We've spent 6 weeks...

...spending half of the night awake with Q. At first, we tried to get him to go back to his bed. We were adamant about not sharing our bed with children. But then we went back to work and, well, we had to rethink things. So now he is sleeping with us. Except for at 4am when (for the past 3 nights) he has decided that he should try and escape our room in search of his sisters. This is how it goes down.

First, Q bolts up in bed. He wipes his sleepy eyes and looks around. "Sheshe? Sheshe?" (Which is his pronunciation of both Sissy and Casey. He doesn't even attempt Chandler. And he calls the Sissy and Casey interchangeably.) Then he scoots to the bottom of the bed, flips over onto his belly and scales down the comforter. He races, while stomping, across the floor to the door, now shouting, "Sheshe! Sheshe!" Chris stomps after him and grabs hold of him just as Q opens the door. At this point, the dog and I are also wide awake, and now Quinn is screaming, "No! No! Shesheeeeee!"

Its fantastic. No, really. We spent 5 weeks trying to get Quinn to leave our room, and now we are trying to get him to stop leaving our room.

In other news... (And heads up...if you're a boy or if you don't like talking/reading about feminine issues, then perhaps you shouldn't continue reading)

So, in the spring, I began to have conversations with the girls about their period. These were some of the finer points...

• this won't happen until you are a little older
• blood will come out of your vagina
• it is what helps you be able to have a baby (when you are much, much older)
• it happens once a month
• We're talking about this because I don't want you to freak out when it happens and think that you are dying.
  

I started really young and had no idea what was going on. So I figured it was better to be early than late with this conversation. Yesterday, Chan brought it up again...

Chan: Mama, how old were you when you got your period?
Me: 10. Why?
Chan: Whew! So I still have some time!
Me: Why are you asking?
Chan: Well I've been really worried that blood might start gushing out of my bagina, all over my pants in front of everybody. And gosh, that would be, like, totally embarrassing.
Me: Well, I think you're okay. And the blood doesn't usually "gush" out of your "VAgina."
Chan: Whew! Well, glad we had this talk, Mama.