTEN HER UP? My eyes quickly scanned the room and I wondered if she wasn’t hiding in the closet…? Then I saw this…

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…and then saw this and heard a tiny giggle.

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That little shit! She heard me coming and hid under her B. 🙂 Of course then we had to go run and see daddy, where she proceeded to hop up into bed and be cute. 🙂

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This explains the drool spots.

Katie has been taking a bit later naps lately which means sometimes I have to wake her up to go get Owen. (I guess I could leave her sleeping since she IS locked in her room and I’m only gone about 10 minutes…but it’s time for her to get up anyway and I know how much she LOVES to go get Owen.) So I had to wake her up today…and found her like this. Which explains why I often see huge wet spots on her pillowcase.

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