Don't Rain On My Fiesta!

The whole reason we left on Friday and split our drive over two days was for the sole purpose of attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, which is an annual event celebrating hot air balloons. Each year they have 700 balloons all take off at once, every morning, in what is called a mass ascension. It happens at dawn, so you have to be there at like 5:30 to watch, and that is frankly a ridiculous time of day. I don't care who you are, no one can be in a fiesta mood at 5:30 in the morning.

The also do this thing called a Night Glow, where all of the balloons are in the sky at night, and they all light their flames at the same time. It's compared to lit christmas lights, all over the sky, and it is supposedly gorgeous. They had that scheduled for tonight, Saturday evening, at the much more reasonable hour of 5:30 pm.

Until, of course, it rained. And was windy. And had severe thunderstorm warnings, hail the size of nickels, and possibly a tornado warning. So our whole Saturday evening plan was canceled.

I'm completely bummed by that, because it means two things. One, we all of a sudden don't have plans for tonight, and Two, if I want to see the stupid balloons, I'd have to get up at like 5 a.m.! And if I want to see them, I have to get up that early just to check to see if it's been canceled or not. I'm still hurting from last night's bedtime fiasco, do I want to follow that with an intentional early morning? But I came all the way here, can I really miss the balloons just because I'm tired? It's a frustrating question, mostly because I didn't think I'd have to answer it. I want to see the balloons, so I'll get up tomorrow, but I won't be happy about it!

Instead of tonight's balloon event, I ended up taking the boys to a children's science museum called Explora, while Ryan and Darcey napped. The boys loved this place - it's very similar in concept and size to the Discovery Gateway museum in SLC, but somehow crammed way more exhibits into the same square footage. Or maybe it just seemed that way. It wasn't a mammoth building, but the kids were constantly going from one activity to the next. It was a good introduction to our vacationing fun.


This should show just how windy it is here - I guess it's valid to cancel the night launch. My kids were ready to launch themselves with the wind so strong!


You won't even believe what I attempted to do while we were there - they had a high-wire bike across the second floor of the building, and I rode it! Okay, to be fair, I only rode it part of the way before I had to turn back, because after all, I am a gigantic chicken when it comes to anything stupidly death-defying. Who in their right mind rides a bike on a wire over nothing but some science attractions to break their fall? But if you know me, and my level of chickenness, the fact that I tried at all is fairly impressive. This picture that Brad took doesn't show how far up the wire is, but it's two stories.

This is how many Zacks there are when he is whining in the car, or late at night in a hotel room when everyone else is sleeping.

Afterwards, we went into Old Town for some dinner. Most of the shops were closed, so we'll have to go back there, but Brad loved the area so he's excited to go back. We ended up eating at the Quesadilla Grill, which served overpriced but tasty gourmet quesadillas. It won't be around too long, in my opinion. The place was dead - it was just us for a long time, then one other couple came in. A group of people showed up and then left when they realized that the place doesn't have a liquor license. There's an issue that doesn't seem to plague Orem restaurants! But the kids seemed to like it, and since the hotel serves breakfast AND dinner during the week, it's okay to splurge on the weekend. (I have to keep telling myself that, so the cheapskate in me doesn't hyperventilate. It's hard taking my inner cheapskate on vacation, I'll tell you that much.)

I'm trying out a new theory on this trip - play it by ear. I did our Europe trip as scheduled as I could get it, and I didn't have a single minute to do much more than check out Albuquerque on tripadvisor.com before we left for this trip. It's about as radical a change as I could make, but so far I'm enjoying it. There's not a ton of pressure to see certain things, and it's not a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so it's okay to take it slower. We'll see how I do - I'm not known as a laid-back traveler. But maybe I'll surprise myself. Hey, I rode a high-wire bike today, I know I'll surprise myself!

On The Road Again

Yesterday we embarked on our road trip to Albuquerque, and I have to say it hasn't been too bad. On Friday we picked Brad up after chorus and hit the road for the first leg of our trip - Orem to Durango, Colorado, about 400 miles. Today we only did about 250 miles, and it was substantially more painful. But we're here now, and we survived, so it's all good.

A few weeks ago we drove down to St. George, and Darcey was horrific in the car, and Darcey and Zack were horrific in the hotel room. So I took some preventative measures for this trip. First, I bought not one, but TWO portable dvd players, so both rows in the minivan could watch their own movies. I know that seems a little extreme, but at $89.99 plus tax each, it was still cheaper than one installed dvd player, and this way Brad and Noah don't have to watch many, many hours of Elmo's World with Darcey. Second, I reserved hotel rooms that were bigger than normal, so that hopefully not everyone would have to hear all of Darcey and/or Zack's incredible loudness.

The dvd players worked like a charm. Brad and Noah may as well have not been in the car at all, they were so quiet. They only piped up when they needed a snack refill. We had to make them take off their headphones in order to inform them of the lovely scenery that we were passing.

And lovely scenery it was, too - until it got too dark to see the scenery. None of us have been to Moab before, and it was strikingly beautiful. Not lush Switzerland beautiful, and not even fairly lush East Coast beautiful, both of which I prefer - I guess I really like trees. But the rock formations were interesting to look at, and intriguing enough that we're thinking about stopping on the way home for a closer look.

To make a long story short (not likely), the first half of our driving was excellent. Darcey whined, but it was bearable. Zack dropped his legos and also whined, and it was slightly less bearable, if only because I've been listening to his particular whines for 4 years now. We pulled into Durango at about 10pm, which means we made excellent time even with a 45-minute dinner break. When we got into the hotel, I was convinced that road trips were the new future for the Simmons family.

But when we left this morning, for the second, shorter, half of the drive, I was second-guessing myself. Several of the kids (and, of course, they wouldn't leave me out of it) had a bad night at the hotel. Darcey and Zack were so wired by 10:15 when they were finally in bed that Darcey lost it and Zack wouldn't stop talking, yelling, and picking fights for half an hour while everyone else attempted to sleep. Then Brad was awake from 2:30-3:30, during which time he spilled a cup of water on the nightstand and tromped back and forth through the room about 8 gajillion times, opening and closing the bathroom door (with the bathroom light on). To top it off, Zack woke up at 6. Fortunately, he followed orders by taking the portable dvd player into the bathroom to watch it; unfortunately, he first had to call "Mom! Mom!" until I got out of bed to make him stop.

So, to sum up without making you feel all of the pain, I was exhausted and Zack was exhausted and neither of us really wanted anything to do with each other. Brad and Noah continued their silent dvd vigil in the back of the van, Darcey was fine once I went in the back to sit next to her, and when I could keep Darcey and Zack quiet, then Ryan was fine too. So everyone was kind of on edge.

I think the answer is to drive straight through. I think the danger comes with having two travel days, not in having a 10 hour drive. We'll see next Friday, because we're driving home in one shot, theoretically. But overall, the kids were really, surprisingly good, and we're excited to finally be here.

Overheard At My House

For the last few weeks, I've been writing down some of the funnier (I think) things that my kids have said. My dad always said that kids get way more interesting when they learn how to talk, and while Darcey is certainly cute to look at, the other kids definitely can provide a serious amount of amusing conversation.

This first conversation happened a few weeks ago, when I told the kids that we were planning to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico while Ryan attends a Flash conference. (We actually leave this weekend.) They started shooting questions at me, bam bam bam, and I could barely keep up.


Brad: can we go somewhere in Mexico, like Puerto Rico?
Noah: can we go to China instead?
Me: Puerto Rico isn't in Mexico, and we're talking about NEW Mexico.
Brad: question one - when would we go?
Me: possibly in October
Noah: Can we go to Boston?
Brad: question two - would we still have enough money to go to California?
Me: California is not one of our choices. Neither is Boston.
Noah: Do they speak another language there?
Me: where, Boston?
Noah: Yeah.
Brad: Yeah, they do. They're really hard to understand.


These next three all happened at dinner, where the fare served was BLT sandwiches.

Noah: (looking at the bacon in his BLT, which he has already started eating) Is this bacon made out of pig or dog?


Noah, again: (examining his sandwich) I said I wanted this on toast.
Me: It is toast.
Noah: this is toast?
Me: Yes, toast is bread that is put in a ...
Noah: Wait - (thinks for a second) Toaster?



Zack rolled his race car across the dinner table, where it hit me on it's way onto the floor.
Zack, whining: Mo-o-o-m, my car fell!
Me: Then go get it.
Zack: I can't! I can't get it! You get it!
Me: Why not, are your legs broken?
Zack: Yes. (Pause) Are your legs broken?
Me: No, my legs work just fine.
Zack: Then you get it!


This last one was just this morning, while we were both sitting quietly at the table, eating our breakfast.


Brad: I want to get an animal I can ride. Like a really strong pig.


Man, these kids crack me up! Since Darcey isn't represented in any of these, here are some cute pictures that I took of her the other day.






If you've been following our backyard playground saga, you'll be happy to know that on Labor Day we came up with yet another way to possibly maim our children. We bought a dome climber, which is one of those half-spheres that you can find on most elementary school playgrounds, although smaller. The kids love it and it, so far, has yet to draw blood. It'll happen, though; from the following pictures you can see that the boys are less than timid about the perils of backyard play, and Zack falls pretty much every single day. I told Ryan that the next serious injury back there (broken bone, concussion, etc) I'm tearing up the grass and paving the yard with Nerf. He said that Nerf is a company, not a product, so what I'm actually saying is that I'd pave the yard with Nerf employees. I don't really care what we pave the yard with - I'd pave it with jello and feathers if that wouldn't be an unholy mess. Anyhow, for now, we're good with this. Soon it will snow and my ridiculous fears will transfer from playground equipment to skiing into a tree. It's a wonder I can sleep at night at all!

Just Rewards?

I think the world is paying me back (in a good way) for my honesty in the Tracfone-extra-minutes incident of last month. Or, the world is messing with my head. If you recall, I bought 900 minutes but was credited with like 1,800, and told the guy on the phone that it was more than I paid for. Which then resulted in me having to sit on the phone for 40 minutes of Darcey's nap while they tried to fix it. I know I did the right thing, but I was totally punished for it.

This week, I think I might be getting rewarded for my honesty. Or, I'm being given another chance to prove my integrity - not sure which one. I ordered an 8x8 photobook from Shutterfly scrapbooking our trip to California in February, using a coupon for a free book that they had sent. Of course I waited until the last possible day to order the book, and then when I did, the coupon wouldn't work. I was completely frustrated, and worse, felt that my honor was being called into question because I swear I had followed all of the coupon's rules in order to qualify for the free book. The audacity! (I mean that tongue-in-cheek.)

I sent an email to customer service, assuming that they'd reply the next day after the deal was over, and as such, I was out of luck. But here's where the karmic world started to smile on me: Customer service replied within an hour, telling me that because I had uploaded my own digital scrapbook pages into an album instead of putting my photos into one of their pre-made books, my album didn't qualify for the coupon. (Which is a load of baloney, because there was not one single word of exclusion referring to that.) But, the rep said that she'd put a new coupon on my account that would work with the album I had made, plus she'd give me another week to use it. How awesome was that! I didn't even have to complain, or argue about the technicalities, or whatever, she just gave me the free book that I was expecting.

Wait, it gets worse, and then better.

So on Friday I got my book in the mail. It's the first time I've ever made a digital scrapbook and had it printed, so I was excited to see how it was going to look. Turns out, a California road trip was too boring a vacation subject for them to handle - instead, they sent me an album from a trip to Kauai! It had loads of beautiful pictures, and some people who looked like they were having fun, but none of it was my kids at Legoland.

I called Shutterfly's customer service, gave the woman my order number and the order number than was on the Hawaii vacationer's book. The rep apologized profusely, promised to reorder both books and send it with expedited shipping. Then I Googled the person's name in the album, found some contact info, and sent her an email explaining that I've got her book and would ship it to her so she could have two copies if she wanted. She replied right away and said that she'd love to have me mail it to her, and she'd keep her eye out for my book, if she gets it.

The next day, my book came in the mail. The original one, the first one that they shipped. Apparently, they didn't switch the two books, they just shipped hers to me by mistake. But we both have two new albums on their way to us.

I feel no less guilty than if I hadn't told the Tracfone guy about the extra 900 minutes, but I'm reticent to correct this error. First of all, they only give a 30 minute window for cancellation, and then the album is on it's way to being printed. So, 32 hours later when I get the album in the mail, it's too late to stop the presses. And by now it's a full 48 hours since I called customer service. But even if they have already printed the new book, I could at least save them the shipping cost on my book if I tell them that I got the first book. Second, and this one's important, how badly will they screw up these orders if I call again? Will the hawaiian not get hers, too? I feel like it might be safer to let well enough alone.

But then I'm wondering if I'm trying to justify this decision because, really, I want two copies of my book. I want to send one to Ryan's sister Shauna, who came with us on our trip. As with the Tracfone incident, I want to prove my honesty by telling them about the error, but I want them to say, "Oh, go ahead and keep it. It'll teach us a lesson to have to absorb this cost!" Maybe the world is saying to me, "You were honest once, but let's see if you'll do it again now that you know the cost that might be involved." Maybe I just like making a relatively simple situation into an overly complicated moral issue, when it doesn't have to be.

World, you are one tricky son of a gun. Make sure you vote in the poll and let me know what you think.

The Best Meal I've Ever Cooked, Ever

In the year and a half I've had this blog, I don't think I've once posted a recipe, but the dinner I made tonight is worthy of broadcasting to the world. Yea, I would verily shout from the mountaintops how fantastic this dinner is. Zack was the only one who rejected it, and that's a pretty successful meal in and of itself. And the fact that it is basically a copy of one of the most successful restaurants in Utah Valley doesn't hurt either. I told Ryan that I plan to make this every week for the rest of my life, and he said he'd like to eat it every week for the rest of his life. If that's not a match made in heaven, I don't know what is.

The recipe is for Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad. The pork is almost achingly sweet, and the other ingredients are so savory that they balance nicely. I didn't make the recipe up; there are thousands of versions all over the internet. But I want to give you the one I made, which I can verify is abso-stinking-lutely delicious. If you haven't eaten at Cafe Rio, and so don't know what it is supposed to taste like, try it anyhow - it's worth it.

Oh, and P.S. - the recipe made a ton, so if you're a local friend and want a taste, come on by tomorrow and try some!

Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad
5-6 lb pork roast - I used 2 3-lb roasts that were on sale for $1.49/lb, so whatever you can find should be fine (I've heard this works with beef also)
One large can of red enchilada sauce (24-32 oz or so) I used mild, but that is up to your taste
One can of Dr. Pepper (I grabbed a 20 oz bottle from the refrigerated section)
1 cup brown sugar

Put the pork roast into your crock-pot, mix enchilada sauce, dr. pepper, and brown sugar in a bowl and pour over the roast. It should cover them about halfway up. Cook on low 6 hours or so, until you can shred the meat with two forks. Put the shredded meat and the sauce from the crock-pot into a large skillet. Now is when you taste it and make adjustments to the sauce - I needed to add more brown sugar to make it predominantly sweet, with a spicy aftertaste. Yum! I let it simmer for a little while so the sauce could reduce, but basically, it's done at this point.

Rice
4 t. chicken boullion (I threw in one boullion cube)
2 t. minced garlic
1/2 bunch cilantro
1/2 onion
3/4 t. salt
2 cups white rice
4 cups water

Chop the onion and cilantro fine, throw it all in a pot and cook it like you would regular rice (simmer 20 minutes or so).


Cafe Rio Salad Dressing

1 1/3 cups sour cream
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 bunch of cilantro
1 package ranch dressing mix
4 tbsp. salsa verde (green salsa)
2 cloves of garlic
1/8 tsp. Tabasco sauce
juice of one lime

Mix all of these ingredients in a blender or food processor.


Other salad ingredients: black beans, shredded romaine lettuce, tortillas, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole, pico de gallo, tortilla strips

Here's how you put it together, if you haven't had one before.
Heat your tortilla in a frying pan, 30 seconds on a side. Put tortilla in a bowl, sprinkle some cheese on it. Fill tortilla with a scoop of rice, some black beans, some shredded pork, some lettuce, some pico de gallo. You can also add sour cream, guacamole, and tortilla chips, but you can leave them out if you are calorie conscious. Top with some of the dressing, and mix it all together.

Diets Suck

Sorry to be so crass, I don't generally use the "s" word, but it's true. Diets do suck, and I'm hating mine right now.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood right now, because I've been pretty positive the last 5 weeks that I've been seriously dieting. I've been stressed by the amount of work school has been (business classes were waaaaay easier than English), feeling like I'm barely keeping my head above water in most of my responsibilities, and just realized that in setting my blog's comments to "moderate" it means that a bunch of comments have piled up that didn't make it to the site, and it's my own dumb fault. So I'm a little down on myself currently.

But let me celebrate one thing: I've been going to the gym daily - that means every single weekday - for three weeks in a row. And the two weeks before that I went two or three times also. Five solid weeks of working out consistently, and it's amazing! I've never ever ever been able to keep that kind of momentum. Three weeks is about the longest I've gone, and never every day.

I couldn't understand people like my friend Susanne who not only enjoy exercising but have some kind of fundamental need to do it every day, but I'm starting to get it. There is such a feeling of power when I can tell my body to do something and then accomplish it, even though it's hard. Being sweaty doesn't bother me quite so much, although I have to admit that I favor the machines positioned right under the ceiling fan. (I've often thought that treadmills,etc. ought to come with built-in personal fans, directed right at your face. Maybe it has to be powered by your footsteps or something. That's my million-dollar invention, right there.)

I wrote a month ago about my adventures at the Zumba class. I've gone for 5 weeks in a row, and I'm amazed to find out that I can hold my own now. I even invited my friend Sylvia to come with me last week, which means that I trust myself enough to risk potential humiliation in front of someone I know, not just random gym rats in the freeweight section. I can last the entire hour without feeling nauseous, and here's the weird thing: it feels really good. Really, really good! I am turning into the kind of person who actually likes to exercise!

Today I rocked at the gym. I went to a class that had a 10-minute cardio warm-up and then 50 minutes of weight training with free weights and hand weights. I've done this class before, and it totally kicks my butt. I was able to move up from the 3-lb weights (hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying) to 5-lb weights, and I hope to one day put some weight on the bar itself. We were doing some exercises to work some arm-related muscles, I think it was the deltoids and the trapezoids and possibly the rhombuses, and when I thought my arms were going to fall right off onto the ground, I let my arms hang for a few seconds. Then my inner Jillian kicked in and I could hear her screaming at me in my mind to get off my lazy butt and keep working!! (Jillian is the fire-breathing trainer on The Biggest Loser, and man, I think I'd keep working just to stop the screaming insults from her.) I started laughing when we tried to do some more lunges and my muscles were shaking so bad I could barely keep my balance, but I love that now when I'm going upstairs my quads hurt and when I bend over my abs ache. It's like a little, constant reminder of how hard I worked.

To top it off, after the class I hit the elliptical machine for 20 minutes, and then walked around the entire neighborhood for another half hour. I'm like some kind of working out machine! I'm unstoppable!

But let me tell you what is wanting to stop me: the scale. The freakin' blinkin' scale! Over the last five weeks here's what my stupid scale has said.

End of first month of diet, no exercise: Down 2 pounds.
End of week 1: Down 1 pound.
End of week 3: Down 3 pounds.
End of week 4: Up 1 pound.
End of week 5: Down 3 pounds.
As of today, Up 2 pounds.

So with eight weeks of being super careful about what I eat, including only a single slice of the ice cream cake from my birthday, I have lost a grand total of 6 pounds. Five weeks of exercising, and my weight is zigzagging up and down like a rollercoaster.

I hate rollercoasters.

Watching The Biggest Loser is encouraging and at the same time giving me all sorts of unrealistic expectations. I enjoy seeing people make such radical changes in their life, but when the contestants are lamenting only losing 8 pounds that week instead of 10, I can't relate. I'd just like to be consistently losing and not gaining. I'm so frustrated with this whole stupid dieting process that I'm afraid I'll do damage to my newfound exercise habit. If nothing else, it's making the other half of the ice cream cake in the freezer looking less like a sin and more like a just reward.

I know I need to just not weigh myself, but when the scale is down, it gives me such an emotional boost that I can't resist the temptation to check. Of course, when it's up my mood plummets in response and I vow to throw the scale away altogether. But I need the accountability, so it will stay in my bathroom closet, the specter that haunts me even on my best days, making me question whether all of my hard work is doing anything at all, or whether I ought to just eat that cake.

I don't have any pithy or amusing or even positive thoughts to wrap this all up. I'm not going to eat the cake, at least not today, but I don't have it in me to throw it away either. Maybe that means I'm not all the way committed, but I'd rather think it's a tactic, like Brigham Young keeping a plug of chewing tobacco in his pocket and asking it, "Who is going to be master, you or me?" Well, mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins, who's in charge here, you or me? Clearly, it's me, and that's why you are still in the freezer!

(As a side note, Brother Brigham only lasted 9 years off tobacco before he started chewing again as a pain reliever, and then quit a second time for good. I have no idea what this means for my diet, but if I haven't lost this baby weight in 9 years, I'm eating that cake!)

I've Created a Monster

Some people use that phrase figuratively, like they've created something that has slightly monstrous qualities. But I mean it literally. Let me describe my monster for you.

My monster is only seen in the dead of night. It has tiny, sharp teeth and claw-like fingernails. It's worst feature is it's voice, which is piercing when it screams and grating when it cries. It has an insatiable appetite and smells of urine. It's appearance is so frequent at night that I have nightmares about it, and I rarely forget to pray that the monster will not awaken and attack me at night.

Oh, and it wears Spiderman pajamas and has a favorite blankie.

Yes, Zack is the monster on top of the bed, not under the bed. At night he undergoes a radical, Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde transformation, shedding his nice, happy boy image for the crazed lunatic that cannot be controlled. I've never read Frankenstein, but I'm guessing it ends with Dr. Frankenstein's monster driving the poor doctor crazy, until he either has to chop him back up in a million pieces or hire a live-in nanny so that he'd at least get some rest at night. Am I close?

There's an ongoing discussion whether the Zack-Monster came about by nature or nurture. All of our boys woke up every two hours to eat for the first 7 or 8 months of their life, until I finally couldn't stand it anymore. They didn't need to be eating, so I weaned them from nighttime feedings and then Ryan and I embarked on a cry-it-out routine to get them to learn to sleep through the night. Ryan's role was to go in every so many minutes to reassure the baby that we were still there and loved them, but it was sleeping time now. My role was to lay in bed and cry, listening to my poor, suffering baby who I was sure was going to absolutely hate me for this. The beauty was that it only took one or two nights and then they got it, and as far as I know, they don't still hate me for it. (I just checked with Brad, and he said, no, he doesn't still hate me. It might have taken him a long time to get over the resentment, though, I'm not sure.)

Darcey, fortunately, has been a perfect sleeper since day one, which I never would have expected and am endlessly grateful for. She apparently likes to sleep. A girl after my own heart. I'm glad I got her last, or else I would have been utterly ruined for life with the rest of my kids.

The problem was with Zack. Crying it out, for him, just didn't work. Ryan would do it for two days, or three, and he just wasn't crying any less. I had to go sleep in the basement so I couldn't hear him, and I had nightmares every single night I was down there. I finally had to tell him to stop the cry-it-out program - I couldn't handle it anymore. I had to temper Ryan's justice with some mercy. And wouldn't you know, Zack ended up with an ear infection. Figuring that was the reason he wouldn't stop crying, we waited until he was better and then tried again - same result. Endless crying. It was horrible.

Eventually I had to say enough. Ryan disagreed with me on this - he wanted to keep going until Zack started sleeping through the night, and told me that if I made him stop, then I would be on my own for dealing with Zack in the middle of the night. I agreed. Maybe my heart was too soft, but I just couldn't make him cry anymore. I just loved him so much, you know?

Fast forward four years. I still love the kid, but four years of bad sleep have left my heart substantially harder. Ryan sticks by his "you asked for it" theory and as a result, will only deal with Zack at night when I make him. And none too cheerfully. I have done several teach-him-how-to-sleep theories, and they work (without the crying) for a while. He went through a phase a year or two ago where he would wake up progressively earlier, until he was getting up at 4 in the morning and watching PBS. If he ever lost his binky, I would have to track it down. If he needed to go to the bathroom, he'd scream in his room until I got up and took him. He has growing pains in his legs every couple of weeks. I have come to believe that this is a child who is just a bad sleeper. That's why crying-it-out didn't work for him like it did for Brad and Noah. And why after so many other sleep techniques, he still wakes up so often. I was to the point that the monster would rear his ugly head about once every two or three weeks, and he slept through the night otherwise.

Until two weeks ago, when we decided that it was time to abandon the binky. He is four, after all, and it's a little ridiculous to still have a binky. It's also a little ridiculous to still be waking up in the middle of the night with a four year old, too, but apparently that doesn't matter as much. Noah gave his up with very little fuss, and we expected the same with Zack, but like I said - he just is not built to be a good sleeper. With no binky, the monster has taken up permanent residence in Zack's room. I can count on being thrust from my bed by the sound of twenty wild banshees that he's invited into his room for a scream-a-thon. It's turning me into a wild banshee myself.

In the last two weeks, he's had three "accidents" requiring new sheets. He's demanded water in a sippy cup (hence the accidents). He has had nightmares about the clothes in his closet being skeletons and one about his very best friend Jonathan and a pair of shoes. Every night there's something and I am very quickly losing my mind.

So my new theory is this: let him cry it out. If you ignore the monster under the bed, doesn't it go away? That's all I can hope for now. I tell him, just before I put him to bed, that I won't be coming in when he screams anymore, if you need to go to the bathroom, just go. Or if there's an emergency, come in my room. But I am completely done reacting to the monster. If this doesn't work, I'm giving him the binky back, which Ryan will be completely against, but what does it matter if he's not the one dealing with him anyhow? And besides, at some point he will give it up on his own - he won't be using it on his mission most likely. Or maybe we can just leave this problem for his wife to sort out.

Regardless, I am done with the monster. I am going to start wearing a large steel cross at night, string garlands of garlic around my room, buy a can of moster-repellent. And if that all fails, I'm moving back into the basement. The crying-it-out nightmares I had are nothing compared to the reality of the monster in the room next door.