TGIF

I'm beginning to think that Dad being home more is not a good thing. Last month, he was away maybe five nights. The kids have adjusted to having two authority figures to keep them in line. Now, when dad is away, they transform into little creatures with horns and tails. I'm having to refocus their attention away from disaster and back to the wooden spoon with a hole in the middle of it.

It doesn't help that I'm still trying to get over this crud that's been going around lately. For two weeks, I have coughed my lungs up every night. It only bothers me at night for some reason. More about this later...

After a day filled with moaning and whining, we were sitting down to dinner. I say "we," but I really only mean the kids. I dare not eat until everyone is in bed, so I can try to enjoy a moment of peace and quiet. Back to my point. Frijole Man somehow managed to spill a whole container of yogurt all over his booster chair, the big chair, and himself. The only way to really remove it and the other crud that had been growing on the chair for who knows how long is to get ammonia and SCRUB. I shined his chair up and made it so clean and went on to put the used ammonia-soaked paper towels in the trash. I proceeded to bathe the kiddo's not giving the cleaning anymore thought. Everyone went to bed and I came back downstairs to clean up the rest of the day that was still lying around. I noticed the paper towels had been removed from the trash and chewed on by our furry little friends. It was going to be a fun night. :(

Around 9:00 pm, Frijole Man woke up crying. He's been going through this whole "don't close the door" phase. That would be fine except that he shares a room with his brother who would escape in the middle of the night and would probably bring the whole house down. We repeated this scenario at 9:30pm. I had already decided I wasn't going to watch my TV addiction, choosing to have a quiet evening instead. Nice thought.

At 10:30 pm, Big E wanted to have his turn in this little game. Finally, I got to go to bed. Here's where the coughing comes into play. I have to be really still in order to stop coughing. Any time I move it starts up and I cough my lungs up for at least a half hour. At 11:45, I wake to this obnoxious beeping noise. I followed it upstairs to Pod's room. She had set her alarm clock again. It's also a CD player, which is what she really uses it for. I fumbled around and tried to turn it off. Then, I went to make sure she was covered up, only to realize she wasn't in her bed. I found her snuggled up in my bed. Next came the coughing episode only to be followed by the alarm going off again with some happy Spanish tunes playing. This time I made sure it wouldn't happen again. More coughing.

When I had finally fallen back to sleep, it was Sydney's turn. There was (well, still is) a laundry basket full of dirty clothes that never made it to the wash the day before, sitting next to my bed. Sydney loves to sleep in the dirty clothes. At 2 am, she began to have a seizure. She has these a couple of times a month and we have had her checked. Ugh! I knew this was a reaction to eating the ammonia-soaked paper towels. I took her outside and she fumbled around for awhile. She stood by the backdoor and we went in and out literally fifteen more times. This is terrible, but I wasn't about to call poison control for animals, because they charge $75 just to talk to you and it was 2:45 am. So, I gave her some water and snuggled her back into the laundry basket. More coughing.

The next thing I remember is seeing Bubbie's bubbly face at 7am. Let's hope for a better day! :)