In which I wish The Mighty Thor were not in Vegas this week working.
What Husbands Are Good For
Part One: They take up space in the bed, so you don't have to have conversations like this:
2:45 am
Tinkerbell pads softly into my room.
TINK: Mama?
JACQUI: (snort)
TINK: (leaning on bed) Mama, I can't sleep.
JACQUI: I can.
TINK: Can I lie here with you?
JACQUI: Okay, but no talking, no touching me, no putting my hair in my nose.**
Tinkerbell climbs into bed.
JACQUI: Good night, my love.
TINK: (rustle, rustle...sniff...sniff) Mama?
JACQUI: What?
TINK: There are no tissues near your bed.
JACQUI: Go get some toilet paper from the bathroom.
TINK: Your bathroom or my bathroom?
JACQUI: I don't care. Shh.
TINK: (goes to bathroom, blows nose...blows nose again...blows nose...is in danger of blowing nose off face. Opens metal garbage can. Clangs lid closed. Returns to bed.)
JACQUI: Good night, my love.
DESTRUCTO: Mama?
JACQUI: (telepathically) GO BACK TO SLEEP, DESTRUCTO.
3:19am
TINK: Mama?
JACQUI: (sucks drool back into mouth)
TINK: See that shadow over there? Where there's the dark part and two light parts?
JACQUI: What?!
TINK: That kind of looks like you in your glasses.
JACQUI: Tink, you have to go to sleep. It's the middle of the night.
TINK: Actually, it's 3:19.
JACQUI: That's the middle of the night.
TINK: No, midnight is the middle of the night.
JACQUI: 3:19 is night.
TINK: But it's a.m.
JACQUI: No more talking. Go to sleep. (thinking to herself: This is annoying. I have to sleep. She's going to wake up Captain Destructo and I am screwed. My wrist hurts. I typed too much yesterday. Tomorrow's blog post is hilarious. Except that one part. I should delete that one part. When did I schedule it to appear? Maybe the whole thing is bad. Yes, the whole thing is terrible. No wonder nobody reads the blog. What aboutthefivehundredthingsIhavetodotomorrow? I HAVE TO GO TO SLEEP. What the heck is Tink doing over there?! SLEEP NOW! SLEEP NOW!)
TINK: I'm thirsty.
JACQUI: (deep, aggravated sigh) Okay. Stay here. (goes downstairs, deletes whole blog post, gets milk, returns to bed). Drink this and go to sleep.
TINK: (rustle rustle, slurp. Crash.) Mama, can I ask you a question?
JACQUI: Does it have to do with sleeping?
TINK: Why is your clock table so far away from your bed? I almost fell!
JACQUI: Can we discuss my furniture placement in the morning?
TINK: But I can't reach my cup!
JACQUI: Good night, my love. (does not sleep. Can not possibly sleep now that my to do list has come into consciousness...)
3:30am
A train goes past, choo-chooing in classic fashion.
DESTRUCTO (over the baby monitor): Choo choo?
TINK: (giggles)
JACQUI: Shh!
TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!!! CHOO CHOO CHOO!!!
DESTRUCTO: Choo choo! Mama! Choo Choo!
TINK: (giggles) Choo choo!
TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!
JACQUI: (thinking: what the heck is the train conductor doing? Shut up! I hate you, conductor of the train. I hate you hate you hate --)
TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!
DESTRUCTO: Choo choo!
TINK: Choo choo!
JACQUI: Stop it.
TINK: He's doing it.
JACQUI: (turns off baby monitor) No, he's not. Go to sleep.
3:35 am
DESTRUCTO: Mama! (loud enough to be heard down hall without monitor) More choo choo! My want more choo choo!
JACQUI: (cries softly to self)
TINK: Mama, what should I do with this? (reaches hand very close to my face)
JACQUI: What is it?
TINK: A booger.
JACQUI: Blah! Blah! Put it in a tissue.
TINK: I left them in the bathroom.
DESTRUCTO: Mama! My have llama drama 'bout choo choo!***
TINK: (giggles)
JACQUI: (throws self out window)
Sigh. Wish it were fiction.
Have I raved yet about the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney? Love them. Hilarious, completely real about kids' emotions, and the bonus perk of the phrase "llama drama," which your kids can use to refer to useless tantrums. If you have kids 2-7, I highly recommend these. And a bed that can't possibly hold any children.
* Is "For What Husbands Are Good" the grammatical choice?!
** All of these things are past infractions.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
What Husbands Are Good For*
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18 comments:
LOVED this...probably b/c I've pretty much LIVED this.
Godspeed. :)
I feel your pain. My night was kind of like that to, only there was more crying on the part of the children.
I love the way you tell stories.
Now . . . it's nap time.
I need to check out those llama books!
Christy
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks about furniture placement in the middle of the night.
Oh you poor dear! I find one standing over my bed every other night. And I let her in because the other two have done it for the last nine years while she was sleeping soundly. Will it never end? I wish Thor home with great expediency!
Ha! My word verification is FIGHT. No kidding . . .
I remember those nights! Every great once in a while my 11 year-old will join me in the middle of the night, but thankfully, she goes right to sleep.
My 13 yo son heard me reading Llama Llama Mad at Momma, and said "That's the Best. Kids. Book. Evar."
(Present company's books excluded, of course:) He hates shopping.
ridiculously enjoyable post, my friend -- hope you get a nap.
ROTFLMHO! Loved this! I hope tonight is better for you, Jacqui. Have you killed the conductor yet?
Tamarak, I think we all have.
Christy, do go check them out. I love them. And as Ephelba said, Llama Llama Mad at Mama, is great too.
Candace, with alarming regularity!
Elise, I guess it could be worse for you; it could be goats.
Nora, good to hear. I'm always telling myself, "Enjoy it. Someday she'll be 11 and she'll never want to snuggle."
Thorp, I think "ridiculously enjoyable" is my new writing goal.
Rena, ha! If I meet him, he is going the way of the squirrels...
I miss having a little one in the house...sigh...the only thing that happens in the middle of the night now is when Koda has to potty and he steps on my head when he gets off his pillow and then walks over my stomach and legs before getting off the bed...He may look little, but he weighs a ton!!! grin...
Brenda, I wonder how many people here will guess that Koda is your husband... :)
My night last night was almost exactly the same. The baby sleeps in bed with me, so when the toddler came in screaming at 3:30, he woke up as well. No one slept much after that, except me, on the couch, when Franklin was on T.V. I was dreaming about turtles, the baby was in the swing, and the toddler was poking me in the arm yelling "wake up!"
This is perfect. My word verification is MOMPUSS. How could that NOT be more perfect for this post? I mean, really, mompuss? Is this computer AI?
OMG, been through that a million times! Not so crazy about the second Llama book, but the first is a GEM! My daughter walks around saying "Mommy, you are always near, even when you're not right here, right?"
So funny! One night when my daughter was 2 or sp, she yelled for me to come into her bedroom at night. I hurried in, she holds up her fingers and asks, "What number is this?"
Groan...
She is six now and wakes me up frequently in the night when she has bad dreams.
A treasured memory: I told my 4-year-old middle son that when he woke me up in the middle of the night, I did not have as much energy the next day for playing with him. The next night, he tiptoped in and tapped me ever-so-gently on the shoulder. "Mommy," he said, "did you hear me not calling you?"
Lois, now GrannyNanny for this son's own son.
Amber, your computer is not, but my blog is. I can see everything you do :)
Corey, I just found out Anna Dewdney is coming to the Ann Arbor Book Festival this summer so Destructo can meet her. Fun.
Kelly, that's a great story. Groan indeed.
Lois, welcome! Love the story. I told my daughter the same thing, but she suggested I take a nap. Sigh.
Hilarious post.
I laughed so hard, my children wondered what was up. And why is it that the small children appear on MY side of the bed in the middle of the night instead of my husband's? He's snoring away, and I awake with a start to find a tiny face inches from my nose saying, "Mama?"
Pat Zietlow Miller
Pat, thanks and welcome! I recommend rearranging your furniture so your husband always has the side of the bed near the door. Not that I do that, er, um, hope The Mighty Thor doesn't read this...
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