Rough Start

I've tried starting a new system where the kids can't get up until 7am. Months ago my sister in law showed me how she gets her three year old to nap, etc so I tried their system with Demand. She has a digital clock in her room and when the first number says "7" she can leave her room. It's been working pretty well. She usually comes in our room after 6am but if we tell her to go back to her room until 7am she agrees. Happy has to stay in his crib, happy or not. He's starting to be ok with it though...that is until today.

Our children tend to wake up at exactly the same time. 6am. My goal is wake up at 6am and have an hour to myself to shower, dress, and pray (and start coffee) before the kiddos get up and start demanding things. Today Happy woke up at 6am and when I rolled over to get Mr. Sloths opinion I noticed he was gone and then I heard the garage door. Good for him! I thought, he's going to the gym. Then I heard a rustling in our room. I turned expecting Demand to be looking at me and found Mr. Sloth in the doorway. His shoes were in "Happy's" room and Happy was awake. So I started to get up while Mr. Sloth waited for Happy to fall back asleep. While I was downstairs attempting to pray/wake up I started to hear the distinct sound of pacing. I headed upstairs to see Demand leaving our room (not a good sign). I walked in to find Mr. Sloth walking Happy back to sleep.

The gig was up.

At an early 6:30am we all headed downstairs. It turns out Mr. Sloth tried to make his move only to find Happy awake and the gym shoes not in the closet. So Mr. Sloth scratched going to the gym and jumped in the shower. Meanwhile I started working on breakfast earlier than planned. It didn't help that Mr. Sloth had dumped the left over coffee that I thought was waiting for me and we were all out of milk, butter, and eggs. Breakfast,was a challenge. I finally persuaded the children to eat mini bagels with cream cheese. They were reluctant at first but ended up eating four of them combined all day.

From that point on Happy was a crabby pants. Demand was even saying it before I was. If I left his side, he fussed, if Demand played with his toy he fussed. Nothing seemed to please him. He ended up taking a random nap from 10:45-11:30am which only led to a much difficult nap time. Demand however took the cake at nap time. It took over and hour to get Happy to sleep once I heard him wake up I came upstairs to find Demand playing in the nude with my bedroom door open (giving me the hint that she had woke him). Plus I had left a tap dispenser in her reach and she severely taped one of her toys.

Argh!

That said I did manage to get a lot of purging and cleaning done today. I spent a lot of time coming up with creative snacks and meals. Tonight was grocery night so we just had to make it through the day. At the end of the day we all had full bellies, the kids, exhausted went to sleep easily, and after getting groceries for the week I even had some time at adoration.

Moral of the story. We survived today and for tomorrow have more ammunition....milk, snacks, and coffee!