I can’t sleep

so I was looking through the archives on my old blog.  I realized that my life is much easier these days.  Only I didn’t know that because I blocked all this shit out.  Really.  I was amazed when I read this stuff.  Here’s an example. . .

Thursday, February 12, 2004
   
 
   

I
woke up this morning really happy that we didn’t have to go anywhere
until 4pm since I’m really feeling this cold. I decided to take Willow
to see my doctor, who is the other kids’ pediatrician, for a 2nd
opinion about the feeding tube and when to use it (some docs say night,
others say day) and for how long. So, other than the doctor appointment
the day was pretty open.

It began with Sophie throwing a
shrieking fit (just ask D; we were trying to talk on the phone) because
I wouldn’t let her have an entire bag of veggie soy crumbles. Frozen
veggie crumbles. I put a little in a bowl and offered it to her. Of
course she screamed and threw the bowl and flipped out because she
wanted the bag. Last night she did the same thing because I could not
take her to OUTER SPACE. Really. She was screaming and sobbing, "I go
owdder pace. Pease. Owdder paaaaaaace!" Yeah.

From there things
settled a bit. I let Nate and Soph watch the Power Puff Girls so I
could feed Willow and drink my coffee and read the paper in peace.
Well, peace except for the sound of the PPGs beating the living shit
out of Mojo Jojo and Fuzzy Lumpkins. Eh, well.

I called the
mother’s milk bank where I was led to believe doctors had sent my
breastmilk to be scanned for content and quality control type purposes.
Didn’t happen. Somebody was trying to shut me up. That would be why
they kept telling me the results were, "not important," when I kept
asking for them while we were inpatient.

While I was on the
phone with the lovely woman from the milk bank (I’m not being
sarcastic) Lexy got dropped off. The woman, C, who drove him home
handed me one of those dreaded slips of white paper with the checklist
of what germs your kid has been exposed to at school this week. You
know: strep, tb, chickenpox, and oh please no please don’t let it be oh
nonononononono oh surely not. . . Yup. Lice. Ahhhhhh. Not this, not
now. C said she checked him well and he seemed fine. If you know us in
real life, you may have some idea why I live in huge fear of headlice.
John and I both have long hair. Mine is shorter than John’s and dark;
his is blonde and down to his butt. If I can comb Sophie’s hair once a
day it’s amazing and I can’t imagine her sitting still for me to do the
monkey mom lice picking thing. The boys, well, one boy in particular
who is in first grade, would WHINE and WHINE if I tried to keep mayo or
olive oil on their heads for hours. We have tons of pillows and
blankets on the beds and since we have kids there are stuffed animals
in every nook and cranny of this place. Then there are the hats and
coats and dress up clothes. Then there are all the people who have been
babysitting for us lately.

I did what I always do when I don’t
know what to do. I called my mom. She said to take them to the
barbershop and cut off that scraggly long hair of theirs. So, we did
that. And we weren’t kicked out of the barbershop by any barber because
he spied critters in the boys’ hair. So, I’m hoping we’re safe. I
stripped the bed anyway, but that comes later in the story. Two kids
have lice. As fate would have it, one sits right next to Lexy and the
other is one of the kids Lexy has been spending lots of time with
lately. I’m gonna be sweating it out for a few days. If those boys are
at school tomorrow I’m going to call their mothers and do some yelling.
I don’t care if they have to miss the valentines day party. They won’t
remember that when they are grown up, but if we get lice I will have to
live with hellish memories of it until I die.

Amazingly,
Sophie was well behaved at the barbershop. She sat and played with the
assortment of broken, hairy happy meal toys and only ran outside one
time. She did get a lollipop stuck in her hair, but was not too freaked
out by it. After, we went to the ice cream shop next door and then she
sat in the stroller with her cone while we walked home. The kids ate
their icecream on the front step together. It was a Kodak moment. Then
Soph dropped her icecream on the ground (inevitable) and slurped it up
off the cement like a dog. The boys washed the porch for me.

I
fed Willow and we left for the doctor. We had to wait ages to see him,
but I’m glad we went. He basically agreed with all the prescribed
treatment. I just wanted to go because he’s been my doc for a good ten
years and he has always taken care of my kids, too. While there, Sophie
got another lollipop stuck in her hair and she kept running away. Nate
used the exam table as a springboard. Lexy whined to go home.

We
got home ten minutes before John. I had nothing to cook for dinner
because we’ve been to the doctor so much this week and I can’t go
shopping with all the kids. So John ran to the store for eggs while I
put Willow down for a nap. I made pancakes and scrambled eggs and rice
and we had egg burritos and pancakes, which is a little weird I guess.
Lexy had a plain tortilla with plain rice. He is getting harder to
please lately. He eats barely anything. During dinner Sophie made a
huge mess with her rice and syrupy pancakes and even the syrup
container.

After dinner things got insane. Let’s see if I can
remember it all. Sophie needed a bath and hair washing, so John put her
and Willow into the tub. I washed her hair while she screamed and
splashed me. I took Willow out and asked John to watch Soph and the
boys, who were now in the tub. After Willow was dry and in jammies and
had all her wet face tape replaced, she pooped. I changed her, then
took her to John so I could wash the boys’ hair. Soph ran around in her
robe and got in and out of the water a few times. Then we hooked Willow
up to her tube, and everyone got out of the bath and brushed their
teeth. I asked Lex to strip the bed and Nate to wipe down the tables
while I did dishes and Willow played on the livingroom floor. John was
in our room, shaving and washing the maple syrup out of his beard.

Nate
tried to move a big ceramic bowl full of nuts from one table to the
other and he dropped it. His thumb was bleeding so I told Lex to get
John right away to help. John appeared, half his face with shaving
cream on it, talking on the phone. I told Lex to sit with Willow and
wrapped Nate’s thumb in a washcloth. I showed him how to put pressure
on it so I could clean up before anyone else got cut. Nate was really
crying and I said, "That must really hurt, honey." He said, "No, but
last time I broke a bowl I got spanked." (didn’t happen here, folks,
that’s all I’ll say) I assured him SEVERAL TIMES that the bowl was
unimportant and that I was just worried about him. Then he wanted me to
save all the nuts. I kept what I could and apologized to him since I’d
asked him to put the nuts on the kids’ table to clean the big one. He
said it wasn’t my fault, and that he’d moved it before without dropping
it. "If you wanna blame anybody, blame Santa for bringing too many
nuts," he said.

The kitchen clean, we went to the back
bathroom for a bandaid. And tape. There was a fair amount of blood.
John was washing his face and Sophie appeared holding a little poop
ball. Truly one of those "what now?" moments. Finally, somehow, I
finished stripping the bed, remade it and got the kids down. Lexy was
really mad that he didn’t get as much tape on his finger (incredibly
small but painful splinter) as Nate did. Nate said, "Lexy. I can’t give
you my cut." We read a little of Farm Boy. John left for work. Soph and
Lex conked out, so Nate and Willow and I went to the bed in the girl’s
room and cuddled and giggled a while before those two dropped off. I
finished the book I was reading.

It’s a crazy life, but I would never trade it.  (Nobody in their right mind would trade with me!!)

   

posted by Jenijen |
11:37 PM

6 thoughts on “I can’t sleep

  1. Sarah

    Wow. Sure makes your life today seem… PEACEFUL!

    I’ve never been a fan of dwelling on the past, but there is tremendous value in not forgetting where we have been. Because it makes the blessings of today that much sweeter. 🙂

    Reply
  2. marian

    Although it would make good blogging material, in a way I’m glad I don’t have any archives of how hard life used to be. It’s like you don’t really want to remember what labor feels like, ya know?

    But honestly? You never cease to amaze.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to mamadaisy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *