At a Loss for a Title to this One.......

It is 10:50 p.m. on Tuesday, December 28.  Dave and I are upstairs in the TV room.  Dave is watching a movie on the big screen and I am totally enthralled in my new book from Christmas.

All of the girls have been in bed since 9 o'clock or maybe a hair earlier.  I first tried Nicole at 8:40 but she came out and Dave put her back in and told her to go to sleep.

Hannah and Ashley have found it fun this Christmas break to sleep upstairs in the guest bedroom.  For this night, Hannah has the bed and Ashley gets the mattress on the floor.

At 10:35, Dave and I hear a noise coming from the door behind us.  Dave can see that standing in the doorway is Nicole.....in her coat.  She's told to come to the couch so we can chat with her.  As she bounds around the corner, we see that she is no longer in her pjs.  She has changed into a turtleneck shirt, her winter coat and I can count three pair of pants.  She can't speak clearly because she's sucking on a life saver.

Oh dear!  She hasn't been asleep in her room like we thought.  She's been playing and eating Ashley's life savers from Christmas!

She sat on my lap for a moment so we could talk and I counted four bracelets on her wrist.  Hmmm.......

The movie has now ended.  Dave has snickered a bit as I've been talking to her and asking what she's been doing in her room.  She replies that she's been playing and eating life savers.  I asked her if she made a mess and innocently she tells me yes.  I asked her if she is going to clean it up tomorrow and she innocently tells me no.  This is what brought a chuckle from Dave.

I pondered for a moment about asking Dave to take her back to bed because I was afraid a panic attack would come along with seeing the mess in the bedroom.  However, I braved myself and took her downstairs.

Upon entering the bedroom, I see that she has emptied out the entire bottom drawer of her dresser and the clothes are piled on the floor.   There is not one pair of shorts left in the drawer.

She has also opened all five packs of Ashley's life savers and scattered them along with the tiny pieces of paper on the floor.  This time when I told her that she would be cleaning up the mess in the morning she hugged me and said, "ok mom!"

We located her pjs in an attempt to get her ready for bed once again.  I mentioned earlier that I had been able to physically see three pair of pants that she had on so as I started taking them off, I was counting in my mind....one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  Yes!  She had on seven pair of pants!  she asked me while I was taking them off if she could go swimming.  Where in the world had this come from?!?  Then after reaching the end of the seven pair of pants, I came down to a swim diaper!  I said, "where is your pull-up?"  She ran to her dresser and pulled it out.  She had exchanged it for a swim diaper and wanted to go swimming!  Silly mom!!  What were you thinking?!?!?

I could have been mad as I was removing all of the clothes but I couldn't help but chuckle myself as I was counting.  This time she said she understood that it was time to stay in bed and go to sleep...guess we'll see.  She's been in there for 15 minutes....pray tell if she's asleep or unloading drawer number two!

Never a dull moment with this three year old!!