"Twas the night before Christmas...

...and not a creature was stirring, EXCEPT Lydia and she was waaaaayyyyyy louder than a mouse!

Last night will forever hold the record for hopes dashed! We hoped to get the kids settled into bed on time, possibly open a bottle of wine and do a little bonding on the frustrations of putting together a train table complete with about 100 parts for assembly. However, what happened was about the farthest thing from that fantasy scenario that could have happened.

Thus far, Lydia has been the golden child, and angel...you know the good one (of course when you have a two year old there are days when a convicted felon could seem good in comparison). Last night after battling an excited Anderson to get in the bed and stay there, we attempted to put Lydia down. Let's just say she wasn't interested in a long winter's nap. The child screamed from 7 until 2:30 am without much break except to occasionally smile at us for some unknown reason. We expected to be up kind of late with the train table, but we had no idea what was in store for us. We rocked, we sang, we cried, we nursed, we bottle fed, we drove around the area in the car seat twice, we gave mylicon, Tylenol, watched Baby Einstein, you name it we tried it. So one of us would be trying to read ridiculously complicated directions for the track arrangement and the other would hold a screaming baby that refused to sleep. I'm being transparent and honest here when I say it was the most miserable night of my life.

She has had a runny nose, and she has been grabbing at her gums and drooling and we did get her completely off her schedule by going to my Dad's yesterday, but we aren't sure if it is any one of these things or a wicked combination of all of them. However, rest assured Lydia has a new nickname today...The Grinch (you know, as in the one that stole Christmas.)

Now that you know what happened I will attempt to portray our night as warm and fuzzy...even though it wasn't. Anderson did have a grand time sprinkling the reindeer food he made at school and the one bag of it that our neighbors gave us. He kept scattering it and then looking up as if to say..."Ok it's out here so come on reindeer!!". He also left a snack for Santa on the fireplace. Of course, with our night Santa probably needed his milk spiked with hard liquor just to cope. Ho Ho Ho!