What did our mothers do before playback machines were invented?

Seriously, I have no idea. Tonight, "101 Dalmations" has been my saving grace. It was last night, too. Ah, what the heck, maybe it'll be tomorrow night's, too. Or "Stuart Little 2". I might not even need it. We have a mega backyard party planned tomorrow for CJ and his buddies. Water balloons, a water slide, sprinkler, make your own sandwiches, and ice cream tubs. When I grew up on the Jersey shore we never had backyard sprinkler parties, we just went to the beach. And when I moved to Columbus 4 years ago, it was a huge culture shock on what to do in the summertime on the weekend since we are so land-locked. Now, after a little time have passed, we have figured out how to cool off. Summertime is all about the community pool and the backyard sprinklers.

So hopefully we all (and by "we all" I mean specifically Andrew) will sleep tonight so we can wake up all refreshed and ready to party. The moms of the friends are coming over, too who I am friends with so I'm really glad I'm playing hooky from work tomorrow. I know last post was really tongue in cheek, but really, when will this 2 1/2 year old sleep? I guess it's a bit of a slap in the face considering we didn't have these issues with CJ. Part of me can hardly remember how we even got CJ to bed, it seems so long ago. We're starting to try and toilet train Andrew now, and I swear, I have forgotten everything we did to get CJ toilet trained. Is my brain really that fried? Most of the time I call Andrew "CJ" and CJ "Andrew." When I do something like that I stop and think: "Mirror mirror on the wall, I have become my mother after all." And I'm still deciding if that's a good thing.

Next post: the great mid-summer backyard water party wrap-up