A.B. Kagledom

One week a year Matthew stops playing with the three-year-old crowd and celebrates his adulthood by hanging out with gamers at the Game Developers Conference. That was Wednesday thru Friday of this past week. We know we're very fortunate to have *both* of us around for Adlai's first few months. I'm not sure how most people manage when they have two children and are immediately in charge of both by themselves full time. It's terrifying - especially after this week.

Wednesday things went really well. I managed to be domestically inclined while making sure both boys were entertained without the use of the DVD player. We walked around the neighborhood and went puddle stopping. We played "Mama's Kitchen" - a new made-up game where we call each other "Sir", order using a bell, and are sickeningly polite all through lunch. We picked up Grammy from the train in the late afternoon and went birthday present shopping for friends before a trip to Simon's favorite restaurant, Cafe Yulong. At the end of the day, I really wanted an award.

It was Thursday when everything fell apart. All I had to do was get Simon to and from school on time, let him relax in front of some Blue's Clues, and feed him some dinner. Simple! Unfortunately, he was exhausted when I arrived at school in the afternoon and refused to leave with me. With Adlai in the front carrier, I couldn't pick Simon up so I had to coax him to stand and then drag him to the car. Once we were home I took Adlai out of the car and Simon took off down the street. Yelling at him didn't work so I opened the house, dropped an already crying Adlai off in his car seat and ran after Simon. By the time I caught up with him he was turning the corner about ten houses away. With a burst of energy I grabbed him and we both fell to the ground. To put it mildly, we were not happy with each other after that. Imagine the worst; screaming, yelling, tears. Simon told me to go back to work. It was a new low.

Friday was better. I should mention that Simon has been going to sleep at 7 pm and waking up in the morning between 4 and 6 am since Wednesday so most of the problem has been extreme exhaustion. By Friday at 9 am he was so tired that he could hardly stand. DVDs were watched. MANY DVDs were watched. And then Simon's sitter came over for a few hours to play with him which cheered him immensely. We even made a surprise dinner for Daddy at "Simon's Restaurant" of "meatlow" (meatloaf - one of Simon's new favorite things).

Today we attended a birthday party for two friends and left at Adlai's second nap time (12:30 pm) to drive Simon to sleep. Both boys slept until 3 pm. It's after 9:30 pm now and Simon still can't fall asleep because of that nap but at least he isn't likely to be up before the sun (although the sunrise this morning was spectacular).

Tomorrow we'll be celebrating at another birthday party just before meeting up with a group of friends for dinner. Monday we're celebrating Simon's sleeping through the night fourteen times with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

Adlai continues to be a happy and, more importantly, happy-to-be-sleeping baby. He's also starting to drool.