The Zoe and Silas Show

8/4/14: Silas came into our bedroom at 5:20 this morning. I told him it was too early to get up and to go back to sleep. When I got up over an hour later I found him sitting by himself at the dining room table in the dark, eating yogurt...

6/5/14: Headlamp hijinx at bedtime.

5/6/14: Avoiding the inevitable.

5/1/14: Two very tired kiddos.

4/7/14: Even though S&Z went to bed 1-1/2 hours late on Sunday night, they were still up and going at 6:30 on Monday morning. They were very excited to play with the sticker books they got from Auntie Tracy before getting ready for school! Also had to share this awesome picture of Daddy brushing Zoe's hair for school. He is on "hair duty" most days :)

4/4/14: Our no-napping days are starting to take on more regularity. On Friday afternoons I take S&Z to the Harvest Food Co-Op to pick up whatever bulk items we need for the week. On Saturday's we normally have errands to run, and because I am working on purchasing an entirely new wardrobe they are becoming good little shoppers. Yesterday we went to H&M where they kept picking things out, saying "this is pretty. do you like this one, Momma?". On Sunday afternoons we always stop by my work to drop off clothes and food for the week. I continue to do as much cooking for the week as possible, and around 2:00 they often drift off into their room to play quietly. I love that a natural quiet time has emerged without me formally trying to institute it (which would be a giant failure). Some days it's the quietest this house has been since Silas stopped napping this winter. Zoe is doing pretty well overall with no naps, and I think it will be very freeing this summer ...

7:45pm last night (supposed to be asleep). They are so darn cute with the headlamps I can hardly be mad!

3/12/14: Bouncy bouncy, fun fun fun! And the typical scene at bedtime. If it's not the headlamps it's the Flashlight Pals.

3/7/14: Friday mornings continue to be the best thing since sliced bread. I love being able to help out with pick up and drop off - with a wonderful 4 hours sandwiched between! I ran errands and went to the gym and made a haircut appointment for both kids this afternoon. Now that Zoe's not napping we're freed up to do such things at 3pm! The new bedtime routine is going amazingly well! They are down between 7:00 and 7:15, and tonight was the 2nd night in a row that they didn't come out of the bedroom one single time before falling asleep. After lots of frustrations with kids still being awake at 9:00pm, this is a VERY welcome change. Of course, all of this will be completely screwed up by Daylight Savings Time which is apparently happening tomorrow :( Before I walked out of the bedroom tonight, Silas was "placing an order from a restaurant" (which is really funny because we never order out!)...

2/26/14: During the week there will likely be a lot more pictures of S&Z getting ready for bed and/or wearing their pj's, now that bedtime has officially been moved up to 7:00pm due to no more naps ...

2/22/14: On Saturday morning Silas needed "to do some work" before breakfast. This weekend I decided to pull Zoe's nap. Silas hasn't been napping for months, and he doesn't really "do" quiet time. It's been nice that he and I spend some quality time cooking while Zoe sleeps, but bedtime is all over the place because one of them is napping and one isn't. It was 55 degrees on Saturday and I wanted to spend as much time outside as possible, so I explained to Zoe that she is going to be all done with naps and we headed to the Arboretum. It's the end of an era - I am now the parent of children who no longer take naps! We are officially free to do whatever we want in the afternoon.  Explore the properties of snow... Listen to the rush of melting snow... Or just walk and take it all in. Bye bye, naps. We're not looking back!

2/16/14: There are typically a lot of hijinx after I put the kids to bed, although you certainly wouldn't guess it by this sweet little face :)

10/12/13: Silas put on his chef's costume first thing on Saturday morning and started looking at his "recipe book".  We thought that setting up the old Ikea tent from the basement might help Mr. No Napper be a bit quieter during quiet time; unfortunately we were unsuccessful...

5/30/13: Dancing in 90 degree heat in front of the fan after I set it up before bed.

5/22/13: It has been rainy and gloomy most of the week, which means the kids have been sleeping in later. I had to go in and wake them up at 7:30 on Wednesday morning, and a certain somebody didn't want to get up. It cleared up enough for Julia to take them to the park after nap, though. Zoe was on a sandcastle kick, and Silas was not...

5/20/13: Mornings have turned into mass chaos around here since daylight savings time ended. This winter I usually had to wake the kids up at 7:30. Now they wake up with the birds and we hear the pitter patter of little feet up and down the hallway. I haven't adjusted my morning routine, however, so this means I have two energetic kids running around and wrecking havoc while I'm in the shower and trying to get ready for work. By the time this picture was taken around 7am on Monday I had somehow managed to get Silas completely dressed, but for some reason Zoe's pajama shirt was off and she was only wearing pj pants. And u nderneath the blanket mountain was every stuffed animal that they own...

3/22/13: Silas is not always such a good napper so we have kept him in the pack 'n play in the guest room for quiet time even though they have been sleeping in beds for a few months now. He asked me yesterday if he could sleep in "grandma's bed" so I decided to go for it and see how he would handle it. After two days of napping on the guest bed I'm hoping we've made the transition! Cutie pie on our way to the library. Auntie Eliza is in town for spring break so she came over for dinner last night. S&Z were soooo happy to see her! We had lots of new library books so they put her to work before bed :)

3/1/13: Mr. No Napper.

1/27/13: Once Silas puts his hands behind his head we joke that he has assumed the sleep position. He's been napping very well recently because he is still sick sick sick. I took him to the pediatrician on Saturday morning because we were going on 8 days of a fever + he had also developed a hacking, croup-y sounding cough. He has a double ear infection courtesy of haemophilus influenzae . This is all after his flu resolved on its own, probably around day 5. Hopefully the z-pack will work some magic! Zoe has what was thought to be viral conjunctivitis. When I mentioned this to Dr. R she said that with the presence of h. influenza in her environment that we're probably dealing with a bacterial infection. She gave us a prescription for eye drops which need to be given 3x/day, 2 drops in each eye. Those of you who know and love Zoe can imagine how fun that has been! Thankfully we were both home on Sat. because we had to pin her down for the first treatment. She...

1/20/13: Checking out their new beds !