car picnic

where do i even begin? last night the power went out while i was changing mason's diaper to get him ready for bed. and it was dark. like can't-see-the-hand-in-front-of-your-face kind of dark. thankfully i had already wiped mason down and done one of the closures on the diaper so i could finish off by feel. i knew that there wasn't a flashlight in the house that had working batteries - thanks, madelyn - so i wasn't exactly sure what to do next. as i felt my way out of mason's room i saw a light coming up the basement stairs. matt was using his cell phone to light his way. brilliant! after we found mine i was able to use it to light mason's room as i finished getting him dressed, fed, and down.

since the monitor didn't work and i was worried about both kids getting too hot (mason because he was swaddled and madelyn because of her fever), i started to think about 'plan b'. i decided that matt and i would have to each sleep on the floor of a child's room so that we could open the windows and monitor the temperature in their room. matt called 'dibs' on madelyn's room because it had a bed. that was fine because i wouldn't trust him to hear mason wake up. especially when you consider that the night before madelyn came into our room crying and 'slept' in our bed for about an hour before declaring that she needed some milk and proceeded to cry as we made our way noisily out of the room and matt never knew it happened! it is scary how heavy he sleeps. anyway, the power came back on around 10:30 or 11:00 so it didn't come to that.

madelyn got up a few times last night and woke up around 5:30am this morning before getting into bed with us. her fever had broken over night so that part was better, but she was still complaining about her throat hurting. she just says, "my teeth hurt. take it out, mommy. take it out!" i wish that there was something i could do to help her. she still wasn't really eating anything and started to complain that her tummy hurt this afternoon. i was trying to convince her that it hurt because she was hungry and if she would eat it would feel better. she finally started eating late this afternoon and acting like herself again.

with the rough night for maddie i was left with a short tempered girl. she wasn't bad, just not as patient as normal. after a trip to target and my 6-week check up i took her through mcdonalds in the hope that some chicken nuggets would get her back to eating. as we were pulling out of mcdonalds i wasn't feeling great about how my car was driving and there were several dashboard lights on so when i stopped behind a few cars before pulling out on the main road i decided to turn the car off and start it up again - only it didn't start again. uh-oh. i had two hungry kids (mason was very, very hungry at this point) and it was very warm (for here anyway). after calling matt, the car shop, and a tow truck i told madelyn that we were going to have a car picnic. she had been screaming that she wanted to "go! go! go! i want to go home!" they were both crying while i was trying to get the tow truck number from the car shop. i told madelyn that i want to go home too, but the car was broken and we would have to wait for daddy and a big truck to come and get us. matt had to come get us because the tow truck could only take one car seat and i obviously had two.

not an ideal situation, but the car got a new alternator this afternoon. at least it was fixable. we are trying to hold out on a minivan until we have #3.

on the positive side, madelyn said that she "was pooping" (that's how she lets me know that she has to go) while matt was doing the paperwork inside the car shop. i told her that we were sitting in the car and she would have to wait until we got home. and she did too! she did sit on the back of her dress when she sat on the potty, but that was a mess i could live with instead of having to clean a car seat. but then went i took her to the park this afternoon, after she was feeling better, i was telling one of the mom's about how great potty training has been and madelyn called out "i'm peeing" and proceeded to pee on the ground. oh well. that's what i get for bragging...

here is why i only have pictures of mason to enrich the posts:

and just to end on a happy note, here is more of mason laughing with babe ruth today. love.