Top Ten Lists

Well, class is still driving me crazy. I love it but it is the biggest time sink since...well since I took applied math. Anyway having no time to write anything else, I thought I would share something my husband has been suggesting for a while:

Top Ten Ways that My Children have Woken Me Up

10. I'm poopy.
Preceeded by smell. Requires diaper change, sometimes PJs too.

9. My bed is wet.
Always at 2 AM. Requires change of bed, new diaper, new PJs.

8. Monster in room/closet.
Thanks to Daughter, Son has discovered monsters. Turns out they are everywhere, they even live under bed which is flush with floor. Solved by soothing, promises to check on Son, threatening Daughter with real monster if she ever scares Son again.

7. Missing buddy- Variation 1
Buddy is declared missing by child. When arriving in room, buddy is quickly located in bed covers to which child sheepishly replies "oh thanks Mom." Solved by threat, if I come down here and buddy is in your bed, I will take buddy to my bed for rest of evening.

6. Missing buddy- Variation 2
Usually at 12 AM. Buddy is actually missing, but this was not noticed until substantially past bedtime. Requires search throughout entire house to find missing stuffed animal, animal is usually located in least likely place imaginable (i.e., car, violin case, bathtub, etc.)

5. Son sneaks into Daughters bed, steals buddies.
Daughter awakes screaming believing that intruder has stolen nothing in the house other than her buddies. Buddies are discovered in bed with Son, who is very pleased with self. Solved by time-outs, threats to remove all buddies from house.

4. Not enough buddies.
This is one of my favorites. Daughter comes to us sobbing, says I don't have enough bunnies (the small animal that she sleeps with). We ask how many do you have? She responds two. We ask how many do you need. Sobbing she replies four. Resolved by tucking in and threatening to make # of bunnies=1.

3. Son, covered in colored drool, which lands on cheek as he leans over me in bed.
Turns out Son has discovered the location of the candy jar. Not only has he consumed all the jelly beans, he has moved on to the lollypops. Sugar high persists for two hours. Solved by throwing out all candy except Mommy's secret stash which is really, really high up in the kitchen (and consists of chocolate which Son doesn't like anyway).

2. Morning body slam.
Son or Daughter quietly sneaks into bedroom and jumps with full force on myself or my husband. Usually happens around 6 AM. Solved by time-out, threats to body slam them in middle of night.

1. Mom, Son ate all the vitamins.
Gotta love this. In case you don't know iron poisoning is the leading cause of poison death in children, resulting from, you guessed it vitamin ingestion. Of course this happened on the day that both my husband and myself were in bed with 102+ fevers and my son was supposed to be sleeping. Resulted in a call to poison control, trip to the ER, x-rays, stool samples (that was fun), and observation. He is fine, the bottle was almost empty anwyay. Lessons learned: childproof caps can be opened easily by 2 year olds, but not by Grandmas with arthritis, and babyproofing is always a good idea.