Training and a Nighttime Ninja

There's been some serious training going on over here.

The Mister is determined that Buddy Boy walk by his first birthday, mainly because he thinks the babe is up to the task already.  I too think he is capable of walking; he simply prefers to crawl fast.  We're at T minus 7 days {I know, can you believe it???  I can't!}, so I guess we'll see soon enough.

We snuck away for a date night this weekend, and it was SO much fun to reconnect after the Mister's long business trip...sushi go-round, a stroll and shop around the neighborhood, and then a fancy dessert.   It was pretty great.  I love devoting the few hours the Mister's has off each week to spending time as a family of four, and that is usually how we decide to spend those hours.  But every time we go on a date night, I think "why don't we do this more often?"  We should!

We have a little nighttime ninja.  Every morning, in the 4:00 or 5:00 hour, he comes sprinting out of his room, and arrives expectantly at the edge of our bed.  If he had a room of his own, I like to think we'd train him to go back to his bed, but under the circumstances, we'd just end up with two very awake--and likely, wailing--boys.  So we cave, and haul him into the bed with us.  The path of least resistance.  Mind you, this is a double bed, so it's cozy quarters even without a nighttime ninja.  

Once he is established in the bed, our nighttime ninja takes one of two courses.  Course 1: The nighttime ninja chooses a victim and begins to inch closer and closer to the victim, rolling himself under the victim,  boring his chin into the victim's forehead, kicking the victim in the back, or otherwise maneuvering, such that the victim must scoot closer and closer to the {very nearby} edge of the bed, until the victim is left hanging onto the sheets, struggling not to fall out, resting his or her head on the nightstand, while the nighttime ninja enjoys the center of the pillow and plenty of room to stretch out.  The victim is then left with the choices of a) enduring this dangling-from-the-bed position in hopes that the nighttime ninja will continue to sleep, because then at least someone's sleeping and no one is demanding a sippy cup or hauling out puzzles, or b) abandoning the bed in favor of the sofa, at great risk of waking the nighttime ninja {and his trusty sidekick!}, and thereby rousing the demands for sippy cups and puzzle playing at oh-so-brutal an hour.

Alternatively, the nighttime ninja pursues Course 2.  In Course 2, rather than choose one victim, the nighttime ninja makes victims out of both the rightful inhabitants of the double bed.  Having been hoisted into bed, he soon begins to spin, until one end of him is draped across each victim.  Each victim is left to ponder whether its worse to get the end where small toenails scrape one's cheek and pointy heels dig into one's ribs, or whether the worser end is the one where tufts of fuzzy hair are jabbed up one's nose and sleep-deadened arms are flung over one's face.  Course 2 leaves the victims with little choice; they must endure, because there is very little chance of successful escape when one is pinned underneath the nighttime ninja.  And one just better hope one didn't drink too much water before bed!

The other night, upon turning in, we discovered that our nighttime ninja had stealthily gotten out of his bed soon after bedtime and fallen asleep in ours.  He reports that a giant was in hot pursuit of him and there was nowhere else to run.

 I keep hearing people talk about school starting.  Ugh.  That must mean our pool days are winding down.  Please say it ain't so!