HallowSCREAM!

We hope everyone had a fun Halloween. We had less trick or treaters than in previous years and wondered if that was because there were more opportunities to attend all-day events being that it was a Saturday. The nearly full moon was a nice touch. We carved pumpkins on Friday evening and they took a few hours to complete but came out well. Carrie did the spider and I did the skull. They were a hit with out trick or treaters as not too many neighbors sliced and diced pumpkins this year.

The dog behaved with well with the constant ringing of the door bell followed by an equal number of barks. The timing was not all that great as we were trying to put Q to sleep. Why would these people not come earlier in the night? Our doorbell was still ringing at 9:30pm with 3 year olds on the sidewalk. So you have Quentin on his way to visiting the sandman and the doorbell ringing, followed by a bark, Q opening his eyes, repeat, repeat, repeat. This resulted in a very long night as Q has reverted back to getting up every couple of hours and God knows we have put in our dues at this point. We are stuck in a painful cycle. He doesn't sleep through the night, which makes him over tired, which makes for a long whiny weekend, which frustrates Carrie and I and then you start your work week exhausted and out of energy. Is it possible the work week is actually the least stressful, dare I say relaxing part of the week? Shudder, shudder, shudder. Now that is a horror story no one should have to live.

We tried screaming it out last night with nothing to show for it except that our neighbors thought we were running a very successful haunted house. Inside we did have a house full of zombies but not the flesh eating kind. The time change; getting an extra hour of sleep - laughable. An extra hour! Ha! How about a straight hour of sleep?!? I'm ready to feed this kid a shot of booze with his late night bottle. Is it too early for a Tylenol pm? He was sleeping through for about three weeks but we are squarely, well, back to square one. Screaming it out is a toughie because this kid has a set of lungs and it's really more torture than just going up there and getting sub-par chair sleep. Sitting in bed listening to Q serenade you with high octave screaming at 3:30 am is not as pleasant as one may imagine.

So we are back to visiting Amazon.com and getting more books on how to trick your child to sleep or maybe trick the parents into pretending this all just pleasantness surrounding the joys of parenthood. I'm out buying lavender and spraying his mattress, teddy bears, etc. so he can have that sleepy lavender aroma. Is this getting sad or what?

We are going to try to wear him out today taking him on a long drive (sleep please!) so maybe he can catch up on some sleep in the car, go to a fair to stimulate him enough so he'll be tired upon return. Less night sleep results in shorter naps, so we need to get a good nap in to catch him up. As you can see the dressing up thing wasn't for Q. Maybe next year. Enjoy the Halloween pictures!