Forts and Good "Good-nights"

Justice rearranged my living room and made "forts" today. Here's Justice & Clayton having fun playing in them. Chloe even got in on the action.


In case anyone is observant enough to notice that my large, cat picture is missing: No, they did not knock it down. I removed it temporarily as a precaution. I figured it would be easier than telling them not to climb on the forts.
A friend commented the other day how she liked how my kids play together. You know, when you are at home with them 24/7, it's easy to think that all they do is fight, because those things are loudest, and they drive me up the wall with it sometimes. However, when I stop to think about it, yes my kids do fight like normal siblings, but they do also play together a lot and love each other. As an example, my children are chronic nomad sleepers. There is almost never a night when everyone is in their own bedrooms. Justice slept down in Ross and Mark's bedroom nearly every night for about a year, sometimes in Mark's bed, sometimes in Ross' bed, and sometimes on the floor. Then we had the period when the weather was so nice and Ross, Lydia & Mark spent several weeks sleeping out in the tent just under my bedroom window. Since Justice is too little for me to feel comfortable about him sleeping out there without Bruce or myself, Justice had to get used to sleeping in his own bed again. Once the weather turned nasty, we had a span when Ross and Mark camped out on the floor in Justice and Clayton's room. The current thing is "sleep overs" in Lydia's room. As long as everybody goes to sleep, I don't really mind all of this non-sense. It's less rooms for me to visit to tuck everybody in.

Bedtime is either my worst time of day, or my best time of day. I'm often tired and crabby by the end of the day, and I can't take it anymore. Sometimes, it's all I can do to read a story (sometimes they don't even get that), and drag myself upstairs and downstairs to kiss everyone goodnight without screaming. Other times however, I really enjoy those quiet, precious moments with my kids. Last night was one of the good "good-nights." Bruce joined me in Justice and Clayton's room, where all four of us snuggled up on Justice's twin sized bed. Clayton was so sweet hugging everybody, but especially Justice. It melted my heart. Next I went to Lydia's room where Ross and Mark were camped out on the floor. I sat there and we told funny stories of when they were little, and we laughed and laughed. It was great! I'll tell you all the stories we told some other time. I'm waxing long and soppish, so you'll have to excuse me. I just love it when my kids are acting like they really love each other (which, despite their insistence to the contrary, they do.)