Bedtime routine

In 12 easy steps

1. 8PM. Van has to 'do his jobs', potty, brush his teeth, and change into his pajamas.

2. 8:15 PM. I read books, or Van reads sentences or we play with popcorn words. Something reading related.

3. 8:45 PM. Then I put a dry diaper and footie pajamas on Esther and the lightest blanket possible on Van and have them both lay down in the bottom bunk of Van's bunkbed.

4. 8:46 PM. I turn off the lights and give Esther a bottle, which 'starts the timer' as Andy and I used to say, describing how this is the only window for her to fall asleep easily (however this only works if she hasn't napped that day, and she naps most days).

5. 8:47 PM I sit in the armchair in the corner and tell Van repeatedly 'No moving, no talking, it's time to sleep'.
If I were to leave, they would play together for hours and never sleep. Also Van would get scared. So for both reasons I stay, sometimes I even watch a movie with headphones in the iPad or play Sudoku on my phone.

6. 8:48 - 9:02 PM. In about 1 - 15 minutes, Van is asleep. Now we could have a parade and he would not notice. If Esther has napped at all that day, Esther is not asleep. By this time she has usually already asked to leave to potty, or go visit daddy. I usually let her. It's easier to get Van to sleep first and find her later. This would make him mad, as the oldest he wants to go to bed latest, but I tell him that he works hard at school and therefore his sleep in priority number one. He likes being the top priority.

7. 9:03 PM. Once Van is asleep I track down Esther. I change her diaper and give her another 1/2 of a bottle and put her back in bed. She can have exactly 1.5 bottles before bed and still wake up reasonably dry. Any more and her diaper will overflow making her pajamas and the sheets wet.

8. 9:04 PM Esther, opposite of Van, will not fall asleep while I am in the room, so I leave at this point. Sometimes I lock the door. If I do that, Esther will get out of bed, turn on the lights and play in the room for another hour. If I really need her to sleep I unscrew the lightbulbs. Either way Van will continue to sleep.

    8a. Sometimes I leave the door open. If I do that, Esther will get up 700 times.

    8b. If Van will only sleep with me in the room and Esther will only sleep without me in the room, why didn't I just put her in her own room in the first place then and do this in parallel? because if I put her in her own room at bedtime she will scream and cry continuously until I let her out. This is useful only as a threat, 'Esther, lay down or I'm going to make you sleep in your own bedroom'.

9. 9:05PM I occasionally fall asleep at this point.

10. 10 or 11 PM. I make sure the door is unlocked. Esther is asleep in front of the door, lights are on in their room and she has pooped in her diaper. Van is still asleep. I change her and put her back in bed. I don't need to lock the door now, she'll fall right asleep without getting up again.

11. Between 1 - 5AM Van, shortly followed by Esther or visa versa, will show up in our bed. Depending on the timing and sequencing I try to spread everyone out in different beds around the house. If they both come in together, Andy goes to a different bed and the three of us sleep in our bed. If one child comes in, I take the single child to Esther's empty queen size bed and leave the other to find Andy in our bed. Two people per bed usually makes for reasonable sleeping. 3 is too many. 4 is too many.

12. At 5:20AM (gym day) or 6:20AM (no gym day) it is time to extract myself from the situation. I slowly move away from whichever sleeping child is next to me and cauterize the wound with the comforter so they barely notice the loss in body heat.

And that is a complete night. A flawless bedtime routine.

Rabbit

We found a Halloween costume for Esther. I think it was Svea's when she was little.

Flash cards

Esther doing flash cards with grandma.

Pumpkin carving

We carved pumpkins yesterday. Which is to say, I carved pumpkins, the kids selected the designs. I don't know if that is what pumpkin carving is supposed to be at this age or if they should be able to do it themselves, but I didn't trust Van with the saw just yet. He did cut out the tail of the t-rex and did pretty well, so maybe next year.

Race course

Van used masking tape to make us a race course around the house and outside in the yard.

Halloween is coming

Yesterday I took Van halloween costume shopping. He decided he wanted to be a fox, with a sword, and a snake wrapped around him. A sword/fox/snake.
I'm sure this will be very straightforward to explain while trick-or-treating.

Sunrise

Esther and I took a quick hike this morning to try and catch the sunrise.

It was pretty cold and windy.

But we got some good pictures, here they are.

My cute little hiker.

We slid down a patch of snow and down some tundra. Esther liked that part best.

But she wasn't eager to hang around in the wind, so we quickly headed back to the car.

Coat

We went to a party. Esther was not about to just put her coat on the floor, so she found a place to hang it.

Headstands

Elin and Esther working on their headstands. Esther doesn't quite have it down yet.

Counting

Yesterday I heard Esther count to 10 and Van count to 100 (then to 200 with some help).

Kids

Here's me super tired trying to put the kids to bed. Van wrote his name on Esther's forehead. He said she wanted him to.

Van. same night. being a dinosaur.

A punching dinosaur.

Esther does this to me a lot. The staredown treatment.

 Silly boogers

The best

Fancy makeover

I had my makeup done at Nordstroms. I feel like this picture doesn't do it justice. Or maybe just because I have to wrinkle my eyes when I smile. Andy and I went on a date since I had makeup on.

Kids playing Dixit

Height

Look how tall since June! Little weeds.

10/23/2015

I walk by Van writing the letters of his name on the calendar. One letter on each day.
Van: "So mom, on a day with a V, we eat S'mores!"
Me: "what?"
Van: "so check what today is?"
Me: "Why don't you do it."
Van: "It's a V day!"
Me: "what do we do on the other days?"
Van: "Um. eat hotdogs?"


***

More flashcards with Esther

I hold up the card and say the word on it and she repeats me.

Me: "Fun."
Esther: "Fun."
Me: "You're fun."
Esther: "No! I fun."
Daddy: "Yeah, you're fun baby."
Esther: "NO. ESTHER fun."


Earlier that day
Me: "I'm so happy"
Esther: "No. I happy"
Daddy: "You guys can both be happy"
Esther: "NO. ESTHER happy"
Me: "We're all happy"
Esther: "NO. Esther happy."

***

Follow up, Van telling his s'more plan to Daddy.
Van: "See daddy, we eat s'mores on the V's and A's"

It's expanding.

10/22/2015

We're driving
Van: "You know that thing, where everyone is driving home to see their kids?"
Me: "You mean rushhour?"
Van: "Yeah. Is this a rushhour?"

It was not. we haven't talk about rushhour in a long time, but he used to ask me about it a lot. Everytime we drove, if we saw more than one car he would say, "Is this a rushout?"

***

Esther, looking at my plate of food: "Mine."
Me: "Isn't this my dinner?"
Esther: "No. Esthers"
and she eats my ham.

Also according to Esther

"My house."
"My coat"
"Esther's scissors"
"Mine."

***

Van: "You know, girls have pee-pees, they are just pulled inside."
Me: "That's not true, girls can go pee, but they don't have penises."
Van: "No, they have penises, they're just pulled inside. I learned it at school."
Me: "We need to look at a diagram or something."

***

Esther reading me van's flashcards
show the word 'like'
Me: "Like"
Esther: "No."
Me: "What is it then?"
Esther: "Van"
shows the word 'airplane'
Me: "airplane"
Esther: "No."
Me: "What is it then?"
Esther: "potato"
Me: "potato?"
Esther: "No"

Building a Bat Box

The boys working on a construction project. They're building a bat box, a little house for bats in case any fly by.

Archeology Day

I took the kids to UAA, they were hosting an Archaeology Day. They let Van chip off a piece of obsidian with a copper tool.

 And we ground some cornmeal

 Later we went to Great Harvest for some bread samples.