Reaping

Remember those behavior/responsibility charts from last week? My kids did it! T. dutifully stumbled off to the potty every night when she woke up to come into bed with us. Granted, I did have to prop myself up on one elbow almost every night, gaze at her bleary-eyed in the dark, and remind her to run back to the potty, but she did. Every night. And L. managed to make it through six nights without crawling into bed with us. We told him he was free to bring his sleeping bag into our room and make himself a bed near us, but that he couldn't shout out, make noise, or climb into our bed. And he stayed out--for all six nights. On the night of Day 5 he asked if he could go back to climbing into bed with us after he won his prize.

"Um, no" I told him.

"But it's been so stressful, Mama" he said, his face scrunched up from the wear and tear of it all.

"You can do it," I answered, and he did. We're two nights post-prize day and he's still not coming into bed with us, so we're hoping this will stick and that our crazy circus nights of musical beds will come to a close, filed away with all those other bumps along the road.

Long ago, when we were new parents and read everything we could get our hands on about parenting and child-rearing, we came across this piece of advice: When you hit a rough patch, and you just can't imagine it ever ending, just repeat to yourself this too shall pass over and over again. This way, you'll remember that just as the beautiful, heart-tugging moments of your child's early years will fly past you in the blink of an eye, so will those tough moments. When you're mired in the middle of some child-rearing crisis, whether it be colic, a bout of wakeful nights,  temper tantrums, or a horrible case of rotavirus, you have to remember that those things too will pass. It's hard to keep your eye on that, when you're in the middle of it all. And maybe we're not over our current sleep crisis with L. yet, but it feels like it's passing, and the clock has moved forward a notch, and those difficult days will also soon be filed away, and new challenges, I'm sure, will come around again.

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While Scott was away, my sweet T. decided that I should get a prize, too, for all my hard work giving up coffee for tea. I polled the kids, and T. thought I should pick out a stuffed animal, and L. thought I should buy myself an exercise machine (I was sorely disappointed two weeks ago when a free elliptical machine came up on Craigslist and I didn't get it), so I settled for something in between. Because I am an impatient person and couldn't wait for my birthday, I bought myself this:

$29.99 at an evil mega store and I had a 20% off coupon!

So far I have made pumpkin pudding (L. loves only the inside of pumpkin pie) and I served it with honey and crushed walnuts on top. I can just imagine what this will be like on a cool fall day, served with spiced cider. I also made sweet and sour tofu (I used more of the sweet and sour sauce than the recipe suggested and added peanuts as well), and even L. ate five pieces of tofu out of it, and two pieces of broccoli.

I just can't believe I lived without a crock pot for so long.