Lullaby, And Good Night...

I don't have a napping kid anymore; Susie is 3 already and if I let her sleep midday, she's up until 10 in the evening. But I've spent over 16 years lying down after lunch with one baby or another, and I've come to require that little siesta for myself. In fact, I get really cranky without it and throw tantrums. I even have a special blankie that I bought at IKEA (a purple throw) that I need to use at nap time. I don't know what I'll do if I ever have to pursue full-time employment - can people nap at work?

If there is one thing that raising kids has done for me, it has given me an abiding appreciation for sleep. Aaaah! Isn't that a pretty word? Sleeeeeep. I just loooove the feel of a cool pillowcase against my cheek. Is this weird? Tell me if it's weird. Then I'll know not to mention my addiction to anyone in real life. It will be our little secret. And I'll train the kids to say, "Mommy's upstairs ironing" when neighbors come knocking on our door midday.

No, no one would believe that.

How about "Mommy's upstairs cleaning the bathroom"? Forget it, serious credibility issues there, too. I need an alibi for my afternoon snooze! Anybody got one? G-rated, of course...we don't need the neighbors laughing at us again.

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It's not too late to comment on yesterday's post and be eligible to win Leave The Building Quickly! I didn't begin to do this book justice yesterday. It stands up well to a second reading, and is chockful (sp?) of a variety of semi-insane observations and analogies that catch you by surprise. (Well, they catch me by surprise, anyway - maybe I'm slow.) The essays range all over the place, from her beloved grandmother's Alzheimers to her son's fear of fire alarms to her brush with a life-threatening disease. And it's all funny! Don't you find senile old people and traumatized children and near-death experiences amusing? No? Well, you will, after you read this book.

I don't know how she does that.

Tomorrow, a post documenting my weekly refrigerator sweep. Because, believe it or not, I do try to clean it out regularly...

Sibling Fight Management 101

Aaah - another refreshing night's sleep on the couch. Susie has a cold, so I felt as though I was sleeping between the dueling banjos of snoring until I finally went downstairs for a decent night's sleep.

David and Larry returned from camping unscathed. David had a great time, notwithstanding his extreme reluctance to go on this trip. He found a new best friend, and Larry enjoyed talking with the best friend's dad. It is interesting that, even though they spent a full 24 hours together (including sharing the same tent), Larry never discovered that this guy's kid is homeschooled also. David told me. Because he is only 10, and so has not yet developed the non-communication skills of a true guy. Give it another year, and he wouldn't have known either.

Uncle Matt got tired of the sleep deprivation (hey, that pun wasn't intended, but it's a pretty good one) and packed up and got the heck out of here. But not before we all watched The Man Who Knew Too Little last night. If you're a Bill Murray fan, this is a must-see. I missed it when it came out 11 years ago, as I was having a baby at the time.

Rachel and Susie keep having altercations of one sort and another, and they are all very emotional. I am not used to having 2 girls fighting. It's always been boy-girl or boy-boy. People got mad, but they also got even. Theo would pinch Anna. Anna would take his toys. (They don't do that anymore.) The boys just punched each other. Rachel bit Brian a number of times when they were littler and then he'd yell, "I'm telling Mommy!" Somehow, it was a lot simpler. Girls, however, get very emotional and there is much wailing and screaming of things such as "I hate her! She's mean!" accompanied by these big, gulping sobs and huge tears rolling down their cheeks. It's overwhelming. So I smack them.

Ha, ha - kidding. I just mail them to India.

Stop that! I don't know what to do, actually. But I don't worry about it too much, because I know that before long they will have outgrown this stage and gone on to be teenagers and won't that be fun?

I feel a list coming on...

WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN KIDS FIGHT

1. Talk so your kids will listen ('cuz they don't listen unless you are siding with them)
2. Use your conflict resolution skills (see #1)
3. Call your husband at work and have him threaten them over the phone (not very effective and it annoys him no end)
4. Try to be fair (as in, "Now, Susie, you've had a turn with the old, bent spatula from the kitchen drawer; now give Rachel a turn.") This technique rarely works because (you guessed it) they both want the crappy old spatula first and who cares that they have a perfectly decent set of play kitchen tools of their own that cost more than all your cooking equipment put together, not that that bothers you or anything...
5. Scream "Shaddup, youse!" and burn them both with your cigarette (Ha - joke - though it is tempting... it's a good thing I don't smoke, I guess)

Instead,

SIBLING FIGHT MANAGEMENT

1. Studiously ignore them - they just want to find out who Mommy loves more. Also, most fights evaporate after a few minutes. Intervening too soon prolongs the disagreement, leaves you with a splitting headache, and annoys you no end when you see them playing happily together 10 minutes later as you lie on a couch nursing a migraine.

2. If the fight lasts more than a few minutes, or turns violent, take away disputed object. Hide it. Out of sight is truly out of mind. Kids are way distractable.

3. Redirect the fighters' interest ("Oh, look! I just saw a giraffe outside! Quick - go see!"). See above re distractability of young offspring.

4. If undistractable, the fighters should be put in separate rooms and allowed to scream at each other safely from behind closed doors while you go back to lying on the couch and nursing your migraine. This approach has the advantage that you can drink something, um, comforting without the little brats seeing and telling Daddy.

5. Remember to say at some point, "Just wait until Daddy gets home!" Sometimes the old ways are the best.

Someone Here Hath Murdered Sleep

Well, I had The Talk with the kids tonight. All 6 of them. I sat them down and told them, "Remember - either be a doctor or marry one." That way, they won't have to watch one of their children cough her lungs out all night long, again, because they can't get their hands on any codeine cough syrup.

The doctor did prescribe some other cough medicine over the phone, some namby-pamby crap, and I told him, "It won't work. You may have 8 years of med school, but I have 16 years of raising children. Give me the good stuff." No dice.

My lord, I am so pissed off. I really feel sorry for whichever doctor we finally see tomorrow morning.

Am I crazy, or should a sick kid be able to see a doctor the same day that the kid is ill? I do have superpowers, but I am still not able to predict a day in advance that my child is going to be up all night coughing. I'm just not that good. I admit it.

And, in case you think I'm sounding a little insane, you're right. Chronic sleep deprivation will do that to a person. Do you know how long it has been since I have had 4 hours of unbroken sleep? Have you any idea? Prisoners of war are treated better than this.

You know, friends don't let friends blog sleepless. I'm signing off.

(But, oh yes, Larry caught our little rodent friend this morning. And disposed of him. Once again, I am glad that I get to be the helpless female. While he did the dirty work, I hid in the bedroom. Of course, now Larry is suffering from what I call his Hemingway Syndrome - the way he's acting, you'd think he'd bagged a cougar.)

Who Needs Sleep?

All my kids get croup. I blame Larry, who had it himself as a kid. (When all else fails, pin it on your husband.) Rachel is ensconced in the armchair under the open window now, breathing in the cold air and trying not to freeze to death. Susie is upstairs with the window open and what Larry calls the eucalyptus stink-bomb nightlight going full-blast in our room. Larry thinks he is going to sneak off to work tomorrow. Won't he be surprised to see those slashed tires on his van? (insert evil laugh here - I can't spell it) Not so fast, Mr. Croup Genes - your wife needs some sleep.

I feel as if I am in one of those sleep deprivation experiments. My brain feels foggy. This morning, at the Christmas party (which we made it to, amazingly enough), a woman I had just met asked me what Susie's middle name was, and I couldn't remember. I can't remember the woman's name either; but that doesn't matter, because I don't think she is going to talk to me again.

Of course, I could be doing something useful, like housework. Or knitting. But it's hard to settle down to doing something productive when you know you are supposed to be sleeping. So, I'm sitting here, mindlessly surfing mindless blogs ("I went to the dentist today. It hurt." "My 3-year-old drew a picture today. I hung it on the frig."). C'mon, people! Make something up if you have to. Just make sure it's amusing. I need a laugh. Don't you care?

What if famous people from history had had blogs? FDR, say?

Told Congress today that we weren't selling or giving away any war materials to the British, we're just leasing them.

(next day): Congress passed LendLease today. Suckers!

(one month later): Churchill wants to know why he isn't on my blogroll. Because he's not funny, that's why. I don't care if you're the king, for heaven's sakes; you have to be funny.

(one week later): Eleanor made me delete the entry where I said that she couldn't cook. What's the use of being the President of the United States if you can't blog what you want?

You know, I think I am going crazy. And now I've messed up the font for this post. Maybe I'll just go do that housecleaning after all. It sure isn't going to get done tomorrow.

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....

Regurgitation, revisited

Larry and I managed to sneak away after dinner last night to take a walk at the Town Center and listen to the live music they have there in the summers. We enjoyed our date for almost 10 full minutes before Theo called to inform us that Rachel needed to throw up; we sped home so we wouldn't miss any of the excitement. I don't know what's with that kid. I just know that there is yet another dinner that I won't ever be able to eat again. There's quite a list now - the delicious sausage chowder a friend made us last summer, the great salisbury steak recipe we tried out this past winter, the spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce that we enjoyed last night - just a few of the many dishes that have been ruined for me by the sight of their regurgitated versions. Thanks, kids!

It's difficult to sleep well when the odds are good that your kid is going to throw up again during the night. At half past midnight both Larry and I heard a child cry out for us and leaped out of bed like firemen hearing an alarm bell. Wrong kid, though - psych! - just Susie coming in to share our bed for the rest of the night. Rachel waited another hour - you know, just long enough for Larry and I to get back into a comfortable slumber - to wake us up. Obviously feeling quite chipper, she wanted her comforter back (we had confiscated anything we didn't want to wash the vomit off of) and her stuffed bunny and a few other things. We staggered back to bed, relieved that we weren't cleaning up more vomit, and knew no more until daybreak. This pattern of interrupted sleep (16 years of it, dammit) is getting to me. I believe the sleep deprivation is eating away at my brain cells.

Which may explain why I can no longer figure out how to operate a simple appliance such as my new dishwasher. Reading the manual is too overwhelming, so I just push random buttons until it lights up and starts making those gurgling sounds. But I love my dishwasher. And it only costs us 77 dollars a year to operate! I figured that out all by myself, thank you. You see, the tag said it only cost 22 dollars to operate; but that refers to normal use (defined as 4 loads a week). 4 loads a week! If that's all I had to do, I wouldn't need an automatic dishwasher. So I managed to extrapolate to 14 loads a week. It took me a while. Probably used up my last few remaining brain cells to do it, too.