Gleeful TORTURE

So, I have started waking up consistently. Which, is the goal. To be on a schedule. Unfortunately, I consistently wake up at 3:30 in the morning. Now, you might think it’s because I sleep in “the sardine can” with a husband and three kids that scurry around the bed, completely asleep, like a pile of ants when you mistakably step in one of THEIR beds. And perhaps that is a ginormous contributor, though even when Starling was gone for 4 days and my parents took two of the kids for a slumber party, WHO was WIDE awake and bushy tailed at 3:30 in the morning? Yeah. Me.

I am always completely confused at what actions should be taken when I’m quite capable of mental and physical function that early in the morning. Thus far, I’ve attempted sleep. “Go to sleep. STOP thinking! YOUR STILL THINKING! Fine, then. Think of your alarm going off. That’s always worked to get you to sleep when you had to go to school and work.” Is it better to just get up for the day? Be a productive member of my family? Crank up the vacuum and hock some clutter? I mean, as long as I closed my bedroom door, my WHOLE family would be clueless. Except, of course, Eric, our 22 year old roomie sleeping in Bry’s room. But, I kind of find joy in scaring/annoying/sabotaging him, so that shouldn’t be a factor in my decision making.

OR, is it better to force feed sleep? And stare aimlessly at my ceiling fan and wish I had a doughnut to eat. I just don’t know. When my alarm goes off at 7, I will undoubtedly be the most EXHAUSTED human on planet Earth, staggering through a thick fog of mental incompetence, dizzy as a drunkard on Mardi Gras, and incapable of productivity until at least 10 a.m. (Though that mattereth NOT in the SLIGHTEST, because my children do not WAIT for my ABILITY to function. If left alone with a CORPSE, they would demand it RISE and make them CHOCOLATE MILK). And, if the corpse EVER wanted to be DEAD in PEACE; it would RISE and fulfill the little gremlins’ wishes.

As my choice has lead me to neither sleep NOR productivity… I am BLOGGING. (Though, I can’t be all that certain of the sense I’ll be making at such an outrageous hour). But. That’s never stopped me before.

I promised Eric he would make my blog, though he did beg and plead that he wouldn’t since his dear ole’ uncle reads it. HOWEVER, since I DID promise… I can’t break it.

I MAY have mentioned my enjoyment of treacherous trickery. WELL. Poor ERIC.

We buy 3 gallons of white milk and one gallon of chocolate milk. Every. Week. I already know it would be cheaper to buy a cow, but I barely have time to pump my own self, let alone milk a cow. A goat… maybe. But, I still haven’t tasted goat milk. Anyway- I’m getting completely off the point of this rambling story.

There is another milk jug in my fridge that looks com-PLETELY different, as it holds DIFFERENT milk. Eric was telling me how he poured milk from the “unique” milk jug into his cereal, and it looked different than normal; more watery. But, he ate it anyway.

I then shared with him WHY there is a jug of milk so DIFFERENT than the others in the fridge. “Total protein shake,” I told him. “Pure gold.” He turned solid white. And suddenly felt very ill. And then I told him all the new nicknames I could call him. He looked like he might faint.

“WHY didn’t anyone TELL me you keep BREASTMILK in your FRIDGE??!!” I shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”

“WHY is it not LABELED!?!” He questioned.

“Ugh… it looks COMPLETELY different than all the other jugs in the ENTIRE fridge. That’s all the labeling we need.”

“I’m going to die,” he concluded.

And Starling came home shortly after and I grabbed the milk jug and said, “Starling. Look what Eric drank.”

Without missing a BEAT, Starling eyes widened in shock and he started cackling. Eric, his ghostly pale face taking on a tinge of green, yelled, “I DIDn’t KNOW! You should LABEL or WARN someone about keeping breast milk in a MILK JUG!”

Starling and I couldn't resist. We simultaneously broke out in boisterous singing, "My milk shake brings all the boys to the yard!" complete with dance.

Just so everyone is CLEAR; I do NOT keep breast milk in a jug in my fridge. My parents dropped off the quarter-full skim milk on their way to their cruise. Didn’t want it spoiling and going to waste. Ah… thanks to Eric, it did neither.           

Because I became CERTAIN Eric was going to make good on his “I’m going to DIE.”- I told him I was just lying. But, because I was still laughing and Starling went along with the scandal so seamlessly, Eric is still concerned about the matter. AND, I may have said, “Would it make you FEEL better, if I told you I was LYING?” And alluded to the fact, I was just TELLING him it was a lie… to save his feelings. (I have an addiction to torturing people for my own entertainment. I know it’s not right. I should seek some kind of help. But it is just so FUN)!

I hope I never run for office or have to be in some sort of trial. That last little tid bit, taken out of context could be quite damning! “I have an addiction to torturing people for my own entertainment. I know it’s not right. I should seek some kind of help. But it is just so FUN!” Ohhhh, I should really be asleep right now.

On a positive note, for Eric’s sake, our cabinet man should be returning to put on our countertops and drawer guides tomorrow. I MAY, if some catastrophe stays put and doesn’t decide to infringe on my celebratory dance, no longer have paint splattered BLUE countertops! Not that they aren’t beautifully delightful. They have nothing on the matching wallpaper that will soon be travertined. By soon I mean when Starling HAS a minute. And apparently his minutes are a little wrapped up in making money. And every time I TUG him away from work to slave over a house project… well, it takes a crap load of money to remodel a house. And we’ll never be DONE remodeling houses since Starling and I seem to be ADDICTED to projects and gluttons for punishments. And, of course, taking our marriage on roller coaster rides and dangling it off cliffs to see how strong we truly are. He better watch out. He’s going to be spoon feeding me in a crazy house before it’s all over. Wiping drool from my chin. Washing my straight jacket for me.

But, until then, we’ll find ways to amuse ourselves at the expense of our children and the ones we borrow.  

The Outting

OH the JOYS of motherhood! I wish I could blog AS my life where happening instead of trying to remember how I managed to survive another day.

Today, I mostly tried to keep my darlings OUT of the house so Starling could tile the kitchen. So Brighton and Teagan, the 3 year old I babysit, played outside while Brooklyn had her violin lessons. Boeing also played outside which is why I will be pulling pine straw out of his fat rolls for the duration of his childhood.

Even in the solid shade, it was 3.6 million degrees. I felt like a polar bear being roasted like a marshmallow. I might as well have been wearing a fur coat with mittens, for I was BAKING. And entertaining children for a mere thirty minute lesson shouldn’t be that difficult, right? Heck, I think I only went inside a house to sleep when I was that age. We wouldn’t even go inside to pee. Of course, I stayed with my grandma who didn’t believe in air conditioning and had a wood stove that she kept burning up until June when she’d give it two months off and resume heat stroking her grandkids by the end of August. So, perhaps outside was more bearable than being indoors for me. But, that’s beside the point. My cousins and I built forts, made mud pies and ate them (though my grandma had chickens running around so I try not to think about what was in that mud), played house, etc. I don’t remember ever thinking… “I’m outside. Therefore I am bored.”

Boeing immediately set to cramming as much pine straw into his mouth as his little hands could muster, getting frustrated that both handfuls weren’t fitting so well. Brighton saw a cat. Enough said. Poor cat. Teagan started crying that she wanted to go inside. I called them over to teach them a really cool game. (Your welcome, Cat). Throw the pine cone at the pine tree. I demonstrated. Oh what joy! Bry thought it was more fun to throw the pine cones at the cat, and when it ran away, at my van. Teagan threw a pinecone at the tree, missed, and started crying that she couldn’t hit it. OKAY. Next game. Who can find the longest stick? Bry did. Unfortunately, he found it up IN a tree, still connected. This is because it was a LIMB. But he proceeded to try to LIFT the PINETRESS to DUMP out the tree limb. For obvious reasons, he was unsuccessful. Teagan found a stick. It broke. She cried.

At some point, I mentally gave up and thought Brooklyn emerging from her lesson was a mirage. But, thankfully, she was, actually finished and we loaded back up and stopped at the library. Finally, a nice relaxing sit while the kids play with the giant choo-choo- train set. Oh. Except today was some book reading activity thing. We got there after it had just finished. But no one left. It looked like a stork went postal and threw all the criers into one pile. Talk about weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. D-DANG. Brighton laid claim on a train and spent the rest of the time trying to defend it, Brooklyn attempted coloring, but little hands kept grabbing her paper, the crayons, etc. Teagan found some stuffed animals and was content until a baby decided he needed them.  ALL of them. And Boeing was in Heaven. He found a discarded train, climbed INTO the metal bookshelf, and beat the living heck out of the shelf. I had to, of course, remove him, since the people on the street could hear him banging, which royally pissed him off, and he made it his mission to return to his sweet spot for the rest of our stay. So, before the thought of sneaking away and hiding in a bathroom stall for an hour became too tempting, I loaded them up AGAIN and we went to McDonalds.

The entire way there, I am saying, “You are doing a good thing getting them out of the house. They are having fun. Or should be. And Starling is getting to tile. It would be worse trying to keep them out of the kitchen. This isn’t so bad. You got this.”

We drove up. “WOO HOO!! OLD MCDONALD’s! Just like OLD MCDONALD HAS A FARM!” screams Brooklyn. Yes. Exactly like that. We unloaded. People were staring at me like OctoMom just showed her face. I herded the kids into the play area like cattle and asked them to STAY in there while I ordered food. Did they stay? What do you think? And molasses moves faster in a snow storm than so called FAST FOOD. And I MADE my kids drink water. Worst mom EVER to graze planet earth. Because water is not a DRINK. Three lovely tantrums over that, BUT they drank water.

They did, indeed, enjoy themselves at McDonalds. And besides collected enough germs to fill up a five gallon bucket, I have no qualms about taking them back.

It was almost three and I couldn’t take them anywhere else. I took them home. Starling wasn’t done, but I figured movie time in the living room… they would all crash. I mean, I was a walking zombie. I was half heat-stroking, half sleep walking. And I didn’t run around ANY. I sat there. Just spectating the crazy. Did they fall asleep? What do you think? So I did some learning games with them to keep them occupied and OFF the tile. That worked. For a minute. Then they wanted a snack. So I gave them ice cream. Where they happy? What do you think? Brooklyn had a conniption because she couldn’t sit at the kitchen table even though I explained to her 600 times that we couldn’t walk on the tile, Brighton was whining, “I don’t like di-is! Its too BI-IG!” And Teagan didn’t like the color of her bowl. It wasn’t pink. I smiled and walked away and eventually they decided to eat their ice cream.

They were much happier after that and we ended the day on a happy note. Until of course I mentioned the words BED and BATH.  But I won. And I'm NOT leaving my house tomorrow.