Why my book club conversation will be less than scintillating tonight
My husband's away for a couple of days. The kids were being all cute yesterday. Angus's homework was tangrams - turns out making squares out of triangles and parallelograms is not one of his strengths or mine. Eve's homework was assigning gender to French nouns. Eve is very visual and has a good spatial sense, and Angus has flipped a few French dictionary leaves in his time - at one point I looked over and they had traded homework. I tried not to dwell on the ethical implications.
After homework and piano practice, Eve had about a half hour before bed, so I said she could watch TV in the living room. Instead, she went downstairs where Angus was playing video games and he turned off his game and they watched TV and wrestled. The heartwarming music of their laughter led me to make the exceedingly stupid mistake of agreeing to a family sleepover. Actually, any time Angus still wants to do a family sleepover I get all mushy and amnesiac and I succumb to the Hallmarkness of the moment.
It's all fantastic at the beginning. Eve snuggles into Matt's spot and I drag in the single mattress from the bed that's under Angus's double loft bed - it goes between the bed and the dresser. We read and they chat and giggle. They turn out the light and Angus pretends he doesn't 'mind' Eve's music, when he actually really likes it. Last night I was nodding over my book extra-early, which I thought was good - if I was really tired I would sleep well even with extra company. Right?
I fell asleep hard at about 9:45. I woke up desperately needing to pee and thinking it was probably about 3 a.m. I looked at the clock. It was 11:31. I had the best sleep of the last five years..... for an hour and three-quarters. Then I was awake. Hardcore awake. And my children are not quiet sleepers. There is loud breathing and snoring and tossing and sniffling and grunting. Eve uttered a few phrases at one point, something about rosebuds and pathways and helmets. There's an outside chance she's some kind of sleeper agent and Stephen Harper should keep an extra close eye on the state secrets today. Angus kept flailing his arms and hitting the bed or the dresser.
I tried to think peaceful thoughts. I knew I was still tired, and I tried to deep-breathe my way back to sleepiness. I tried to enjoy the fact that my children wanted to be with me. Then I pointedly rolled Eve back over to her side of the bed and jerked the rolled-up comforter out from under her in a fairly ungentle manner. Which had exactly NO effect. Ten seconds later she was back on my side, elbow in my stomach, snoring contentedly. I debated going to her bed (loft beds are a little beyond me at this point), but I'm really bad at sleeping in beds that aren't mine, and I had visions of them waking up and coming to find me.
Eve got up at ten to seven and I stole twenty more minutes, which she interrupted by coming in to tell me that meet-the-teacher night is October fourth, which she discovered by reading the newsletter that she left beside my computer, because she knew I'd been wondering about it. I said thanks.
Somebody remind me not to let the little buggers fool me with their cuteness again. For at least two or three months.
After homework and piano practice, Eve had about a half hour before bed, so I said she could watch TV in the living room. Instead, she went downstairs where Angus was playing video games and he turned off his game and they watched TV and wrestled. The heartwarming music of their laughter led me to make the exceedingly stupid mistake of agreeing to a family sleepover. Actually, any time Angus still wants to do a family sleepover I get all mushy and amnesiac and I succumb to the Hallmarkness of the moment.
It's all fantastic at the beginning. Eve snuggles into Matt's spot and I drag in the single mattress from the bed that's under Angus's double loft bed - it goes between the bed and the dresser. We read and they chat and giggle. They turn out the light and Angus pretends he doesn't 'mind' Eve's music, when he actually really likes it. Last night I was nodding over my book extra-early, which I thought was good - if I was really tired I would sleep well even with extra company. Right?
I fell asleep hard at about 9:45. I woke up desperately needing to pee and thinking it was probably about 3 a.m. I looked at the clock. It was 11:31. I had the best sleep of the last five years..... for an hour and three-quarters. Then I was awake. Hardcore awake. And my children are not quiet sleepers. There is loud breathing and snoring and tossing and sniffling and grunting. Eve uttered a few phrases at one point, something about rosebuds and pathways and helmets. There's an outside chance she's some kind of sleeper agent and Stephen Harper should keep an extra close eye on the state secrets today. Angus kept flailing his arms and hitting the bed or the dresser.
I tried to think peaceful thoughts. I knew I was still tired, and I tried to deep-breathe my way back to sleepiness. I tried to enjoy the fact that my children wanted to be with me. Then I pointedly rolled Eve back over to her side of the bed and jerked the rolled-up comforter out from under her in a fairly ungentle manner. Which had exactly NO effect. Ten seconds later she was back on my side, elbow in my stomach, snoring contentedly. I debated going to her bed (loft beds are a little beyond me at this point), but I'm really bad at sleeping in beds that aren't mine, and I had visions of them waking up and coming to find me.
Eve got up at ten to seven and I stole twenty more minutes, which she interrupted by coming in to tell me that meet-the-teacher night is October fourth, which she discovered by reading the newsletter that she left beside my computer, because she knew I'd been wondering about it. I said thanks.
Somebody remind me not to let the little buggers fool me with their cuteness again. For at least two or three months.
Comments
I actually said AW, MAN out loud to an empty room.
I really liked this, though. When I was young, my stepdad worked some night shifts and my mom would invite me to sleep in the big bed. I got to stay up late, watch Dynasty, and share her potato chips. It felt good to remember it.
It is nice they still want to sleep with you, though.
You're a good mommy...like really good. I would have been carrying them back to their beds, no questions asked. You're a really good mommy...wait, I already said that...