1. Emily is waking up most nights, and even though many nights I don't get up out of bed to go get her, I still have to lay there awake and listen to her screaming. And I would scream back except then there is a distinct possibility that the boys might wake up, which would be bad since Andy was already up once to exchange out his peed in underwear and pajamas for fresh ones. Clang! went the door to the laundry chute. Which was originally a selling point to this house (A laundry chute! How very "Home Alone!") and is now nothing more than one more thing to manage. Who put a pooped in Pull-Up down the laundry chute?? Who tried to stick a whole comforter down there? Who didn't empty the basket at the bottom and got the whole thing clogged up with dirty clothes that fell on my head when I tried to de-clog? Who was clanging the damn little laundry chute door at three in the morning because they wet the bed? WHO?
2. I've been ill. Not deathly, terminally ill, but it's been a rough month for me personally. Strep throat, sinus infection, some kind of virus, the stomach flu, a bout of neck stiffness that had me googling "meningitis" in a panic. I have been on antibiotics and every single over the counter drug that one can name. Go ahead, name one. Or don't. This is my health we're talking about here, not a guessing game to play for fun. I'm finally feeling a little better, but I'm sure tomorrow Andy will bring pinkeye home from school, all gift-wrapped in a snotty little box, and I'll be back to the Minute Clinic before you can say Get A Real Doctor Already.
3. Alex. Alex is time consuming, man. His three favorite words are "Play with me," and I'm pretty sure I spend a solid hour each day sitting on the rug with him nonsensically wiggling a Batman action figure in his direction. Alex loves to play superheroes, and I play with him, because I'm just that kind of dedicated mother. The thing is, Alex never comes up with any good, plausible storylines. It falls to me. And if I don't wiggle the Batman figure just right and add some kind of dialogue ("Hello, Hulk, have you seen my Sudafed laying around? I had to sign like three legal documents to buy it and I'm worried about having to go back for more."), then Alex will look up at me and bark, "You are not playing with me!" And I will bark back, "I AM playing with you!" And so it will go back and forth until Alex finally gives up and asks for lemon pop or I can get the story going with Batman and Hulk on an extra special mission back to the Minute Clinic for more sinus medicine and maybe a bass drum full of cold and flu nighttime cough syrup.
4. Emily. Oh, sure she sleeps a little at night. Oh, sure she naps a little during the day. But she is my demanding little baby, crying the second I try to slip away from her or plug her into the exersaucer or her little bouncy chair. Emily likes to be held. She likes to be fed. She likes to be able to casually reach up and yank on my hair, just to be reassured I'm there. And I savor every little moment with my beautiful, giggling, sweet little last baby. But damn. There's not a whole else I can do. Sometimes, Emily plays Batman with me and Alex. It does not go well. "Emily is licking Wonder Woman's car!" he might wail. And it's true. But, Alex, it's all or nothing.
5. Andy. But he's gone most of the time on weekdays! How could Andy be the reason I don't have time to blog? Because we do homework. We work on reading. We pack lunches and snacks and rush around like crazy people in the morning to make the bus. We go to karate on Saturdays (sidenote, Andy's sweet karate moves are not as sweet as either of us had initially hoped). We draw at night before bed (sidenote: Andy is so much better at drawing than karate.). I help out once a month in his class, where I stare at the teacher with a kind of awe I once reserved for Pantene hair models. How does this lady do it? How do you spend all day with 25 rowdy five year olds and not fire a weapon at some point? How does she not appear visibly drunk? What kind of sane person makes this their career choice and just sticks with it, year after year? Don't you know there are other jobs out there that don't require you to directly interact with somebody else's horrible children? Why don't you sell glasses like I do? (We'll call that reason number 6 that I don't have time to blog, my ten hours away from home each week.). I like Andy's teacher, even if I think she's clearly insane. It helps that she really likes Andy, per our teacher-parent conference. She said to me, "Andy just gets it. He's on a different level than the other kids." I will remember this line for as long as I can. And remind myself that it was a positive thing. I am proud of Andy. I will try not to screw Andy up. Alex and Emily, I will try too. But it might be too late for Alex. And Emily's number three, so let's just admit that she's fresh out of luck. I'm kidding, of course. Kind of.
7. This house doesn't clean itself. I mean, I don't clean it either, but I do straighten up. I do laundry every day. This laundry situation is only going to get worse as the kids and their clothes get bigger. I will likely need a wider laundry chute (and one that doesn't have a streak of pull-up poo down the inside of it.) I do dishes every day. I sweep three times a day. I walk around collecting garbage from the various cans like it means something. I find little things that are broken, cracked, chipped, not working. I order replacement parts, do some light spackling (just call me Spacklin' Jaclyn), add more grout, touch up paint, tighten screws. Oh how handy you must think I am! Well, I do these things. But I'm terrible at all of it. I also walk around wishing I had new carpet. That alone eats up about an hour or so of my day.
8. Driving around, man. Going to preschool, the grocery store, Target, the library, the McDonalds playplace. I will defend the McDonald's playplace until I die. Sure, it's fast food. But it comes with APPLES and MILK. And you should see the workout these kids get at the playplace. Alex comes down from the tunnels a sweaty mess. It's like he's just returning from Woodstock. Or from a nasty tunnel soaked with some other kid's urine. But, no. Let's go back to Woodstock. Without all of the drugs. Just apples! And milk! And antibiotic filled nuggets! Hey, maybe I should have eaten some of those, too. Do you think they also contain guaifenesin?
9. The Sopranos. This is a selfish one. Chris and I finally finished watching the whole series during my small window of downtime each evening. Of course, I watched the whole series a decade ago, but I rewatched with Chris because it's such a great show. I wasn't so sure about the ending the first time I watched. But now I know what happened. There's no doubt in my mind. Send me a tweet if you want to talk about it. Or don't, because my twitter career only lasted two days and now I'm completely locked out of my account. 10. Three kids. I'm not the first person to have three kids. I didn't have them ridiculously close together. I don't have more than three kids, or multiples. None of them have any special needs. It's all good, so far- I'm very blessed. But still. There's three of them. And me. And a husband. And a household. And a part time job. Every day, there's a to-do list that seems unending. And I'm not complaining. But I am explaining. I hope that I can keep this blog up, for me and for these kids. I will add it to the list. But first I will take some more cold medicine, pack a healthy school lunch, find something that starts with the letter Y for Alex's class, rub excema cream behind Emily's knees, and go see if Chris has any interest in "Six Feet Under." Spoiler alert. He doesn't.
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