Too much candy, not enough sleep

The title about sums up our week. I've had to banish the halloween candy from the house, much to Derek's protests. I knew it had to go when I saw Aidan very slowly walking back to his room and looking at me hoping I would not see him. I instantly knew he was up to something, he had guilt written all over his face, so I followed him to his room to see what he was up to. I asked him some question only to get a "mmmblahmmmblah" reply. He could not answer because he had not one but two small packs of M&M's in his mouth, and it was 7:00 in the morning!!! It was not long after that I dumped all the candy in a bag and disposed of it.

Pops and Aidan have been working on his playhouse this week. I have to get a picture of it for you to fully appreciate the engineering marvel that it is but Aidan loves it! Namaw on the other hand is not so happy with Pops' handy work. There were two new addition this week. The first was a Pops' original monkey bar. He took one section of a metal extendable ladder, attached one end to the playhouse and built an upside down v shaped support for the other end and voila -monkey bars! This was tolerable by Namaw's standards until they saw Aidan crawling across the top, he had mastered the usual use your hands to swing bar to bar so he moved on to tougher levels of play. The other addition is a pirate inspired "walk the plank" plank. It is a long board bolted to the playhouse that extends off the side. The fun here is walking the plank and then jumping off. Namaw's complaint was how high the board is above the ground but Aidan loves it and I'm sure it will remain a permanent fixture on the playhouse.

Asher has had quite the week. He has a few new tricks. He discovered he can turn the water on in the bathtub but in his excitement he leaned a little to far in and slid into the tub. I walked in just in time to see feet in the air, he was fine but my heart stopped for a second. Needless to say the bathroom doors stay shut now. I also had to find a way to keep him out of the kitchen cabinets. He's pretty mad he can't open those doors anymore, but he spends quite a bit of time trying. He still has several drawers he opens and pulls everything out of, the phone book and several magazines are missing pages, the houseplants don't look so good- all the leaves are tattered on the ends, the Thanksgiving decorations are getting lots of attention, Mo Vaughn is being VERY patient with Asher but he does get up and leave the room more often, the place mats for the kitchen table seem to always be on the floor, the stainless steel refrigerator and dishwasher have little hand prints all over them, the couch has little wet mouth prints on the edges, the speakers for the computer don't always work because the cable gets unhooked, the computer gets turned off several times a day, several printer buttons get a workout each day, not to mention I still don't leave paper in the printer because Asher pulls it all out, and I am ready to go to bed by 9 every night. I'm trying not to think about the destruction of a Christmas tree but I know it will happen. I can already picture the tree, minus ornaments on the bottom three feet, taking a tumble onto the living room floor with Asher crawling out from under it smiling and laughing. And I can forget putting presents under the tree this year, unless I want the paper ripped to shreds and a few pieces eaten by Asher. Did I mention how many times I have had to sweep my finger through his mouth this week? Hundreds! He is also cutting more back teeth so he is a little unhappy about that, he is also waking up about 3:00 every morning and then is back up at 6 or so. Of course this time next year I will be missing these precious moments and memories because of whatever stage he is in and how grown up he seems compared to now. Which brings me to this thought, I can't believe he's about to be one! Where did the year go?