BED TIME

Two word:

BED TIME

Dang.

What a stinkin' difficult day.

I think we really ought to observe the Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Because Sundays are DEFINITELY the Devil's day not the Lord's day. At least they are at my house.

I'm going to give you a brief rundown of the day.
(Mike, do not call care.com back and tell them to send someone out .... promise?)

It starts at 7:15. -I can't complain about that.

We eat, dress and leave for church.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Just regular WORK.
(see, I don't even observe the Sabbath the way it is supposed to be done anyway.)

We get to church and I:

• open the van doors,
• get Jack out of his seat,
• instruct him to get on the sidewalk,
• throw my purse over my shoulder,
• place the diaper bag over my shoulder,
• put Ty on my hip
• pick up my Bible
  

yes, I look like a pack mule -except that I am wearing a cute skirt and kitten heels.

My Bible is unzipped and when I pick it up, special papers that have been stored in there since the last decade, FLY out (very windy day).

Hmm.

Lovely.

Onward we go. Jack walks toward the nursery then decides he'd rather do other things. (whose idea was "free will" anyway?) Now Jack is fussing, I need to get Ty out of my arms to address this Jack issue.

I hand Ty into Dodie's outstretched arms (his wonderful Sunday school teacher).
As Dodie brings him in toward her body, he throws his head back and SMACK!

Pops her on the cheekbone with the back of his head.

The sound it made echoed down the hallway.

If you are my real friend then you are cringing, not laughing.

Are you?

I wasn't even sure how to react to Ty giving an adult a black eye. That hadn't come up yet in my two years, nine months and nine days (but whose counting) of parenting.

I don't even remember what happened to Jack. Maybe some other nursery worker convinced him to go to class.

I just stood their looking at Dodie thinking:

"I... I... I don't even know what to say. Maybe I shouldn't say anything.... she's in pain.... people in pain don't want to know how sorry you are. They just want to stop hurting. So much for Ty's biggest advocate in the nursery. Dodie was one of three friends who came to Ty's birthday party. Next year we aren't going to have to make as much cake...."

She needed ice. I told her I would get it. She insisted that she'd get it, probably thought I'd done enough already. I walked to the kitchen with her anyway...

Good grief.

Word travels fast. By the time I got to the education building and up the stairs, people already knew of Ty's assault on Dodie.

Seriously?

Yes.

And we all thought South Side women don't gossip...

At least now I have a good "bad kid" story for the next retreat.

The day doesn't end here. You might as well go get a cup of coffee and come back.

After church we were invited out with a large group of my friends. Sounds good. I felt like we could pull it off because a sweet young friend of mine had offered to help with the kids -and she is good with kids.

We get to Rosa's, order our food, sit down. No part of that was easy. The boys are hungry. Ty prefers not to sit in a highchair. Jack wanted a drink 5 minutes ago and I can't find a lid that fits our cup. Nice.

Our order comes. Jack is content for a few minutes with his burrito. Ty, not so much. He screams. The other "better" moms are looking at me. They look with pity in their eyes. I shrug and try not to look too embarrassed.

Ty screams off and on (mostly on) for the next 10 minutes. I finally give up and give him the Dr. Pepper. First time he's had carbonation. He liked it.

So the relaxing part of lunch looked like this:
Ty drinking through a pinched straw.
Jack eating a very messy burrito.
Becca holding Ty, pinching the straw, and nibbling on a soft taco.

When the Dr. Pepper was gone, so were we.

I don't think the whole table had gotten their food when we left.

I left in defeat. There was no hiding it. Had I waited it out another 10 minutes, I might have been able to fool some people. Didn't happen.

I buckled the boys up in their car seats, started the engine, and wouldn't you know it, those sweet little angels were asleep.

I was hungry. I thought about picking up some fast food.
I didn't.
We got home. I carefully, slowly, gently pick up Ty to transport him to his bed...
and
can you guess what is coming?

He wakes up.

I put him in his room to keep him quiet while I bring Jack up to my bed.

I carefully, slowly, gently pick up Jack.....

He wakes up.


Where do I go to check myself in? Do I need to drive myself to a mental hospital or will they pick you up?


Tonight they had corporate worship at church.

I feel like I need to confess, I wasn't too interested in hearing about the Old Testament feasts from the Jewish guy.

My main motivation for attending tonight was

two words:

FREE CHILDCARE