Getting some practice

Billy returned from his Dadchelor party on Sunday evening. He was tired, but otherwise, in pretty good shape. However, he could not get any rest because Liane and Jason left town Sunday and the kids stayed behind. Carley is my chargee and Cooper is all Alice's until Thursday. I am counting down the minutes until Liane returns.

Carley likes to sleep in the bed with me because she is obsessed with kneading in my hair to help her fall asleep. She holds on to my hair and pulls and twists it. At the same time she sucks her bottom lip. Once she finally goes to sleep, she lets go of my hair, but if she stirs at night, she goes right back for it. She moves all around the bed like crazy all night, and I can't get any sleep because I'm so worried that she's going to fall off the side. I put a huge pillow (one of my pregnancy body pillows) on one side of the bed, but when I looked over in the middle of the night, she was on top of it with her head hanging off the side of the bed. I moved her back closer to me, but I was terrified that if I fell asleep again, she would end up splitting her head open from a fall. This has been going on since Sunday night...you can imagine how tired I am at this point.

I used to be able to handle Cooper and Carley much better, but I think because of the pregnancy, I just don't have much in me any more. I don't know how Liane handles it with her pregnancy. I guess you just have to adjust and make it work.

Liane has told Cooper and Carley about the baby in her belly. Carley will look at Liane's belly and say, "Hi baby!" It's so cute. When she saw me and my big belly, she said the same thing. I hope they don't see some fat lady somewhere because I'm sure that Carley will run up to her, pat her belly, and say, "Hi baby!" How embarrassing would that be?

The first night the kids were in town, I went over to Alice's house to help her with dinner and baths and then, I brought Carley home with me. When we had Cooper and Carley in the tub that night, Alice said to just imagine that I would have a third one in there. Crazy! I was tired (and drenched) after shampooing 2 heads and scrubbing 2 butts, 4 feet, and 4 little hands. They were squirming around, screaming, and splashing water the whole time. Then, they refused to get out of the tub. Billy had to wrap them up in towels and pretend like they were flying around to get them to want to come out and get dry. Then, the next ordeal began because they kept squirming away trying to run around naked and wet.

Finally, once everyone was dressed, Cooper decided that it was "party-time." He was jumping on the bed screaming, "It's party time!" He was sorely mistaken because it was in fact bed time. However, Alice always gives in, and she allowed Cooper to have his party time. Kibby came in and had a pillow fight with Cooper, and whenever Cooper hit Kibby with a pillow, Carley would say, "Sowy Kibby" and give him a hug. She thought Cooper was hurting him.

Carley, Billy, and I came back to our condo after party time. Then, we had to figure out how we were going to deal with Carley and Winnie. Whenever Carley sees Winnie, she points at her and says, "No, no, no, Winnie!" Winnie just wants to lick Carley to death, but Carley can only take so much of being attached by Winnie's massive tongue. Anyway, they ended up getting along just fine. We have a little squirt bottle with water that we use to deter some of Winnie's bad behaviors. If we just pick it up, she'll usually stop whatever she's doing. I gave the bottle to Carley, and she carried it around, which kept Winnie at a safe distance.

Although we love Cooper and Carley, we will be thrilled when Liane comes back to town. Kibby said he was going to push the kids out of the way when she got back to town to hug her himself and thank her for coming back. Kibby isn't a big hugger so that tells you how much these kids have beat him down.