My wonderful mother is a wonderful cheerleader (this is historically accurate and also a good metaphor). The other day when I sent her this email, she said I should get back to writing a blog, so I took the names out and am sharing it with the world at large. I know you'll enjoy it, so sit back and relax and start reading about a terrible, terrible night I had last week:
Oh, what a night. EB had a cold yesterday and an earache when I got home at 6:00. I called the doctor who said to put a wet washrag over the ear; maybe it was just from sinus pressure and not an infection. I gave her all kinds of medicine, including homeopathic cough medicine and the hard stuff that you aren't supposed to give to children under 4. (Don't tell). And acetominifin (sp??!!!). We had a date to go to PM and CM's house and I asked if she still wanted to go. She said yes; she wanted to show CM her ear.
Of course when we got there the first thing we saw, as is becoming customary, is PM up on top of CM's minivan. They get home and just stay there. CM monitors and PM waits on the top of the car for us. He wants to show AB and EB what he can do. Then my girls get on the top of the car, we remind them 1) not to jump, and 2) this is a trick for CM'S CAR ONLY. NEVER ANY OTHER CAR. Then they get down and go inside.
The first thing they did was go downstairs to the basement where CM has an old porch swing hung up. So strange. They sit on it and rock it back and forth sideways and bang it into an old dresser (also strange). I told CM that while I could say lots of things about him that start, "CM is the only person I know who [fill in the blank]" including, "CM is the only person I know who lets the kids ram a swing into a dresser over and over." Then we went upstairs to get dinner started (always a $2.50 or $1.50 sale) frozen pizza. The kids went outside and wanted to play with an orange rope. The orange rope was the extension cord connecting the electric lawnmower to the socket on the outside of the house. I said that is not a good rope to play with. And then CM said that it would be if we unplugged both ends. So he and EB did. Then the kids all stood on the porch with sections of extension cord that they were hanging over the railing and trying to swing like lasos. They kind of did it. AB's was the best, because she has spent the most time watching the "Ride 'Em Cowboy" musical number from the Elmo Wild West show. I think that at some point PM got hit in the head. He definitely kicked over my plastic wine glass, which was good because I really didn't need a second glass of wine. Things were already crazy enough.
Then last night when we came home I gave EB all of her tons of different medicine plus a melatonin pill to help her sleep (I do this when there doesn't seem to be any hope of them going to sleep on their own) and propped her up with lots of pillows. Then proceeded what I can only call musical beds. Every hour or two someone woke up and needed something. If it wasn't EB with her ailments it was AB because she was having a bad dream. I personally slept with EB in her bed, with AB in her bed, with both of them (separately) in my bed, and by myself on the couch, oh, and in EB's bed without EB. AB slept in her own bed with and without me, and in my bed with and without me. EB slept in her own bed with and without me, and in my bed with or without me. When it looked like both girls wanted to sleep in my bed with me, I was trying to figure out where exactly I would be lying when AB announced that she wanted to go back to her own bed (she'd been in my bed alone for a long time) so that worked out well. I think we all took our final positions at 4:00 a.m. when my alarm went off to wake me up to do the translation that I'd been too tired to do last night. EB was alone in my bed at that point. I was on the couch. She started yelling, and I had to go in and turn off the alarm and comfort her. Of course she asked for more milk, and her sippy cup was completely and utterly lost by that time, so I found a slightly less desirable one in the kitchen, where I ran into the cat, who had had enough of this charade and thought that enough was enough. If I was going to keep getting up, I could damn well feed her too! So I did. And then I brought the second cup of milk back to EB, who was of course alseep again. I got in bed beside her and she woke up enough to grab the cold sippy cup and settle it down on my previously warm arm. And that's how we found ourselves at 8:30 when AB wandered in.
The first thing I asked EB was, "Cómo están tus oidos?" and she smiled and rolled over. And then I said it in English: "How are your ears? Do they hurt?" This was a CRUCIAL question because if they hurt, then I'd have to take her to the doctor in the morning and would have no time to do said translation that was due at noon Argentina
So once we were all up and out, I got my translation done with 19 minutes to spare and now it seems like a good day to look at fabric online. And then take a nap.
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