Day 9-

something you're proud of in the past few days.

Hmm, this is tricky. I've actually had kind of a non productive week this week. So I could cheat and use Rebecca's definition of "proud" as she's learning the correct usage of the word. She'll say comments such as, "I'm so proud I get to go to preschool today!" Or "I'm so proud I get m&m's!" so I could say "I'm so proud that Christmas is coming soon!"
But I guess I'll find something...

I think I am proud of handling a "mom" situation. Let me explain.
The other day Rebecca got the stomach flu. It's been going around. She puked right after dinner, and a couple more times before bed. She went to bed a little earlier than the other two kids and when they were getting to bed she did cough and threw up a tiny bit of mucus, but she was so out of it she wouldn't wake up for me to clean her up. It didn't even get on her sheets, just her face, hair and jammies. The best I could do was take off her shirt and wipe her face and as much of her hair clean as possible. Yeah, gross huh! (I wouldn't normally volunteer to have my child sleep in puke, but I also figured she needed sleep, it wasn't much throw up, and she might be throwing up more throughout the night anyway.)

So Hayden and Sydney got to bed, but they are all 3 in the same room now and Sydney has figured how to climb out of her crib, so she is into musical beds. That has made Hayden into musical beds. I put them to bed, and then when I go to check on them before I hit the sack I find Hayden and Sydney in different beds each night. NOT REBECCA - she is in love with her bed, and doesn't want to sleep anywhere else than her own bed. The other kids are lucky to sit on her bed, so when she actually lets them sleep there they love it. So, I went to check on the kids before bed and I found Sydney on Hayden's bed, the top bunk, and Hayden in Sydney's crib. Silly kids. I moved Sydney down into her own bed next to Hayden. They are my two cuddle bugs and they sleep better with someone else so I let Hayden stay there, besides I wasn't about to lift that boy onto the top bunk.

At midnight I was drifting off to sleep (yes, I was going to be tired the next day anyway from being up too late) I heard something like a cough from their room and ran in to see if Rebecca was throwing up again.

NOPE, I got there just in time to see Sydney throwing up all over Hayden. I quickly picked up Hayden and his blanket and carried him to the bathroom and told him to get in the shower, threw the blanket in the washing machine, headed back to the room and picked Sydney in all her pukey mess up and carried her to the bathroom to see Hayden laying on the bathtub floor, still in his pajamas. Told Hayden to wake up and take off his jammies, and started stripping Sydney. Left Sydney in the tub and took her jammies to the washing machine, came back in to see Hayden go potty, pull UP his underwear as I start running the tub water and he heads to the hallway to LAY down in the middle of the hall to go back to sleep. So I run back over to lift him up before he lays on the floor getting throw up on the carpet.

Just then Rebecca came out of the room in to the hall to see what was going on. As soon as she heard the water she started taking off her pajama bottoms so she could join the bath party. Finally all three kids were in the bathtub, crying because the water was too cold for one, too hot for another, and because it was after midnight. I washed all their hair with shampoo and removed all the throw up, GAG, cleaned them off and then let them stay in the tub for a few minutes while I went to change all the bedding and start the washing machine. Finally I got them all out of the tub, dried and ready to get in pajamas. Hayden was still so out of it he just stood there naked waiting for me to hand him everything. I got Sydney in a diaper and jammies just in time to turn to Rebecca as she started coughing and throwing up again. Luckilly just mucus again and we caught it all in the towel. Cleaned her all up and got all three back in bed.
But by this point Sydney was awake enough that she was ready to play some more musical beds. I didn't want her to sleep in Hayden or Rebecca's bed. I took her out so they could fall asleep without her bugging them, but she wanted to sleep in my bed. But I didn't really want to be thrown up on that night either. So I had to get her to bed and transfer her to her bed. It was 1:30 before I got to bed.

Oh the joys of motherhood, but I handled it all, with love, and without yelling because of stress, and I'm proud of that.