Success x2!

I sat down to write last night and had a very hard time getting into it -- I'd left off smack in the middle of major changes to my big story and I'm so out of routine and practice that I don't think I wrote more than maybe two hundred words before I petered out and wasn't sure where to go.

But instead of calling it a night and giving up, I flipped through my "ideas" file until something struck me, and then I opened a new document and wrote about four hundred words on that.

Which still isn't much, but I'm calling it a victory, given that it's the better part of a month since I've written more than a few lines, and that my brain has been stuck heavily in Edit Mode for the last couple of weeks.

***

I stayed up later than I expected last night. Matt's been watching back seasons of Burn Notice for the last month or so, and I admit to a visceral thrill for that moment in any episode when Michael flashes his bland, charming, "I am going to destroy you" smile. And also a complete adoration for his mom. It's not a show I'm going to plan my schedule around, and I've walked away from it to go to bed before.

But last night, as I was doing what I thought was a final email check before going to bed, Matt started up what immediately turned into a very exciting and cliffhanger-y episode. (The season finale, it turned out, and if I was understanding right, the last of the episodes available on Netflix streaming.) So I did kind of get sucked into staying up to watch it, and didn't get to bed until nearly 11:30.

So, naturally, Alex woke me up at 5:50.

But I didn't wake up to, "Mommy? I had an accident."

Nope. I woke to the sound of him singing to his toys in bed. I got up and went to check on him. "Hey, buddy. Did you have an accident?"

"Uh.... Nope!"

Holy cow. He did it! A whole night without an accident! Whoo!

"That's great! Give me five! Yeah! Okay, now, why don't you go sit on the potty."

"I don't want to!"

"Alex..."

"I don't want to!"

I'd had just about six hours of sleep. I am not a six-hours-of-sleep kind of person. I didn't have the energy to fight it. "Okay. But no accidents, okay?"

"Okay."

"And you need to go potty before you come snuggle with Daddy and me."

"Why?"

"...Because I don't want you to have an accident in my bed. I'm gonna go get some more rest. Play quiet until you hear the music, okay?"

"Okay."

Five minutes later, our alarms went off, and like magic, a little blond head appeared at my elbow. "Mommy I want to snuggle you."

"Go potty first, kiddo."

"Okay!"

And that was that. I'm not foolish enough to think we're done (especially since I suspect his success had something to do with his extremely minimal dinner last night), but that was a much-appreciated glimpse of the light at the end of the diaper tunnel.

We can postpone or even do without his nap from time to time. We're nearing the end of diapers and pullups altogether. And I realized this morning that he can reach the light switch in his room all by himself, now. (A table by the door puts that switch further out of reach than the other switches in the house.) I may very shortly have an honest-to-gosh Big Boy on my hands.