Have I Ever Mentioned

How much I dislike the munchkin's bedtime? Actually, I don't dislike it being time for her to sleep, but I enormously dislike the process of getting there.

And it's not really that bad on an average night when everything stays on schedule, but if you throw a wrench of any kind into that schedule, it just throws EVERYTHING out of whack.

Like tonight.

Normally, once I can get her to lay still and close her eyes for about 3 minutes, she'll be out.....now getting to that "laying still" point takes approximately 10-15 minutes, give or take a few, but generally once I get her in the rocker, she'll be asleep in about 25 minutes and I can typically have her in bed by around 30 and all is well. That's if we get that routine started by 9:25 at the latest. Any later and you have to start adding 10 minutes to the process for every 5 minutes that you're late. Don't ask me why that is....I'm assuming that after that point she is overtired and can't just conk out like normal.

So tonight I didn't get that process started until 10:15. Bad. Very bad. We didn't get home from church (which always throws off the routine) until 9:15 and I didn't realize it when I washed the peed on sheets this evening that I had the protection pad on backwards, so it didn't protect the second layer of extra sheets, so they were still wet from this morning and EW.....stinky. SO. Lucky thing I had washed the Dora sheets before church and had the foresight to hang them up before we left so when we got home they were almost dry. However, I had the still wet extra sheets that I had to peel off the bed and dump in the washer, in addition to tossing the Dora sheets and jammies in the dryer to finish drying.....then making up the bed and getting her jammies on before I could actually start the sleepytime process.

Thankfully, KC helped (as usual) by doing the brushing teeth and bedtime story routine with her while I worked on the other stuff. Generally though, on late nights, we don't do the drawn out bedtime story, we just shorten it all so that we can get her to the sleepytime part before she gets to the overtired part. So that whole wet sheet thing after church really messed things up.

She laid perfectly still for like 10 minutes and I was sure she was out...then she rolled over and her eyes weren't even droopy. She did that like three times....finally I got discusted with that and just put her in bed. Where that was repeated like two more times. I finally snuck out with my fingers crossed that she wouldn't roll over and see that I wasn't in the room anymore. I think it worked (knock on wood) cuz it's been about 20 minutes since I left and I haven't heard any wailing yet.

It just drives me nuts when she takes forever to go to sleep. I know I should enjoy the cuddle time while I can, but with all the lights out and rocking her, I get SOOO sleepy and I try to stay awake cuz I hate to go to bed that early when I have so much that needs to be done and so little un-interrupted time to do it. *sigh*

One good thing though, she had excellent behavior all night....which I wasn't expecting after she started whining as soon as I picked her up from school. Usually if she is already whining before I can even get out of the preschool parking lot, it's going to be a rough night.....but she did good tonight. I gave her lots of praise for that.

Her school picture proofs turned out good. I will probably just get the smallest package and maybe one additional sheet of a different pose, simply b/c I believe social services pays about $20 on them. I just have a seriously difficult time paying those prices when I know I can take a picture of her out in my garage that I'll probably like just as well and will be able to get as many as I want in any sizes I want....for a lot less money!

Anyways. Since this is turning into a post all about the munchkin, let's move on.

At work today, one of my coworkers suggested that I design the cover for the next CD that we put together (we do a compilation disc every year). Last year I coordinated the design (basically played the middle man between the graphic designers and the staff's wishes and preferences) and I don't see how designing it myself could be any more difficult than that. I'm thinking about it.

In other foster news, I mentioned to our social worker that we might be interested in more kids if needed (yeah, i know....we're nuts, but anyways) so she comes back to me and says....funny you should mention it, but we've got this kid that is currently in foster care but his foster mom is having trouble and would like us to find somewhere else for him. He's a great kid and really smart, but he's hyper. Like HYPER. As in, he will wear you out QUICK! He's between 6 and 8 and if you might be interested, we can arrange for you to meet him and you can decide about it after you meet him.

So I email her back and ask her if it is ____. B/c at the foster care meeting last week, we heard some MAJOR horror stories about this one kid called ____ (from one couple that had kept him for a weekend, AND from the licensing worker who kept him for two hours and -in her words- nearly left her in tears) and if this is that kid, I'm not really sure we can handle him. So she writes back and YEP. It's that kid. Oooh. I'm just so not sure I can deal with that. KC and I talked about it, and I may email her and tell her we'll take him for a weekend to give the mom a break but that will probably be it. I'm just not sure my nerves can deal with that type of kid. I'd love to help any kid I can, but I just don't know that I could with this one. Who knows. Guess we'll see. LOL.

What can I say? Our life is getting boring and I need more stuff to write about. LOL....and isn't that a great reason to take a wild child? ROFL. I'm kidding. Honest.

Speaking of things to write about, I found some really cool questions to jumpstart journalling. I may use some of them on here.....it's nice to have all this stuff recorded. I wish there were some way to make sure it is backed up, but I don't really feel like going back over all the entries and printing or saving them to files. Too much work. Much easier just to cross my fingers and hope for the best. Haha.

Well.....it's kind of interesting to hear my non-blogging (or as far as I know non-blogging) friends from church say that they are checking in regularly to keep up with what's going on in my life. I'm totally honored! It's so sweet that ya'll (you know who you are) care enough to keep track of me. Seriously though, either ya'll need to start blogging (or let me know where to find it) or just let me know what's up with your lives, too, cuz it feels a little onesided to know that ya'll are up to date on my life but I have no clue what's going on in yours. Kay? *big grins* And I love you guys. Lots! I have great friends.

Okay. It's now like 11:30 and I'm getting really sleepy. So I'm going away now. I'm feeling very loving right now, so take your right arm and grab your left shoulder and then take your left arm and grab your right shoulder and squeeze really tight.....and consider yourself hugged. Have a wonderful evening. I'm going to go to bed and hope that this blissfully sweet (albeit slightly unusual) mood that I'm in will translate well into my dreams.....since last night's dreams were almost as weird as the last ones I posted.......*sigh*

Night ya'll.