How my household is sleeping (or not) tonight.

I would like to apologize right now to my poor kids' teachers. You see, they are still awake and it is way past bedtime. We sent them to bed earlier, but for some reason they aren't sleeping tonight. Our 7-year-old just loudly threatened to tell on our 10-year-old for turning out his bedroom light. We were torn between reprimanding the latter- "Leave your brother alone!" and "Why are you not in your own room?"- or reprimanding the former- "Why is your light BACK ON?"

Kind of like the Tattle-telling About Open Eyes During Prayer dilemma.

 For the record, we reprimanded both. And NOT in our sweetest voices.

Anyway, I feel now like we should have gone with the Pretend You Didn't Hear Them So You Can Believe They're All Actually Asleep route. We'd save my vocal cords and not feel guilt for their teachers tomorrow. After all  Peter worked two twelve hour shifts this weekend, leaving me solo with all six kids both days long, so we're both entitled to a little self delusion.

Speaking of sleep, my husband is a couch sleeper. Not is a bad marriage sort of way, but in an I'm not tired yet, I'll be up in a zzzzzzzzzzzzz sort of way. Drives me slightly crazy, but he might come to bed more often if I didn't sleep-complain about the noise level of the TV. Hey, I can't help what I do after I'm already asleep. (Which is, incidentally, the same argument he makes for the couch sleeping.)

Would it be bad to sneak melatonin into his Diet Coke? So he would be tired enough to come to bed when his fuddy-duddy-early-bed-time wife does? It's not like I'm sneaking in Viagra or Arsenic or anything. It's like sneaking vegetables into brownies. Only with a natural sleep aid that I'm half convinced works for me placebicly. (placebo-ic? placebo-like? Imaginatively?) 

By the way, I would never actually sneak vegetables into brownies because the only one in the house who doesn't like vegetables would be the one doing the sneaking. My kids beg me to add broccoli to the menu. It's weird, I know. Also, they order asparagus at restaurants. Maybe all that healthy eating has made them immune to sleep. Or, more likely, they sneaked some of Peter's non-melatonin-ed Diet Coke.

---

Peter is snoring next to me on the couch while he watches the football game he recorded during his 12 hour shift. If I wake him up, he'll claim he wasn't asleep and not ready for bed yet. Also, I think I heard one of my sleeping children walking around upstairs.

So I am going to convince myself the footsteps are ghosts and slyly steal the remote out of Peter's hand to watch something more interesting. Then attempt to trick Peter into bed. 

(And yes, I know the play on words I could make about the tricks needed to get him to come to bed, but I'm above pointing them out. Oh crap, I guess I'm not.)

Good night.

  

My life is a little busy

School can't be in session for over a month. I refuse to believe it as it would mean accepting "once things get settled" must already have happened. This level of busy can't actually be my baseline!

I blame encouraging the kids to get involved at school.

        And having five kids in school.

        And needing to entertain the lonely one left at home.

        And needing the whole month to get my house to approximate some level of post-summer clean.

        Although, it would've been cleaned much sooner if the kids didn't come home from school everyday.

Speaking of which, does anyone else suffer from Mopped Floor Syndrome, whose primary symptom is having something red, sticky, or voluminous spill immediately after mopping?

I'm not bitter about the can of soda spilled on my just-mopped floor after dripping off my just-polished granite. Not bitter at all.

But the 20 socks I picked up off the floor this afternoon (and or threatened the kids to pick up)? Totally bitter. I swear some of the kids double up. Which is weird, as every time I check they've forgotten to wear socks at all.

I cleaned over 8 hours today. Tomorrow I will run approximately 5000 errands.

---

When Peter surprised me with an overnight bed and breakfast trip for my birthday last month, my brother and his family came and watched the kids. The list of what they needed to do was two pages long. After we came home, we asked them if they took advantage of our bathtub (of which, I just realized, I've never posted pictures). "No," my sister-in-law replied, "by the time I got the kids all in bed, all I could think was that I had to get up in the morning and do it again. So I crawled to bed."

I took it as a lovely compliment (or maybe just grateful acknowledgement of how exhausting my life can be sometimes).

Which reminds me, I really need to get to bed. Tomorrow will come way to early.