I thought 2016 was a crazy year, but the first few days of 2017 have been rough! These boys are going through some crazy anti-sleep phase and it is exhausting me to no end and making my patience super thin. All of us have been off schedule since Taylor was on a winter break from school. Throw in the holiday excitement and we have a disaster. They actually ripped pages out of their books and ate them during the night. They now have no books again. Just when I think they are capable of earning things back… Yesterday morning, I sent Taylor to the boys’ room to open their door and wake them up. She loves greeting them each morning. They quite obviously heard me ask her this. I happened to see them (through the monitor) get out of bed, lock their door, and crawl back into bed with the covers over their heads. I had to unlock the door and force them out of bed; they weren’t getting to sleep in after an awful night of destruction and keeping us awake! Last night, I figured it had to be better. They quickly passed out at nap time and I woke them back up about 45 mins – an hour in. They still need a nap, otherwise they are in bed by six but up at midnight. It’s pretty crappy however you look at it. Anyway, last night, they moved their little end table across the floor multiple times. They gouged the hardwood floor and made me wish I had a bottle of rum. I removed the end table from their room, but they continued to run around and play for hours. They finally fell asleep around 10:30 and I thought all was well in the world until I heard piercing screams. I walked in the room to see Joseph walking in a circle, with his right leg dragging behind him. He was screaming as if in pain. As he was doing his peg-leg circle walk, he fell over and yelled that his “leg was gone and hurt.” I immediately knew that it had fallen asleep and was uncomfortable. I massaged his little leg until he felt better, but he woke up his siblings in the process. By the time I got everyone back down, it was close to midnight. Our buddy Joseph woke all of us up again at 5am, with a bloody nose.

Taylor went back to school today, after a nice long break. She was so excited to use her new backpack (an awesome Christmas gift from my parents)! While I was helping pack all of her stuff up and asking her if she was excited to start back at school, she said “Yeah! I am. I’m going to my new school now, right?” I asked her what she meant and she said “Well, it’s time for kindergarten. Kindergarten starts now, right?” My sweet girl thought she was off to kindergarten today, and she was perfectly fine with it! I hope she has the same spirit and good attitude come September.

The kids got our old / refurbished iPads from Santa this year. It was a favorite gift of theirs. They get a limited, supervised amount of time every day and play educational apps (with the occasional Minion farting game, because, minions…) We have found a huge love for ABCMouse.com (it is so fun and educational) and we are thoroughly enjoying our trial. We found a Groupon deal, that a coworker alerted Todd about, and we haven’t looked back. Last night, the kids were all nicely playing so I snuck to the next room to empty the dishwasher. I came back into the room and Taylor was playing nicely, Jackson was doing a lesson in Spanish, and Jospeh was literally hacking into the neighbor’s wireless. These kids will rule the world one day.