The Sleep Saga Continues

As any of you experienced parents out there know, our story didn't end with getting the toddler to bed at 10:30 last night (by whacking her over the head with a rubber mallet). No sirree, Bob! (I've always wanted to write that.) She woke up at her usual time this morning, which meant that by about 4:30 this afternoon (because of course I wasn't going to let her nap), she was a sleep-crazed little animal who was simultaneously screaming to be put to bed and refusing to let me touch her. It was very sad. She finally yelled herself to sleep a little after 5, before I could get any dinner down her. Which means, of course, that she will be up at 2 or 3 in the morning, hungry as all get out. This is known as the messed-up-sleep-routine domino effect, and it takes a few days to blow itself out. Like a hurricane, only less fun.

Those of you who are still childless can avoid this problem by getting yourselves fixed and only adopting a child who is 4 years or older. This solution may strike some of you as being a tad draconian, but such desperate measures are definitely warranted if you entertain any hopes of remaining sane through your declining years. Take it from me, chronic sleep deprivation can really mess with your brain cells.

Enough already! Things aren't all bad. I managed to escape this evening and go to a friend's house for a Pampered Chef party. (Yes, that is how I socialize, and yes, I am the middle-aged suburbanite loser I had sworn never to become.) I had a great time. I drank so much Diet Pepsi, I'm surprised my friends let me drive home (let's face it - after all those pregnancies, I just don't hold my urine the way I used to). But I managed to drive all the way back to my house without peeing in the car; I even got a little bit of mental exercise listening to some talking heads on the radio pontificating over the implications of our prolonged drought. The discussion may have been irrelevant, considering I was driving through a torrential downpour.

I know, I know - you all want to hear about Anna, the teenage girl from heck. Well, I took her to Target today; so she is actually talking to me again. I don't expect that to last, but it is providing a nice respite from the hostilities. She also made us apple pie. So things aren't all bad.

Well, time to get to bed before Susie wakes up looking for the dinner she missed. Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream....

Caught Napping

Got my nap. Anna tried to ruin it by coming in at the beginning and demanding to know why she wasn't being allowed to go somewhere just because she was 3 weeks behind in schoolwork; so I explained to her how, if you want someone to grant you a favor, it's a bad idea to ask for the favor during that person's much-coveted nap time. She wasn't up to grasping this level of subtlety, so I had to resort to saying, "Get out of my room right now. " And she did. And my nap was great.

It's pathetic, but that was the highlight of my day yesterday. And today's highlight was my trip to IKEA. I meet a friend there a couple of times a year and we catch up on things and walk around and look at and discuss just about every single item in the store. Spending 4 hours like that is my husband's idea of a nightmare. Which is why I go with my friend instead.

I finally found a prepaid cellphone company that isn't going to make me buy a zillion minutes to get the cheap rate. Meaning we can keep our cellphone bills down to 400 dollars a year. That's less than 35 dollars a month for 4 cellphones, for the math-impaired out there. And there's no way a teenager can run the bill higher - when those minutes are gone, they're gone! We just have to keep the phones out of Rachel's grasp. There is always the chance she'll have a relapse and start flushing them again.

I've spent the last 10 days or so wondering why the boys' room still smells like barf. Today I finally got around to checking under the bed in there and...well, I guess Swiffering vomit isn't as effective as I thought. So I spritzed the whole area with Windex (only cleaning agent I could find) and wiped it all down (by hand this time) and then I went over the entire area with Lysol wipes. And it still smells in there.

Theo is sitting in the living room giggling (if a teenage boy can giggle, that is) over the ballpoint pen that Anna snapped in half in a fit of pique this evening. Girls are so cute, aren't they? Theo is planning to bring it in to chess club as exhibit A of "Why you may not want to date my sister..."

Home Improvement (or, Why I'd Rather Be Napping)

I am moving to some other country which honors the tradition of the siesta. An afternoon nap would be just the thing to prevent my afternoon headaches. Add to the headaches Rachel talking on and on and on in that high-pitched voice of hers that zings right through my brain like an icepick, and you've got a recipe for insanity. You have to worry when you catch yourself holding your 5-year-old daughter by the shoulders and saying, "Stop talking. Please stop talking. "

Definitely not Mother-of-the-Year material. That's okay. Someone has to make motherhood safe for the less-than-perfect. Right now I am resisting the urge to feed everyone a simple dinner of brownies and apples. I bet they'd still whine about those apples, though.

We had some fun family plans for today. We were going to fetch our canoe from the storage facility where it has been residing, high and dry, for, oh, 3 years and bring it (finally) to its new home at a friend's dock. We were planning to take turns paddling around the lake in beautiful autumn weather and sitting on the grass by the lake munching apples while chatting with our friends. But somehow our plans were derailed by a neighbor who generously offered to help Larry reattach the railings (hey, a pun -get it? derailed? Boy, I'm clever) to our front stoop. (Warning - the abyss of never-ending home improvement lies ahead - not for the faint-hearted.) One railing was held up by a huge bush and another pretty much hung only by one end. So now, after 3 hours of work, both railings are lying in our front yard. This situation is in perfect accordance with the "things need to get worse before they get better" theorem of home renovation. This theorem also explains why we won't have a railing on our brand-new back deck in the foreseeable future. And why above our brand-new kitchen counters is a half-ripped out backsplash complete with exposed dry wall (which isn't staying very dry by the sink, I might add). And let's not talk about what is going on in our basement, where renovation seems to have been stalled out until at least the beginning of the next millenium.

All I can say is, the woman who used to live here sold us a perfectly decent-looking house and, in 4 short months, we've managed to turn it into a dump. It's a special talent we have.

Hell Hath No Fury....

Anna hates me because I expect her to do her schoolwork so she can graduate from high school some day. She started throwing her books around the dining room yesterday just to show me how much she hated me, so I ignored her (as did the rest of the family, all of whom know the drill by now). Unfortunately, no one had briefed David's very sweet little friend Chuck, who I noticed - a few minutes into the episode - standing in the kitchen, clutching his comic books to his chest, eyes darting frantically as he tried to gauge his chances of escaping via the front door. No doubt the studied nonchalance of the rest of us in the face of obvious danger added to his confusion. The look on his face was indescribable (where is that camera when I need it?). I sure hope his mother lets him come back.

Theo, naturally, was glad he had just packed up his stuff for a Boy Scout canoe trip. There's only so much drama one teenage guy can take.

I visited 3 grocery stores today, plus the Farmers' Market. I don't know why that was necessary, but I can rest assured now that I won't have to buy any food for at least 48 hours. Then I decided to take a well-deserved nap. It was one of those delicious, mid-afternoon naps with the sun streaming through the open windows and the ceiling fan whirring away above me. Apparently, I looked too comfortable; so Larry woke me up to inform me that he was going to go to the office for a couple of hours. He could have just left. If someone needed me, they would have screamed loud enough to wake me, I'm sure. So, I hate him. He tried to make up for this gross error in judgment by agreeing to meet me and the kids for pizza at dinner time; but then he stood me up. The waitress kept looking at me funny, because I had requested a separate table for me and Larry, and of course I was the only one sitting there. With my imaginary date. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to order the food without waiting for him. By the time we were almost finished with the pizza, I had made up my mind that nothing less than a flat tire or a car accident could have kept him from joining his beloved (um, that's me) at Pizza Hut. At just that point, he sailed in. "Sorry I'm late," he said breezily, grabbing a slice of pepperoni and apparently dodging the death darts emanating from my eyes. Sorry? Sorry? With no accompanying tale of a close brush with death? No explanation involving rescuing poor innocents from a burning building, say? You know, he's shown himself capable over the years of fitting the clueless-male stereotype from time to time; but today, he outdid himself. If I told him right now that I'm still pissed off, he'd have no idea what the heck I was even talking about. That's sort of cute, in a guy sort of way. But he still owes me chocolate. Twice.

Wet Cement and Other Hazards

The deck guys have been here for 2 days, providing ample entertainment for all. Considering that they had a sizable audience of young children (ours and the neighbors), it puzzles me why they would pour 7 post holes full of wet cement and then leave without letting me know; but no harm done, as I happened to look out my window in the nick of time. I don't know how we would have extricated my neighbor's 4-year-old twins otherwise. On the other hand, if I hadn't averted catastrophe, at least they wouldn't be giving their mother too much trouble from now on - she'd always know where to find them. Now that I think about it, maybe she sent them over here to play on purpose. With her husband away all week, she may have been feeling a little desperate, don't you think?

I managed to keep Susie napless all day today, which translates into a 7 PM bedtime (yes!). Of course, that means she'll be wide awake by 5:30 in the morning; but no matter - Larry can't escape to work on a Saturday, so they can enjoy their morning together. I play with her all week, I mustn't be selfish. And is it really asking so much to sleep in until 7:30 one day a week? Ah, luxury...

I'm trying to remember at exactly what point I signed up for this house slave position, anyway. I can go over a week without getting out of this house by myself and then I feel as though I need to hurry back when I do periodically escape. It's pathetic. Why doesn't someone just slap one of those ankle-monitoring bracelets on me already and be done with it?

Anna was almost pleasant today. So pleasant that I didn't even bother to annoy her on purpose - say, by perusing the photo albums with the other kids and pointing out her picture - "Oh, look, there's Anna smiling!" and "Look at this - Anna's sitting right next to David, and she's not even grossed out." She hates when I do that. But maybe tomorrow I'll take her to Kohl's and then embarrass her by speaking to her in public. That's always fun.