A funny, exhausting, and entertaining weekend!

Saturday was a day of errands, shopping, and yardwork mostly. We spent the majority of the day at home, which I always like, and feasted on some fish and chips a la Weight Watchers, which I can't get enough of. 5 pts for Panko-breadcrumb-covered-Cod and seasoned potato wedges? Yes, Ma'am! Delicious.

Ellie went to bed at her usual weekend time (8:30pm), and fell asleep by 9. Around 11pm or so, right before I went to bed, I went in to check on her. Of course, she wasn't in her bed. She was, in fact, UNDER the bed. And the kicker, the little stinker was completely nekkid. She'd even stripped her diaper off. I saw that little tushie and thought, "crap, now I'm gonna have to wake her up, wash her off, and clean the pee out of her carpet." Wonder of wonders, everything was dry. Yes! I quickly put a new diaper on her and put her back into bed.

Around 4am, she started crying, most likely from a nightmare. I went in to see her, and she reached her arms out to me to hold her. Nights like these happen very few and far in between (knock on wood), so I brought her into bed with us since it usually helps. Unfortunately, the poor thing just couldn't get back to sleep. She tossed and turned for an hour, keeping me awake the whole time, too. We put her back into her bed around 5am, and Harry tried to sleep on the floor next to her. She still couldn't fall asleep. After 20 minutes of that, I told him to go back to bed and I'd bring her into the family room and set her up on the sofa with a DVD.

I popped in a Care Bears one, gave her a pillow and blanket to snuggle into, then confiscated the other sofa with my own pillow and blanket, hoping to catch a few zzzz while she watched. That lasted all of 20 minutes. The girl was all of a sudden completely wired! She got up, came over to my sofa, started poking me in the back, telling me to get up. I told her to go lay down again and watch her video, but she wasn't having any of it. She sat in her little chair and started pulling out her books, "reading" them one at a time.

All of a sudden, a book hit me in the head. "Mommy? Read me a story?" Yeah, right Kid. That kind of behavior is going to get Mommy to read you a story.

Around 7am, she asked for some milk, so I got up and poured her some. When I came back into the room, she had taken over my sofa and blanket, held a book in her lap, and asked again sweetly, "Mommy? Read me a story?" Can you say, "Mommy's a sucker?" Yeah, I read her the damn story. TWICE.

Finally at 8am, Harry was waking up, and I kindly asked him to take over so I could get an hour of sleep. Of course, that didn't happen. Every 15 minutes or so, she'd come bellowing down the hall, "Mommy? Are you there?" Yeah, she never looks for Daddy. Grumble grumble.

She spent the rest of the day completely normal while I was a zombie. I don't work well on less than 5 hours of sleep. Hell, I don't really work that well on less than 7 hours of sleep.

We had our usual Sunday playdate with Niko, and the kids had a lot of fun playing with the new bubble guns Kim got them, swinging on the swings, runnning around like maniacs, and fighting over toys. We had a fun lunch outside, and then both Ellie and I crashed for a nap.

After naps, we drove up to my friend, Kevin's, house for another playdate for Ellie and a little adult conversation for Harry and me. We had a delicious dinner, a beer or two, and some excellent key lime pie (all points friendly, thank you). Ellie and Jimmy, Kevin's oldest son, entertained us with an accordian/drum duo, and I have become completely smitten with Kevin's youngest son, Colin, who's a mere 9 months old. He entertained himself for hours on end. I was astounded.

By 7:30, it was time to pack up and go home. We got home a little after 8, let Ellie watch a short program to wind down, and I butchered a pair of Ellie's feetie pajamas, hoping she'd keep both them and her diaper on because they're more difficult to get out of than her two-piece pjs. I'm happy to report that before I went to bed, I checked in on her and found her 1) in bed and 2) fully clothed. Fingers crossed this continues.

So that was our crazy weekend! And ya know what? It was awesome. Seeing my kid having that much fun even makes the 4am wakeups worth it.