Farm animal sounds

I came home late from my Girls' Night Out, finished cleaning up the kitchen and was in bed by 2:30a (ouch!). Then, at 5:30a, Ronin is crying out from his room. Within a minute, Nikko starts to cry loudly. I bound out of bed and go to Nikko to settle him, but can see that he will not go back to sleep right away. I go to Ronin's room, open the door to see him standing right by it, then scoop him out quickly because I can see that Audrey is on her tummy and not 100% awake yet. I put the boys in the living room with me and plunk down on the floor in an attempt to get them to go back to sleep for a little bit. I think they do, for maybe 45 minutes of dozing, but Ronin wakes up and I'm looking at 6:45a on my watch for both boys to be awake. Audrey is also awake by 7a. So I got less than four hours of sleep, and I was incredibly crabby with eyes that were burning. Luckily, around 11a, Denis took the boys out to go sledding. I put Audrey down for a nap and then I got almost an hour nap before they all came back.

Nikko has really taken to watching the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We're borrowing the DVD from my mom's house, and have previously watched three episodes On Demand through Comcast. He has been carrying the DVD case around for three days. And he doesn't want to watch anything else, just wants me to repeat the same episode, The Great Clubhouse Hunt. I was able to sneak in a little Hi-5 to break the Mickey Mouse monotony, and Audrey liked the break too. Denis had really worked the boys on the hills with a toboggan that I got for a few bucks at the Mount Prospect garage sale last summer. It was before dinnertime while Audrey was napping that we were in the basement and Denis was incorporating a workout with playing with the boys. He started jogging in a circle and the boys started to chase/be chased by him. Nikko was absolutely sweaty as he ran in full pursuit. Ronin was doing a good job of keeping up, even though he was smaller and not as fast. They even had to step on a folded mat, for a change in elevation. It was a really good run and the boys enjoyed it immensely, so much that Ronin was really angry that we had to stop to go upstairs and have dinner. Whenever Denis would take a break and start up again, he would say, "Ready, set, go!" and Nikko would repeat, "Ready, set, go!" It was good to know that the boys would be exhausted by bedtime. We sat to read bedtime stories. Denis read the farm animal book with pictures of a pig, cow, horse, chicken and sheep. Nikko was pretty silent, but when we got to the horse, Denis said, "This is a horse. The horse goes...." and then Nikko said, "Naaaay!" My ears perked up as we continued. Nikko has never associated animal sounds with the actual animal. Denis said, "This is a chicken. The chicken goes..." Nikko said, "Bock, bock, bock!" Finally, Denis read, "This is a sheep. The sheep goes..." Nikko said, "Baaaa!" I told Denis to go back to the beginning of the book, so he read, "This is a pig. The pig goes...." Nikko looked, but didn't respond. The same thing happened on the next page, where the animal was a cow. But when he got to the horse again, Nikko said, "Naaaay!" OK, I guess we have to work on oinking and mooing. Overall, I was impressed that Nikko responded to some of the farm animals. I wonder why the pig and cow didn't elicit a response. I have been mooing at Nikko for the past three years! Nikko fell asleep quickly after that, but Ronin must have still been wired because he called me back to his room twice. I kept coming back because I didn't want him to wake up Audrey. By the second visit I growled at Ronin to go to sleep, stay in bed, and stop calling me. If he wakes up at 5a this morning, I don't know WHAT I'm going to do. Dealing with Nikko's sleep problems is tough enough, but to add on Ronin with early morning wakings is going to kill me sooner.