Fall Festival & LONG Nights…

Yesterday our neighborhood had a Fall Festival. It was fun! They had a big inflatable slide, a bunch of different games, the same crummy DJ they have for all the neighborhood activities, pony rides, and a chili cookoff. The chili cookoff was a bust – only 2 entries. But everything else seemed to be a big hit. And best of all, it was Fall Festival weather. I seem to recall it being kind of warm for last year’s Festival, so it was nice to have cool weather this year. Zachary won a plate of cookies in the cake walk. He actually wanted to choose the cookies that we contributed, but thankfully we were able to convince him to pick something different. Not that mine were bad, but they were sugar cookies out of a tube…baked at home, but nothing special…except for the red sugar crystals I sprinkled on top to make them “fancy.”) He also won a 2 liter of Mountain Lightning in the ring-toss game (as well as some miscellaneous candy in other games). By the way, Mountain Lightning is Wal-Mart Mountain Dew for those of you who are like me and generally buy “real” soda, even though you can buy this store brand stuff for REALLY cheap. I think the main reason Zachary was so excited about it was because it said “Lightning” on it, just like Lightning McQueen, the race car from his favorite movie, Cars.

But last night was just ROUGH. Saturday night & last night Liam was up every 1-2 hours crying & fussing. His 2nd tooth came through over the weekend, and he just gets all out of sorts when he’s teething. It makes me scared for when his molars come in, because I remember when Zachary was teething, he was never that bad, but when those molars came in…O.M.G. But even before all of that with Liam last night, around 11:30 or so Zachary started shouting, “Mommy & Daddy! I need to use the potty!!!” He must have said it 3 or 4 times (each time louder than the previous time), before Josh finally went in there. I can’t complain too much because at least when we put him in bed at night or for naptime, he stays there – he is not up walking around, or playing with his toys when he should be sleeping…or worse, coming in bed with us all the time. BUT…how are we ever supposed to nighttime potty-train him if he won’t get out of bed when he needs to go? Naptimes are not an issue – just bedtime since it’s longer. We have explained to him countless times that if he needs to go, PLEASE just get up & go, and then get back in bed. But he seems to be under the assumption that we will fuss at him for getting out of bed (even though we reassure him that we will tell him “good job!” for going potty all by himself). And of course this morning Liam was all smiles when I dropped him off. They probably think I’m crazy there dropping off this happy baby who supposedly didn’t sleep all night!