the marker episode

   And....we're back!! After a long hiatus from blogging, I've decided to give it a try again. Starting with Saturday - and our adorable, sweet, innocent boy... 
   First, let me back up to Friday night...we heard some loud sounds coming from Camden's room (when he was supposed to be sleeping), so we decided to investigate. To our astonishment, our tiny boy had slid his entire bed across the floor. (It is only a toddler bed, but still...) He had perfectly good reasoning - he needed a boost to to turn on the light, so that he could play with his cars. And that's just the beginning of our weekend...
   Let me now fast forward to Saturday, nap time. This has become a current struggle within the McNew household - Camden refuses to sleep when it is still light out ("It's DAYTIME, Mommy!!"). Nevertheless, we still feel he needs some down time (Mommy & Daddy need it, too!), so we still go through the motions of settling him down for a nap.
   Finally, the boy was settled in for "nap" time, I went out for a quick run, and Steve was doing some things around the house. All seemed relatively quiet. Then, just before I jumped in the shower, I heard what sounded like sliding...he was obviously sliding his bed across the room. I decided to let it go for now (we obviously needed to have another "talk" about not moving the furniture around in his room), figuring I'd go in to get him when I got out of the shower.
    Well, after my shower, I tiptoed down the hall to his room - it seemed awfully (& suspiciously) quiet. As I slowly opened the door, I was greeted with a very happy, "Look, Mommy!" Camden eagerly showed me his hands - they were covered with black scriblbles. I nervously surveyed the room...his dresser, his walls, his door, his window, his bed sheets, his cars, his body - all covered with black scribbles. He had managed to dig through a dresser drawer to find a black permanent marker that I had once hidden away, long forgotten.
    I called in for reinforcement, and Steve quickly came to check the damage. He quickly got some goof-off to salvage the dresser, walls, door, & window, as Camden's giggles danced around in the background. We were NOT amused. The goof-off made the black scribbles disappear, but it also took a little bit of the paint off. We scrubbed Camden's hands, tummy, legs, and feet - and it was off to the bathtub with Daddy to finish the job.
    Whew, never a dull moment! The only regret of the day was that we didn't take any pictures to capture Camden's artistic masterpiece.
    Of course, the weekend of unfortunate events was not yet over. Sunday brought on another difficult naptime - this time, I walked in to find some of my Willow Tree Angels broken and shoved into the diaper pail. Our favorite little monkey had climbed up onto his bookshelves to retrieve some of the breakables we had puposely placed out of his reach. Sadly, he broke the one of me holding him as a baby, and even more sadly, he broke the one I had gotten for him in memory of my mother (a "guardian angel" with a small boy). We cleaned up the pieces, and hopefully I will be able to glue them back together again.
    And....the weekend grew longer with an unexpected snow - I mean, ice - day on Monday. We decided to break up the day by driving down to Hagerstown - this provided a nice way for him to fall asleep for his nap on the lengthy drive back up - it worked. :)    
    As crazy as our weekend was, it still is such a joy to be around such a happy little boy. He really does keep very high spirits, and he loves to play games and sing songs. One of his favorite songs to sing is "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.... where? ... down in my heart.... where? .... down in my heart...."  Love it!!!! :)
    So that's it for now....I hope I can be more consistent in keeping up with all of Camden's antics on this blog!