Don't Mind If I Do

This weekend, I packed the kids up and went to Columbia to visit with Matt's folks and the kids cousin's.
It could have been fun if Asher hadn't decided that he needed to pay me back for the past three years of being a delightful child.

Everytime I turned around, he was throwing a fit, yelling "NO!" or being awake at 4am.

The first night there, he fell out of bed four times. Between 2am and 4am. And he couldn't/wouldn't get back in bed without my assistance.

So of course he was exhausted and cranky the whole rest of the next day.
The next night, I was putting the kids in bed when Lucy thought it was a good idea to figure out how to escape out of the pack and play. I put them in bed, was relaxing with the in-laws when Lucy came running into the living room. Fantastic.

So I put her back in and she got out three more times.
Ugh.

Finally she goes to sleep and Matt's mom, Linda tells me, Buffy, Jeannie and Mary Lane to go out and have a girls night. So fun to hang out with my sisters-in-law!

I come back and go to sleep. Somewhere are 4am, Asher comes to me and tells me, "I'm awake mom." I tell him, "no you're not." and we go back to bed. 45 minutes later, he is screaming in the hallway.

Let me break this down for you. In the house, with rooms that all adjoin this particular hallway are Mark, Linda, Buffy, Maggie, Zoe, Tori and Lucy. That is SEVEN people whose sleep is dependent upon Asher shutting his trap and going back to bed. So, I pray for help and then try to decapitate the child. That doesn't work, but he does go back to bed. I wake up 20 minutes later and hear Lucy talking. It is now 5am. I walk into the hallway and the light is on in the bedroom. Asher turned the light on and is playing blocks while Lucy watches from the pack and play. I remove Asher from the room, put Lucy back to sleep and give Asher the "river city" talk.

The "River City Talk" is a Sloanism for don't make me take you down to "River City" which I am guessing is a reference to the Music Man. But I have no idea.

He goes back to bed and sleeps until 7:30. But of course, I ran into Mark in the hallway after putting Asher back in the bed and he was on his way to doing what most people do at 5am, unload the dishwasher.

Wanna know what we had planned to do in the morning? Pictures in a studio with all eight grandkids. Thankfully we cancelled the appointment and decided to wait until David and Mary Lane's baby gets here.

I want to say, I had a GREAT time with Matt's family. I love them like my own. Asher was the problem and I could have drop kicked him back to Asheville and Lucy and I stayed the rest of the week. But that was not in the cards.

So we came back home after a few hours at the lake yesterday. But I got lost and somehow managed to go in a big circle back to Columbia and a 2.5 hour trip took 4.5 hours.
awesomeville.