Unsolved mystery

I think our lamp is possessed. Well, two of them actually. Two days ago, I went to get Sean up in the morning, and the little touch lamp in his room was on. I'd assumed that Nate had gone in for some reason and left it on. The next day, though, I woke up in my room to find that the matching lamp in my room was on. I went into Sean's room, and his was on, too. I turned them both off, and mine stayed off, but his kept turning back on. This morning was the freakiest, though. There are three settings to the lamp, and this morning, it woke me up by flashing from the middle to the brightest setting and back, over and over. The only way I made it stop was to unplug it. Hmm...I think we have a ghost in the house.

I'm tired of sleepless nights

Bethany's ear infection is finally getting better. She made it through last night without any tylenol. She still woke up, but didn't need any medicine. She seems to do this--some illness will cause her to wake up at night, and she almost builds a habit of it, and keeps waking up at night for week or more after she's better. It's quite aggravating, because it wakes me up and Meagan and then Meagan is cranky because she hasn't gotten enough sleep. Maybe I'll get lucky, and she'll stay asleep tonight, because I'm starting to get rather sleep-deprived.

Two nights ago, Sean woke up at about 2:30, ate and fell back asleep. Just as I was finishing with him, Bethany woke up crying. I got her back to sleep, and about an hour later Meagan woke up crying. She was easy to get back to sleep that time, but then she woke up again screaming bloody murder at about 6:00am. When I went in that time, she clung to my arm and wouldn't let go. She said something about the snake trying to get her and she had to smash it. Must've been a vivid dream, because she's never reacted like that before. I took her back to bed with me, and she never really went back to sleep, she just kept me from sleeping. That was a yucky night.

Last night wasn't so great either. Sean's had his two bottom teeth for awhile now, and it seems that his top teeth are about to come in. Yesterday, he didn't sleep much at all during the day. He had three naps, but they were only 30 minutes or less. Then when we put him to bed for the night, he kept waking up and crying. Finally I just held him out in the recliner and slept with him out there. Every so often, he'd start to wake up and fuss, and I'd shush him back to sleep. It was a long night, but at least he got some sleep.

I'm not really counting on it, but here's hoping for a better night tonight.

Moose-kaka??

I made moussaka tonight, a traditional Greek eggplant dish. From the time I started slicing the eggplant to the time I took it out of the oven, it was over two and a half hours. And it's something my kids won't eat and my husband tolerates (I leave a section without the eggplant, and he's happier that way). Needless to say, I don't make it often. Today, however, I was really craving something good, and Sean was just happy enough that I put him in his high chair and he watched me while I cooked. There are lots of variations of the dish, but the recipe I use has a layer of sliced potato, a vegetable/meat sauce, a layer of eggplant, the sauce again, and then a cream sauce covering the whole thing. I make it totally from scratch, which is why it takes forever. Right toward the end, I was trying to hurry, because Sean was done with his chair and needed a nap, so I wasn't paying enough attention to the cream sauce. You're supposed to melt some butter, add flour, then slowly add some milk, then a couple of beaten eggs, then pour the whole thing over your layered eggplant concoction. So Sean was crying, the girls were screaming in the background and I was trying to finish quickly. I poured the sauce over the casserole, then stuck it in the oven. I turned and got Sean out of his chair, and then I noticed the beaten eggs still sitting in a bowl. Oops. I forgot to add them. I thought about just leaving it out, but I didn't want to waste them either, so I put Sean back down (to even louder screaming), took the moussaka back out of the oven and poured the eggs over and tried to sort of mix it in without messing up the layers. It only sort of worked, but luckily it tasted okay anyway. I would've been really irritated if I'd messed up the whole thing after all that work. It's good stuff, but I probably won't be making it again any time soon.

P.S. In case you don't know, the title for this post comes from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

First Tooth

After several very whiny and fussy days, Sean finally cut his first tooth today! The second one will be out any time now, too.

"Uh huh! Presents!"

Bethany's birthday is coming up, so I've been using it to teach her about the calendar and days of the month and stuff. Today we counted down the number of days to her birthday, and then I asked her if there was anything special she wanted to do for her birthday. I was thinking maybe a trip to somewhere fun, or something like that, but she said, "Uh huh! Presents!"

Old memories

I saw this book at the library yesterday, and I just had to check it out:It brought up so many memories of late nights where I hid under my covers to keep reading. I occasionally had a flashlight, but more often than not, I read by the light of my electric blanket controls. The light was so weak, I had to move it left to right along the page as I read. I shudder now to think about the strain that must've put on my eyes, but it didn't bother me then...and I got to stay up to read. Not that I want my kids to stay up late, but I do hope they like reading as much as I do.

Speaking of old memories, last night I was sifting through some old photos in search of one particular photo. My kids have both grown a lot in the last year, but it was really brought home to me in looking at those pictures. They've changed so much. Sigh. Where has all the time gone?

Let's not say 'stupid'...

Meagan overheard someone saying 'stupid' the other day. She said to me, "We don't say 'stupid'. We don't say 'shut up'. We say 'shoot!' "