0330 - Christmas "Bliss"

Christmas Eve--bathed and in their new jammies...

innocent until...

"Ted, I think I hear someone up." Ted looks at the time on the ceiling (we love our projection atomic alarm clock), but I don't think it registers, as he seems to drift back into dreamland. Within a minute, the sound of Lucy saying "Cory" from somewhere pulls him out of serenity. He presses the light on his watch. I don't think he believes the time on the ceiling. It really is 0330.

Now Lucy is saying "Mare Mare." We both get out of bed and walk to Lucy and Cory's room. This is what we see. Lucy is out of her crib, and standing on a stool next to her crib. Mary Beth and Cory are sitting on Cory's bed with the bedlamp on and a flashlight on. This is not good. Not good at all.

"Cory, did you go downstairs."

"No."

"I did," says Mary Beth.

"Did Santa come?"

"Yes, and he brought me a Password Journal just like I've always wanted, and me and Riley and Cory got a Webkinz, but not Lucy, because he knew I gave her one."

At this point the look on my face causes Mary Beth to get really sad and start to cry.

"Okay, everyone, it's the MIDDLE of the night. We're not supposed to be awake and you need to go to bed."

Ted takes Mary Beth to her room, while I tuck Lucy and Cory back in.

Then I check on Mary Beth and find that she's left a nice little note on her desk for Riley, in case Riley woke up while Mare was out--it says "I went to look in the stockings." She gets an A+ for spelling and punctuation. But it's still 3:30 in the morning!!!!

"Mary Beth, did you tell Cory what he got?"

"Yeah, he got a Star Wars gun with darts!"

"Goodnight, Mary Beth. I'm turning this light off. I'll leave your door open." And I leave, shaking my head in defeat.

Ever hopeful, Ted and I return to bed. Unfortunately, now I'm wide awake and worried that we will be officialy up. That dread alone makes it hard to sleep. And then we hear it. Someone crying. It's Lucy. What to do. What to do.

She ends up in our room. She likes to sleep between us, but it takes her a while to get back in that resting state. She does her standard squirm around, then kicks her feet feet into Ted's back a few dozen times. Then she decides she should sing. She doesn't know many words, so it's kind of a long la-la song. So it's 0400ish and Lucy is in the bed singing. This is not going well. She did eventually fall asleep on the floor. In the end, everyone slept, and we were not awaken again until 0500. When Riley came in and told us she couldn't sleep. Luckily, she went back to bed, and we all got up around 0730.

Before we headed downstairs, I asked Riley if Mary Beth told her what Santa brought. Riley said, "Yeah! Mary Beth woke me up at 3:30 last night! I told her Mom and Dad won't let us get up before 7 o'clock."

After opening all the gifts, I asked Mary Beth if she looked at everyone's presents last night. She said, "Yeah, but it was hard to see them until I got a flashlight."

the culprit :

the accomplice:

the serenading princess and the one-who-knows-better :