Unraveling

It's Saturday, 10:41 pm. For a while, it felt like our lives were unraveling at the seams.

Attempting to get all 3 kids to bed, my wife and I send the boys upstairs to get their pajamas on and teeth brushed, while Gillian, at age 2, seems to have more energy at 9:30 at night than she's had all day.

Not that she hasn't been keyed up for a while now. But somehow, she's even louder and MORE energetic now that we're trying to get her to calm down.

Isaac, meanwhile, has been in his own little Isaac world, laughing at what Gillian is doing, content to ignore us while we try to get him to brush his teeth. "But I can't," he's been telling us. "I just...I had one of those -- I ate..." He' s trying, unsuccessfully to tell us he can't brush his teeth because he just had a chocolate no-bake cookie...though I'm not exactly sure WHY this would matter. (Isn't that the point of brushing your teeth, I'm thinking to myself?)

Finally, he's upstairs to get his pajamas on, though he decides to wait on the teeth brushing. Fine, we decide. One battle at a time. Lissa and I try to get Gillian to lay down on the floor so we can get a diaper on her and get her pajamas on (which Isaac eventually brings to us) but instead Gillian has taken an interest in canned goods, and she spends five minutes bringing me cans from the pantry. First, it's garbanzo beans and noodle soup, then, these 2 go back and she returns with more beans and something else...

Unraveling, our world is. At the seams.

Then we finally have Gillian under control at the couch. I'm slipping her pj shirt on her, but that's left Isaac with just enough independence to figure out a NEW way to add some stress to our lives and he's on to bigger and better things; a pink, rubber finger puppet comes out, and he begins the task of distracting his sister -- while I'm trying to dress her -- by hiding behind the half-wall next to the stairs and popping his hand over the rail, which his sister thinks of as high comedy.

"Watch this," Isaac says, as he crouches down behind the stair rail for Act II. And the rubber finger puppet pops up again.

Ethan meanwhile has finished getting ready for bed and is upstairs reading, so score ONE for mom and dad at least. But we've found Gillian has just now picked up a new phrase from Isaac. As we're trying to finish dressing her, she's doing interpretive dance in the living room and kitchen, jumping around in circles and repeating one phrase over and over:

"Watch this."

No thanks.

It doesn't end. Isaac and Ethan are finally in bed (I think) and with pj's on, Gillian makes the 'hug and kiss' rounds one last time to everyone in the house, first mom, then Ethan, and Isaac, and last of all, me, and I put her in bed and pull the covers up. But as I walk out of the boys' room, I catch Isaac trying a new experiment; he's trying to turn the light switch off with his tongue.

I'm not kidding.

Unraveling.

At the seams.

And this 35 minute routine is what we affectionately call 'growing up Stroddy.'