Earlier last week the husband and I were discussing his love of movies. This guy loves the movies and is an avid collector of cult classics, comedies, trilogies and anything involving Marvel comics. Since the birth of the twins we have been on auto pilot with taking care of the kids so this doesn't leave much time for indulging in some of our favorite activities. I would love to have a consistent babysitter but how do you convince the same person to watch a three year old with nonstop energy and 12 week old twins. Needless to say the husband has missed a few movies that he really wanted to see because 1)he didn't want to leave me home alone AT NIGHT and 2)the babysitter thing.
Well me being the good wife suggested that he have a movie day. Movie day: a day in which the husband watches all new movies from sun up to sun down. Before I could even complete my sentence the husband had his tablet out and was planning and plotting his day of fun at the movie theatre. I wanted to smack my own self because what was I thinking?!?! As we have learned before, bedtime has proven to be the most colorful time of the day. How was I going to successfully put The Great down and ME at a decent hour. Bedtime is a tag team event that requires ME to be put down by myself and The Great by my husband. While the husband was talking nonstop about the movie schedule and what snacks he was going to enjoy I began to break out into a cold sweat and the room began to spin. Ok, ok maybe I'm being a bit dramatic but I was getting nervous about all the potential scenarios as I thought about bedtime. I had to pull myself together and put my big girl panties on because this was going to happen!!!! I had two days to prepare myself both mentally and physically because as the adult of the home I would not be defeated by three small children.
The day had finally arrived. The husband jumped out of bed without his alarm going off. He got dressed and hit the door ready for his day at the movies. I got myself dressed and The Great walked in the room with his bears and blanket. I pointed him towards the bathroom and we started our day. The twins were dropped off at daycare for half a day and The Great and I headed to the park. The plan was to drop The Great off at daycare when I picked the twins up at 123:30. Of course that didn't go over well so at 12:30 I picked up ME and we all headed home for nap time. While everyone was napping I was plotting and planning for the evening. Should I a) put The Great down first, b) try to put ME to bed first, c) just put The Great in our bed and let him fall asleep when he was ready or d) stay up until midnight when the husband gets home and put everyone down at that time. Once again the room started spinning and I broke out in a cold sweat.
Around 4:30 pm we all loaded up in the car and headed to our favorite chicken place to get the husband some dinner. We arrived at the movie theatre and I put on my saddest face ever. I just knew that I would somehow be able to get the husband to say "I will come home early to help with bedtime". He walked out of the theatre, gave me a kiss, grabbed his food and didn't think twice about coming home early. As he walked back into the theatre I knew Operation Transition was getting closer. When we got home the twins were asleep so The Great and I enjoyed a nice dinner. The quiet before the storm. He watched Nick Jr and I waited for ME to wake up from their evening nap. While they were sleeping I pulled out everyone's pajamas and moved the rock n plays to our bedroom. While I'm upstairs I hear The General stirring and I knew that The Guardian would be waking up soon.
Operation Transition was now in full effect. I gathered everyone from downstairs and transitioned upstairs to our bedroom. The Great got dressed for bed while I put ME in their onesies. The plan was to feed, burp swaddle them, then put Madelyn in the rock n play and Ethan in the swing. Once they were settled I would then put The Great to bed. While I fed ME the Great sat beside me on the bed and played quietly on his tablet. This was going great and I was feeling like a bedtime pro. The twins were fed and I put them down with the white noise app playing peacefully in the background. As I began to rock The General I told Matthew that he had about 5 minutes left of playtime on his tablet. I was making great time it was only 8:45 pm!! The Guardian fell asleep almost immediately in the swing and The General's eyes were slowly closing. This was happening, everything was going great!! ME was asleep and The Great and I were walking down the hall towards his bedroom. We sat on floor and read his bedtime story, said our prayers and I tucked him in bed. While lying on the floor beside his bed and waiting for him to fall asleep I couldn't believe how eerily quiet it was in the house. I had done it! The crew was in bed before 9:30 pm and we didn't have any major meltdowns. All I had to do was go downstairs and turn everything off and I was on my way to bed as well. I gave The Great one final kiss, shut his door and headed to our bedroom to check on the twins. As I rounded the corner I heard a faint sound... The Guardian was still asleep which could only mean one thing......The General was awake. As I got closer to the rock n play I could see her looking around the room. Before I could dive on the floor to avoid eye contact those big brown eyes connected with mine. She saw me!! A slight smirk and I knew that the night was not over. I went over and picked her up and thought to myself two out of three isn't bad. ☺️