Sleepytime.

About nine o'clock every night, Carli starts to get fussy. This signals us to get ready for bed.

I get 2 diapers, a fresh bottle, and both girls; we head upstairs.

The first stop is the girl's room. Violet picks out her jammies...she insists on matching sets. No rainbow shirt with heart shorts...both pieces must match in order to avoid a tantrum. Carli gets a cotton, stretchy romper...usually the same brand every night, as we have only find two places that make them to fit my girls properly. Carli has followed her sister's lead in (thankfully) obtaining her father's tall, slightly gangly, thin, muscular body. Though well fed, the girl's have narrow hips and no butts to speak of. So it is hard to fit her into clothes that are made for babies who are generally shorter and rounder.

We change butts and climb into our jammies in the girl's room; however, we don't sleep there, as Jason is still trying to assemble Carli's crib, and the room currently contains a rickety crib, nails, screw, and tools. And Violet likes to explore when she should be sleeping.

Violet brushes her teeth while I get Carli into her swaddle...she will sleep without it, but not as soundly. I climb into my jammies, which definitely do not have to match, and rarely do. Violet finishes with her teeth, bangs her Diego brush on the sink twice, and puts it in the drawer. She then climbs up into the middle of my bed, beside her dad, who has been sleeping for about 7 hours at that point. Jason grunts and rolls over slightly.

I stick a Christmas movie into the PS3 (Violet demands Christmas and nothing else). I start the movie, grab Carli, and settle into the left side of the bed. I hold my second-born and feed her the final bottle of the night as my first-born lays on her father's chest, and chatters quietly about the movie.

After about 10 minutes, Carli loses suction on her bottle. She stares at my face under hooded eyes, and smiles lazily at me...dimples flashing and soy milk formula drizzling out of the corner of her mouth. I give her one last kiss and lay her in her bassinet.

Violet abandons her father, and curls up to me. She tries to stay awake, at least until the Jack-In-the-Box scene in Elf, before her head tilts towards the headboard, her mouth drops open, and her eyes close. She plays hard, so she sleeps hard as well...one can move her all over the bed without waking her; this is useful, as she thinks the whole bed is her territory.

I lay there with my girls, maybe reading, maybe watching the movie, until 10:15 comes. Then is time to wake Jason for work, to go make his lunch, to straighten the living room for the day and start the dishwasher. A few minutes of sleepy chat, then he is off to work the night away.

Then, the evening is mine. For cruising the Internet, for watching late night t.v., for reading the books Violet helps me pick out on our weekly library trip.

But more often than not, I head back up the stairs and pass out in between my lovely, sleepy girls.