The honeymoon is over

Man, the kids really stuck it to us last night. Dexter woke up for his usual 3:30 feeding and subsequent bout of squawking/fussing/general-being-awakiness. Unfortunately, Henry picked that time to wake up and climb into our (crowded) bed for a cuddle. Usually when he does this he falls right back to sleep. But Dexter woke him up fully. He started climbing all over us, babbling on about random stuff, and generally being a nuisance. By 4 a.m. we were all wide awake, and crabby. At some point I drifted off. I woke up at 6:30 with Dexter lying beside me, Tom and Henry nowhere to be found. I located Henry in his own bed, Tom asleep on the floor beside him. The hardwood floor. Ouch. No, it was not a good night for any of us.

Yes, I still want a king size bed.

So, Dexter is getting fussier. And while Henry is still being very nice and loving to Dexter, but he's figured out that this "little brother" creature is sticking around, and that means less attention for him. So he's in a bit of a mood now and has started punishing me and Tom in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The most obvious and messy being a regression on his toilet training. He's been pushing things by waiting until the last second to use the toilet, which often leads to little accidents, but this afternoon he peed on the rug in his playroom when Tom wasn't available to get him a snack from the fridge. Ick. And yikes! I'm not sure what to do about this kind of acting out. How do you balance empathy about the fact that the child has gone through a major disruption in his life while still making it perfectly clear that peeing on the floor isn't an appropriate response to that disruption?