Life is a beach. Except when it isn't.

Thankfully it's been more beachy than not lately.

Let's start with the obvious. Joe is a FOURTH YEAR MEDICAL STUDENT now. And we are loving it. During his first two years of school everyone told me that third year was the "good year". And I desperately clung to that promise...dreaming of better days. And then we got to third year and it knocked me down. It was WORSE than the first two years combined. I cried a lot of lonely (and sometimes desperate) tears. And I decided everyone was LIARS! Third year was mostly torture (for me). But fourth year now THIS is the good year. I am loving it (and more importantly I think Joe is too). We have more family time and A LOT less study time. It's great. These are the better days I was dreaming of for so long. Of course we are only 3 weeks in and there are many weeks and months to come so my opinion could change (and very well may change) but for now I am enjoying this pace of life. 

Speaking of family time, we found a beach yesterday. It was beautiful. And sunny. And everything a perfect summer day should be. Well except a few tantrums over the "gross" bread we packed for lunch. I could have done without those, but otherwise a pretty perfect summer day. 

Now for the less than beachy stuff. Bedtime. It has been AWFUL since we have arrived in Iowa. The kids do not go to sleep without A LOT of crying, screaming, and whining first. It is a loooong drawn out process every night. And every night I lose my patience and want to pull out my hair. Suffice it to say it's ugly. And I am not sure why. Before we came here we had a pretty consistent and fairly easy bedtime routine with the kids. And we did our best to reproduce that routine here but the kids are just not having it! Not in the least. 

A couple nights ago the bedtime drama reached an all time HIGH. Charlotte was having a hard time falling asleep in her bed (major understatement!) so Joe moved her into our room. He kindly laid down next to her. Except she wasn't having it. She screamed at Joe "leave me alone!"  So he left her in our room WITH the door open. She immediately started crying out for "Mommy! Daddy!" When we didn't respond (because she had just asked to be alone) her cries changed to "Someone help me! Someone let me out of here. Someone HELP ME!" 

The drama! I moved her back to her bed and she went to sleep. Almost immediately. I then spent the rest of my evening just waiting for CPS to come knocking at our door.