I'm free, I'm free!!!

That's how I felt today when we left our house after a whole week of being cooped up with Shawn. Although, I can't really say I was jumping up and down about it either. I was extremely tired and if it wasn't for Church and the fact that I paid money for the ride armbands, I would have much preferred to lay around the house all day.

Last night was a rough night for us. Don was spending the night in Orlando and I was secretly excited to have the house (and bed) to myself. I stayed up way later than I should have since I was planning to get up early to take a shower before the kids woke up. It felt like I just fell asleep and then all of a sudden, I hear this horribly loud noise. In my sleepy stupor, I jump out of bed and try to turn the bathroom light on (which is literally about 4 ft. from my side of the bed). The light didn't come on and I just thought it was burned out. By now I realize the noise is coming from the baby monitor so I turn it off and then realize that my clock is out and it finally dawns on me that we lost power. Since I was up, I went to the bathroom and then climbed back into bed. I was starting to fall back to sleep when I thought I heard distant screaming and realized it was Joshua. So up out of bed I go to get Joshua. As soon as I walked into his room he calmed down but I think he was freaked out that his night light was out and his fan wasn't on. I get him out of bed and was planning on rocking him in the chair for a little while before putting him back to bed when I hear Shawn screaming. Normally this is where Don and I pull double duty but since I was the only one there, I bring Joshua with me to check on Shawn. He's freaked out about his night light and there is no way I can leave him without him freaking out again. So I told him he could sleep in my room. So all three of us head back to my room in complete darkness. Joshua wouldn't settle down. I think he was excited because he doesn't normally get to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed. I thought if I gave him some milk he would settle back down and then Shawn said that he wanted something to drink also. I wish you could have seen me get the sippy cups down and fill them in complete darkness. I can not see in the dark so I felt like a blind person feeling my way around. I think I was still half asleep because it didn't occur to me to light a candle first but by the time I gave them their drinks, I thought it might be a good idea to light one. That of course helped me out a great deal and acted like a night light for Shawn but Joshua kept saying candle over and over. He was totally awake and I didn't think I could get him to go back to sleep but I told Shawn to stay in my bed and that I was going to put Joshua in his own bed. I rocked Joshua for a while to settle him down and then the power came back on. With his fan and night light back on, I put him in bed and he went right to sleep, yea! Since Shawn had his night light back on, he agreed to go back to bed and I was finally able to get some sleep...at least for about 2 1/2 hrs when my alarm clock went off at 5:30. I quickly ran the scenario through my head...since my kids usually get up between 6 and 6:30am, if I got up to take a shower, I would definitely be out before they woke up. But I was soooo tired and my mind kept telling me to sleep an extra hour and that the kids would probably sleep in so that's what I did. It worked in my favor because they didn't wake up until 7:30am but I really felt rushed trying to get us all ready for church this morning.

Our day out was very nice. We met my parents at St. Stephen Catholic school where they held mass under the carnival tent and then we enjoyed breakfast after mass. The carnival didn't open until noon so we had about 45 minutes to wait after eating but the kids did great and then Don left Orlando earlier than expected and met us there. So we had our whole family at the carnival. The kids had a blast! We put Joshua on the dragon roller coaster with Shawn and I wished I had my video camera or even a regular camera because I don't think he could have had a bigger smile or laughed so hard! I think that was definitely his favorite ride although he really liked the huge slide and the bouncy castle (he was able to get in by himself). We left around 2pm before the rain came down (thank you God!). I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion and my husband was nice enough to watch the kids so I could take a nap. Although, our house isn't very big and it's hard to sleep when 2 boys are playing and yelling and running through the house but I still enjoyed resting.