Unsinkable

So, today was Rose's third birthday party.  I'm falling asleep on the couch, waiting for the kids to finally pass out.  It's almost 11 pm and I can hear them still talking in their bedroom, jazzed up from the party yet.  

All things considered, it was quite a shindig.  We had plenty of family still in town after Thanksgiving, and it made for a crazy and  crowded but fun atmosphere.  Rose was a little slow to warm up to the fifty or so people at her grandma's house, but she found her cousins and friends and generally had a good time.  Towards the end of the night she went crazy dancing, with velcro jingle bells strapped around her ankles, wrist, and waist at various points in the evening… 

We all had a great time.  Thanks to everyone who was able to make it, I'll try to post more later but I'm too wiped out right now! 

So, today sucked terribly at work.  At both of my jobs- the VP job and the consulting.  It was just one of those really, really awful days.  And then I had to pick up the kids and pick up Charles from the train station, which meant navigating downtown traffic and some serious construction.

But we finally all get home.  We plop onto the couch to take a quick breath and Charles tells me to de-stress.  I say that all I need is a moment or two of peace and quiet.  And for some reason the kids started this evil laughter.  This "no way in heck are you having a dang moment to yourself" laugh, which of course makes C laugh too.  But he was pretty sweet, I took a glass of wine and hung out in my bedroom with "lipstick jungle " for a half hour before I made dinner.  It almost made me not irritated that he didn't notice my new highlights and hair cut I had done while he was gone… 

I  would say I have a new respect for single moms, except that I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for moms (and dads) who go it alone.  I am just really lucky to have a great support system of family, friends, and (though he leaves his laundry on the floor) Charles.  I have never really understood how people parent by themselves.  I get totally overwhelmed all the time and I have tons of help!

But Charles' out of town at a conference in Michigan, and I'm here with the kids, and it's quite the challenge. Rose is particularly suffering, I think she's worried he's not coming back.  She 'talks' to him on her various play phones, and has actually spoken to him on the regular phone several times, but she still seems to be exhibiting a level of clinginess and separation anxiety that we haven't seen in a while.  She screamed when I had to leave for work this morning (literally).  Which was difficult for everyone involved.

And last night she woke up crying, which was unusual, and tough.  I wound up bringing her to bed with me at 2:30 am because I had a hard time falling asleep, and wound up staying much later than I'm used to and was at the level of fatigue where you're just not thinking of the long-term consequences of setting a precedent you may regret.  Rose wanted to play with the dogs, then, and I finally had to threaten her with going back in her room to get her to finally fall asleep.  Needless to say, I'm pretty freaking tired today, but hopefully that will work in my favor this evening.  I know, I'm a total baby, but I have gotten so used to my husband's presence (not to mention snoring!) that I have a serious problem falling asleep when he's not home.  Not that we EVER go to bed at the same time…  But it's nice knowing he's around.

Dillon's been pretty helpful, though, and broke his record for the quickest time getting dressed ever this morning…   But I'm still looking forward to Charles coming home.

My kids do.  

They are going through a phase of copying anything and everything.  For Rose, I believe this is developmentally appropriate, as she's learning a new language, and so there is a lot of repetition involved there.  She's coming along quite well on that front, to the point where her conversations actually involve a lot of familiar words- 'popcorn,' 'water,' 'macncheese,' 'wapful,' 'please,' and 'thankyou'.  And she has people's names down pretty well too.  

But now Dillon and Rose are getting into these expressive play/games that involve things like "camping" under the covers of my bed with the dogs, or building cities out of blocks or playing (a sort of sad game of) "catch" where no catching is actually taking place, it's more like they're playing fetch with each other.

Right now, they're sitting at the table with their hands over their (own) ears, singing "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA" as loud as they possibly can.  I am not sure what set that off, possibly my inadvertent substitution of 'kettle corn' instead of the midafternoon popcorn snack.   Why they do not make the box look ENTIRELY different than regular microwave popcorn, I have no idea.  I suppose I should have realized that something was amiss when my house started to smell like I was microwaving a glazed donut, but I just figured that at some point in recent history someone HAD, in fact, microwaved a glazed donut and some goo remained, leading to a peculiar smell coming from the popcorn.  I was thinking about other things at the time, looking through the mail, wondering where in my house I might have a stray diet coke stashed, etc., so it wasn't until I noticed Rose taking popcorn out of her mouth and throwing it to Dharma under the table and Dillon grimacing and saying "Is this KETTLE corn?" that I realized things were not as they should be.  So they started loudly demanding regular popcorn, and as I purchase popcorn in mass quantities I luckily had another box available (with extra butter or some such nonsense).  I left the kettle corn on the counter, as it doesn't mess much with the current aesthetic of garbage everywhere, and maybe Chuck will eat it when he gets home.  Although I like french fries dipped in hot fudge sundaes (and to quote Shakira, 'my hips don't lie') I hate kettle corn with a fiery passion that engulfs my soul. 

As I type I am coming to realize that someone used my computer with buttery fingers (not me) and turned my display brightness down to it's lowest level (my nose was almost touching my keyboard trying to get a good angle to see the display!)

But I have to say, regardless of the popcorn-fingers and volume-level involved with my children, I am particularly looking forward to the weekend with them…