Birthday Parties and Napless 3 year olds

What a dreadful combination. Merrick and I attended our neighbor, Jerilynn's birthday party this afternoon. What was I thinking. Merrick woke up at 6:15 this morning. We ran some errands this morning, walked around some garage sales, and then headed to Cole's baseball game. She was struggling to sit still at the game, but I thought I would have time to have her lay down before the party. Wrong. we didn't get home until 1:30 and then we had the party at 2:00. So we changed our clothes and headed over there. She was a mess from the beginning. She just wanted to play with jerilynn's toys, not do the party activities. She melted down more than once and finally after presents and cake I drug her home. She melted down for another good 25 minutes and is finally asleep. Ughhh.... Lesson learned, Merrick needs a nap. It's hard to know what to do in that situation though. She was so excited for the birthday party and this was Cole's first game-so I felt like I needed to be there for him. Plus with Macy coming, who knows how many of Cole's games I will see this fall. I am beginning to realize what it means to have more than one child. since Cole and Merrick were so far apart, Cole is the only one who has been in any activities. As Merrick gets older, I am realizing the reason my mother stayed home and didn't attend every activity. She still had the other kiddos to deal with. Priorities are beginning to be realized by this momma, now if I could only make Tom see this. He always makes me feel guilty if I miss Cole's game. He, on the other hand, misses many of cole's school activities, but doesn't feel the least bit guilty about these. I know he will understand once he starts staying with the girls this fall, atleast I hope!