Tales from the Condo - Sweet Dreams?

We are in Franklin now living in my sister and brother-in-law's two-bedroom condo. (They bought a gorgeous house a couple of weeks ago, so everything timed out great!) The condo is so cute, and if Matt and I were newly married, we'd be in seventh heaven. But as it stands, we have three kids, and sometimes at around oh, 11 p.m. when both the older kids are still awake, I feel like I'm living a little farther south of seventh heaven.

Two bedrooms, five people, do the math. Needless to say, Will and Soph are sharing a room. So far, Will (who used to go to bed between 8 and 8:30 p.m., now regularly sees midnight before falling asleep. And he's lots of fun in the morning. Sure, he sleeps a little later, maybe by a whole 30 or 45 minutes. It's quite the trade off.

I used to say he was my gentle giant. Now I just say, he's my giant. Last night he actually punched Sophie in the face, and he regularly grabs her by the hair. Now, no doubt, his always dramatic, sometimes-conniving sister

has provoked him to no end, but still...we can't let him disfigure her. I would say Matt and I go up and down the stairs easily over 20 times trying to comfort Will and protect Sophie's life before those two finally drift off to dreamland (or wherever the little urchins go when they sleep), so far not before midnight.

In truth, there are lots of sweet giggles in between screams and "give it back right now, Sophie" and "emergency, Will has my hair." I do believe we'll all look back on this as a sweet time when they grew closer and our family grew stronger (blah, blah, blah). But I'm not quite there yet.

We're contemplating solutions to our new dilemma including:

1. giving Sophie to my parents,
2. giving Will to my parents,
3. letting Will sleep in a tent in the back yard,
4. giving Sophie a crash helmet, locking the door, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Until we commit to a plan, call the condo anytime, except between the hours of 2-4 a.m. because we are all sound asleep between those hours. Otherwise, someone's up. And be sure and let us know if you are interested in "borrowing" a precious little sibling set. They're just adorable - no trouble at all. We promise.