Happenings with the Allen Fam

There hasn't been too much going on here so I haven't posted for awhile. Last weekend I took the boys to Casper to watch the state track tournament. It's a 5-hour drive to Casper, but the boys did great in the car (Josey had gone over a day before with the track team.) I thought it would be fun for the boys to stay in a hotel, go swimming, and just relax a little. Friday turned out to be quite the disaster, with Jarrett being sick and Jordan being just plain miserable. Luckily, after getting some rest, the boys were much happier on Saturday and the weather was the best we've seen all year. Jordan especially loved riding around in the bus with Josey and the track team, and he was the center of attention with all of the kids. Kemmerer's track team did not do very well, but that's okay. I've never been interested in track at all until being married to Josey. I'm still not that interested, but I like watching some of the races.

Tomorrow is Josey's last day of school. Then we get a few days to spend together until he goes to Mississippi for a month for something called Industry-Education Partnerships. We will miss him!!

My biggest headache as of lately is Jordan's nighttime behavior. Jordan was the BEST sleeper ever until I had Jarrett. For the last year and a half, it's been a struggle to have a consistent night's sleep for him. Jarrett is a wonderful sleeper, thank goodness, and I'm hoping to soon get Jordan back to sleeping in his own room and his own bed for the entire night. When Jarrett was a few months old and we moved him into Jordan's room, his nighttime wakings would wake Jordan up and then I had to get both of them back to sleep. Soon Jordan got into the habit of coming into our room when he woke up in the middle of the night or going onto the couch. This didn't really bother me, because it was only occasionally. Well it has become a regular thing and it is bothering me now! (Mostly because I rarely get to sleep in past 6:00 a.m. because Jordan is a very light sleeper in the morning and he gets up when Josey does. Sometimes I don't mind getting up at 6:00 a.m. because that's when I exercise, but I would like to get up by myself, not with kids.) Anyways, when he has been coming into our room, I make him sleep on the floor. I just can't really sleep with him in the bed. He doesn't mind sleeping on the floor and usually he'll just stay there until morning, but sometimes he keeps waking up and trying to get in our bed and whining and I'm not very patient with him. Our bedroom door does not lock; it doesn't even shut all the way because it's broken. So a few weeks ago Josey got the brilliant idea to wedge his shoe under the door to lock it. It worked, and Jordan laid outside the door bawling and throwing a tantrum (banging on the door, yelling ridiculous things) for at least an hour. He does not give up easily. I was laughing really hard at the things he was yelling at us, but at the same time my heart was kind of breaking because he was so sad. Needless to say, this was a failure. He eventually fell asleep in the hallway, but the next night I just couldn't bring myself to do it again. I think at that point I should have not let it go so far, and I should have just taken him back to his bed and he would have calmed down and fell asleep. If I did this consistently, I think he would eventually get the point. The problem is I'm tired and I don't want to spend half the night taking him back to his bed so I just give in and let him sleep on our floor. So stupid us, last night we did the same thing (locked the door) and went through the same thing (huge tantrum for over an hour). Only this time he woke Jarrett up. Tonight we're not locking the door, but if he gets up I will just have to get my lazy bum out of bed and take him back to his room, I guess however long it takes. This is not fun, and I'm mad that he's such a bad sleeper when I had him trained so well! Sorry this is so long, and probably really boring, but if any of you have any suggestions, please let me know!