About Last Night

Last night was a bad night. A really bad night.

I should preface this whole thing with telling you about how tired I am. I am really, really tired. I'm worried about my blood iron, that's how tired I am. I also don't know if blood iron is a term, or if one should say the iron in my blood, but I am averse to trying to figure out how to spell anemic. I always add letters randomly. Well, looky there, did it anyway.

I am sleeping okay, but I never stop going when I am not sleeping and I am worrying myself into an early grave, which I think takes more energy than running a marathon. (Ironically, it causes you to horde calories (in case you're worried about starving) rather than burning them, so if you are trying to decide which activity that really wears you out you would like to participate in, pick a marathon. Unless you are dangerously underweight, then start worrying.)

Last night was grocery night. Well, actually Saturday was grocery day, but it didn't happen, okay? Okay. So, I went with both girls to the grocery. I don't know if there is a blizzard coming or what, but the grocery looked like some kind of fall-out shelter. The only carts that seat two children there are the stupid, cursed, evil, hated, miserable, terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad car carts. So, we got one, God help us.

We started at the bakery, because they give free cookies to the kiddos and who couldn't use a few minutes of sugar-induced quiet at the store? No one, that's who.

Almost immediately, though, Brynna started whining about how hungry she was. And how she had finished her cookie and she was still hungry and couldn't she have Maren's? Maren had only eaten a couple of bites, so couldn't she PLEEEEAAAAAASSSSSEEEEEE have the rest?

After arguing and slapping her hand away from the cookie a few times, we were on our way. Slowly. You see, the store was packed and the car carts are huge and hard to maneuver. Also, the seat belts are all broken in them, so Maren likes to stand up. This worries me, because she may just tip over the side, fall headfirst to the floor and die. Or scream. Both would be bad. So, I had to stop a lot to make her sit back down.

When we finally finished our shopping, there were only two checkout aisles open that were not Express Lanes. Every single, freakin' one of those was open and only two regular aisles. So, we waited. And some of us cried. And some of us whined. And some of us let the whining and crying continue in hopes that some errant Grocery employee would get annoyed and open an aisle for us, just to get us the hell out of there. I'll let you decide who was who.

On the way home, Brynna fell asleep in the car. When Brynna falls asleep in the car, one of two things is going to happen. Option 1: You are going to carry her into the house, body dead weight, head lolling around, almost drop her, nearly let the cat out the door and come close to giving yourself an aneurysm. Then, you drop her on the couch, pull a blanket over her and she opens her eyes, and completely clear-headedly asks for something to eat. You stare in amazement, because this child who usually requires 4.7 hours to be a functioning, awake human being, just woke up in 4.7 seconds. Or she was faking sleep. Option 2: You are going to carry her into the house, body dead weight, head lolling around, almost drop her, nearly let the cat out the door and come close to giving yourself an aneurysm. Then, you drop her on the couch, pull a blanket over her and she doesn't move. This is when you know you are in trouble. She will not be waking for nine to twelve hours. This isn't so bad if it's 7 or 7:30, really terrible if it's 2:00 p.m.

Last night was Option 2. When it's Option 2, your best bet is to let sleeping Brynnas lie. Carry her to bed, strip off her shoes and coat and pull up the blanket. No pajamas necessary because she'll never notice until morning. I chose to wake her for supper.

This was the wrong choice. 45 minutes later, I had her finally calmed down and eating something, although it wasn't what I had lovingly prepared (thrown haphazardly into the oven while putting away groceries). While she nibbled, I got Maren ready for bed. Clean pajamas, clean diaper. I was waiting on her medicine when she made a funny sound. Like a truck in reverse. Or a sea monster emerging from the deep. Oh who am I kidding? There is nothing to compare that noise to and every single solitary parent recognizes it. It is the sound of vomit. You have less than half a second between the sound and the vomit to do something about it. Anything. Get her over a towel, or run for the bathroom or point her somewhere else. I had no such options. I was sitting on the floor.

Moments later, I was stripping off her no longer clean pajamas and diaper and freaking out, because she may have a VIRUS!! Did I mention that The Husband had food poisoning this weekend. It was bad. I thought maybe it wasn't food poisoning. Maybe it was a virus. Maybe Maren has it now. Maybe we're all going to die!!!! Or miss work. Whatever.

Sitting in the bathroom, while my supposedly sick child splashed and giggled, I cried. I sobbed. I tried to figure out what I was going to do. She had one more pair of clean pajamas, no clean clothes whatsoever, one clean sheet that wasn't on her bed and I needed sleep. This was going to be a bad night. On top of that, I have time scheduled off this week for various Decembery type of activities and I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to get them done. Who would take Brynna to the dentist?!?! Who would accompany her to her open house?!? What would I do if I had to spend my precious time off trapped in the house with my vomiting child when I needed to be doing these other things.

I mentioned that I was tired, right. It seems that exhaustion makes me melodramatic.

The Husband offered to get his mom to come down and watch the house, which made it worse, because I'd have to clean for her. No matter what he thinks.

Finally, I got Maren to bed. She was wiped and she was asleep before I left the room. Walking down the hall, I noticed an odd noise coming from the bathroom. I opened the door, and saw a frightening sight. The Husband, plunging the toilet.

I asked what was wrong. Like an idiot. Oh, well, a squirrel called in and died, so I'm removing him by scooping him up with this funny bowl on a stick. What did I think was wrong?!? He told me that he had been at it for about ten minutes and he didn't think it was going to work. He said we'd probably have to call my dad and get the snake. I took one look at my beautiful toilet and thought about what that would entail: bailing out the water, pulling it up, snaking through the floor, replacing toilet. (I assume, I've never actually snaked a toilet, so I don't know if this is how it would be done, but I can only imagine.) It would be at least the next day before we could do anything about it.

I asked him if he wanted me to take a turn. He laughed. A patronizing laugh. Then handed me the plunger. I've never plunged a toilet before, but I had desperation on my side. And stubbornness. And a really bad day. And no tequila. I plunged to save my own sanity. And it worked. The only thing the whole night that worked, but it worked. I almost sobbed with joy. Instead, I forced him to declare me the Queen of the Toilet. He didn't want to but he eventually gave in.

Now, in addition to being tired and sleepy, my arms hurt. I was ready for bed. Except. Oh, there's always an except, isn't there. Except, I forgot about Brynna's snowflake presents. Her class, instead of buying gifts for each other, buys gifts for the classroom. Then they open the gift another child brought and they see how it takes a village or something. I really don't get the Montessori lesson espoused in the letter home, but I get this: Brynna doesn't come home with some crappy $5 or less piece of plastic flotsam that is going to add to the clutter on my floor.

She has two classes, regular and Spanish and needed a gift for each. Today.

So, at nearly ten o'clock, tired and miserable, I went to the basement in hopes of finding some shreds of last year's Christmas paper. Or bags. Oh, the prayers I said for bags trudging down those stairs. I had to unpack some stuff, but bags I found. Vaguely Christmasy ones and everything. There was much rejoicing. Songs of praise.

Then there was stuffing, pink tissue paper, because I didn't have red or white or green or even black. Then there was collapsing into bed. Where I slept until the 5:30 alarm. Because Maren doesn't have a virus and probably gagged herself with a Barbie brush.