The After Party...

The day of Pooka's birthday party was a very long day for all of us. The party was from 2-4pm. Since the boys nap from 12:30-3:30, I planned to have them nap for about 30 minutes on the way there and another 30 minutes on the ride home. We would then take baths, have dinner with Aunt Kim and Uncle Lance, play for a little bit and head off to bed. Well, the party went longer than expected and while the boys were wonderful at the party, we had a couple meltdowns when we arrived home.

We arrived home after 7pm and Andrew did not wanted to wake up once we arrived home. We headed upstairs to give them baths and Andrew screamed the entire time. We tried to comfort him to now avail and put him to bed. As soon as we put him down, Jared had his meltdown. He began to scream uncontrollably and we ended up putting him down as well. Typically, the boys will cry may cry for a couple minutes but then fall right to sleep. Well, neither of them were falling asleep. Wesley, is able to function on much less sleep and was fine during the entire melting down.

Once Uncle Lance and Aunt Kim arrived, we got Jared to give him something to eat and he slowly settled down so he could eat. He started crying again during dinner but was much better once he had some food on his stomach. Once we saw Jared had calmed down, Aunt Kim went upstairs and rescued Andrew. He too calmed down and was able to have dinner with everyone.

After dinner, the boys were able to play with Aunt Kim and Uncle Lance for a while before going to bed well after 9pm... ugh!

Andrew thanking Aunt Kim for rescuing him....

Aunt Kim finds a black band among the toys in Grandma's goodie bag. She uses this headband to "play" with the boys. It starts out ok with a shout out to Rambo....
Then, she pushed the band back and fluffs his hair and proceeds to say, "I wonder what he would look like as a little girl?" While he would make a very pretty little girl... he is a boy!!! I have to watch that Aunt Kim; first headbands, then dresses and make-up.
Uncle Lance gets into the action and give Andrew a head band. Andrew looks like he is ready to "get physical, physical."

Sweet Baby J was safe from this game of dress-up as he was hanging out with me on the couch.

It was nice to finally get the boys down to sleep after a long day. However, they had a very restless night. It is true that good sleep begets good sleep. Since they did not nap during the day, the did not sleep well that night.

I learned a good lesson today.... stick to the plan!! I had a plan about how the day was going to work with meals and naps. I am not sure if I could have prevented the meltdowns by sticking to the plan but I we have successfully trained the boys to sleep, now we need to give them an opportunity to sleep or deal with the consequences.... and the consequences are not a lot of fun!

Take care,