Survivor

Last week my patience, creativity, and ability to juggle many responsibilities were tested. How was this exam administered? Bryan was on a business trip from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday morning. That meant that I was on my own with all three kids overnight for the first time.

We all survived.

My biggest concern was bedtime. Bryan is great at sending all of our children off to dreamland, but I can't get the boys to sleep. They fight and play and yell and have on occasion brought me to tears, all during the bedtime routine. It's awful. The few times I've tried to do it since Phoebe joined us, she's screamed the entire time I was reading books and singing to the boys.

See why I was nervous?

I devised a plan. I figured the only way to make bedtime work was to divide and conquer. First was Cooper. I read our two books and sang him a song as he was tucked in his bed, while Peter sat in the living room reading books. Then I joined Peter in the front and read him his books out there and prayed that Cooper had drifted off to sleep while I was with Peter. Then I walked Peter into his room, tucked him into his bed, and sang him his songs. Finally I fed and snuggled Phoebe, who was usually totally hysterical by this time because she really, really, really wanted to eat.

One key to the puzzle was making sure that Cooper didn't have a nap any of the days Bryan was gone. I felt kind of bad doing that to him, but on the days he naps he stays awake until ten, and that would have put a serious wrench in getting him to sleep before Peter. So every evening Cooper got to an amazing level of crankiness due to lack of sleep. But on the plus side, he was asleep within minutes at bedtime and didn't wake up during the night at all.

Peter did a great job of reading to himself and waiting for me to finish with Cooper.

We were all very happy to see Bryan on Saturday morning.

I don't like it when he has to be away, but it was kind of empowering to know that I can keep things together in his absence.