Snobby sickness.

Let me just start by admitting that there's nothing glamorous about strep throat.

There's nothing glamorous about feeling a tad...off for four days before waking up one morning at six o'clock with a raging fever. I didn't feel snobby at all. In fact, I didn't feel anything. I felt hot. And then cold. And kind of bloated in the head region. I felt achy and tired and whiny. But that's really it.

I was really NOT feeling getting up on Wednesday morning, which I had agreed to do in exchange for my weekend off. But I dragged myself out of bed, started breakfast, ate mine and then recognized defeat and collapsed onto the play room couch with my fever.

I wasn't coughing and at that point my throat didn't even hurt, but I felt blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah and it was awful.

By mid afternoon I was done.

I called T and told her so and she came home and brought her mother to help.

We were supposed to be going to the city that night for a birthday party and I had been looking forward to it. I gave all the kids naps and took one myself, but it wasn't enough; I was still deteriorating, so I gave in and went to bed and they got ready and went without me.

I woke up while they were out, still feverish and feeling the disturbance in my throat. My glands were no longer normal sized and my entire neck hurt. My shoulders hurt. My head hurt. Wah wah wah.

T said to me later that I handled being so sick pretty well and I laughed and said no I didn't. I handle the beginning of being sick well because I am in denial for the first few days. Only when the symptoms take over control of my body do I admit to being sick and then I don't even want to be around my constant reminders that I am sick and dying.

And I am always sure I am dying. I lie in bed and think about how this is probably the infection that kills me. It's just like that episode of House (choose one) and this is the end since there is no real life House to cure me. I'll go to the doctor and they'll tell me they don't know what it is and there's nothing I can do and then I'll say goodbyes to my family.

This is what I drift off to sleep thinking about.

I took DayQuil because it was all we had and I can sleep through it just fine and I took Tylenol. I hadn't been keeping track of the doses but I was pretty sure I had taken it last while T was home, which meant 4ish and when I ventured up to the kitchen it was after 7. I was ok with that timing. I got a drink of water and made some tea and went back to bed.

I woke up around 2am then and felt like I was in a sauna. I shut off my delightful electric blanket which I love to brag about and made my shaky way upstairs. It was while I was blindly stumbling up the stairs in the dark that I realized I hadn't eaten in something like 20 hours and a large part of my headache and inability to walk was probably coming from that.

The fever, however, was too busy wreaking havoc to cooperate with my plans to eat something.

I made it to the top of the stairs and laid down on the cold, tile floor. It was wonderful. As I began to nod off, cheek to tile with the dirty hallway, I thought about how funny it would be to stay there all night. Let them come down in the morning and freak out a little. But then I thought about how my headache would probably dim if I got up and ate something. And then I thought about how in another twenty minutes or so I would probably be shivering again.

So I got up and medicated myself and made some tea and drank a mango yogurt smoothie from the refrigerator and then headed back to bed. I was freezing before I got there.

Thursday morning I didn't even try to pretend I was going to work.

Around 10 T came down to make sure I was alive and to do some laundry. She could see I was clearly ill with something awful, and so was her husband. Meanwhile, all three kids had runny noses and J had been leaking at the ears for a few days. She was about to pour bleach all over every towel any of us had touched that week.

She told me I should take an extra two days and head home immediately. Or at the very least go to a doctor in New York and get antibiotics. The message was basically that I was unwelcome to stay in the house with her in my current state. She sent the same message to the rest of her family and then disinfected the entire house.

I made some calls and fuzzy-minded prayers and when I had decided to go home I went upstairs to tell her.

All the windows were open. She had sent E to the doctor and the kids to their grandmother's. The baby was half-dressed, since his clothes had been added to the burn pile and she had scrubbed him down, too. She wasn't even cleaning with the natural stuff that we usually use. She had the hard core stuff and she meant business.

With the spray nozzle in hand, just in case I got too close, she asked me if I had decided to go home. I said yes. She said good and then ordered me to eat something.

My throat had swollen already and I started to say that I had had some smoothie at two am and was fine, but she opened the fridge and started giving me my options.

Not only was I not allowed to get her sick, but I was also not allowed to die and leave her alone with three kids and another one on the way. She's so funny.

I ate some Cheerios with dairy free milk because I love dairy free milk. I don't love fruity Cheerios but I couldn't taste them anyway. And once they were soggy they didn't hurt my throat too bad.

I went to shower and pack.

And then T's mom came over.

I may have told you a bit about her during T's sickness. She's very caring and helpful and full of old Persian remedies. She force fed us both sweet lemons, which are neither sweet nor lemony. They taste like oranges that taste like crap. I'm sorry, oranges that have lost their flavor but then leave an aftertaste; of crap.

She asked me what I had eaten, wasn't satisfied, told me to drink more tea and then stuffed a bunch of citrus into my suitcase. She topped it off with a dry soup mix and a vegetable I didn't recognize and told me to eat it at my mother's house if I wanted to live.

I thanked her and T drove me to the train.

I took a bus from the city and when I got on it I was sweating and tired. Halfway through the ride I was chilling again and I was angry, so angry, that I was sitting on a bus. I started to daydream about demanding that they pull the bus over and Medivac me to the nearest flu treatment center. I thought about closing my eyes and falling asleep on the shoulder of the woman beside me, but I have an easier time doing that with men for some reason.

Instead, she fell asleep and snored like my mother (sorry Mom) and made me all the more irritable about still being on the bus and not off it and anywhere else, anywhere at all.

I was certain that it was warmer outside than on the bus and as my toes went numb and I started to shiver again I cursed the gods of Martz for trying to kill me.

It wasn't any warmer outside or in the bus station waiting room and so I was certain that the problem was me. I got a cup of the worst coffee I've ever consumed from a vending machine but I needed something hot to hold and ingest or I was going to succumb to hypothermia in that subzero bus station weather. Swallowing it made me want to hurt something small and innocent, but once it was down I felt slightly warmer.

Then Mom came and we went to the Emergency Care Clinic, oh the blessed clinic. They gave me a prescription and I whooped and hollered and waved it in the air.

Actually, the faxed it over and by the time we got to the pharmacy it was already in. Oh happy day!!

I took everything they gave me and then everything Mom gave me and ate dinner and beat Mom in a few card games and hit the hay. The glorious hardwood hay.

I was up in the night there too, but nothing was as dramatic as that night back in NY had been. I won't bore you with Friday or Saturday's details, but I will tell you that running home to Mommy was the smartest thing I've ever done. Mommy just so happens to be in a new house and eager to entertain so she waited on me and brought me all my meals. Aside from her additions to the list of disgusting things I had to ingest to make me better, my time there was the best part of being sick.

I just laid there yelling how awful I felt and she ignored me unless it was meal time. It's nice to know no matter where you go in life there will always be someone you can whine and complain and yell to who won't pay you the least bit of attention. And I mean that. She knows I just need to be loud and she doesn't come running every time I add a new symptom to the list. Especially if that symptom is "there's nothing on TV."

Saturday night we went to see my sister in her newest play, Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Shawnee Playhouse (shameless plug) but before that we had a birthday tea at my brother's house. His wife hosted and made everything and we spent the afternoon over stuffing ourselves and talking and laughing, getting in the mood for the play that night, which was hilarious and also really, really well done (shameless boasting).

Sunday I got to visit my home church, the congregation I grew up in and all the friends I've left behind there. The best part is I got to hug several of them, but it was really sad to see how many aren't there anymore. My BFFFFFFFFFFF and her family moved to North Carolina after I moved to NY. It was weird, even though I knew they wouldn't be there, to sit in our old row and not have them in front of me.

After church I had a much needed nap and then visited some old family friends who are saying sad goodbyes to their elderly doggie, who is my favorite doggie of all time.

I was almost entirely well again when I got on the bus that night. I got a good seat by a window and then the bus started to fill up so I moved my giant purse and let someone sit down. Someone turned out to be an amazingly nice looking Hispanic man about my age (probably a year or two younger if I'm being honest, but I'm not. He was my age, mine) who called his mom to let her know he was on his way just as I was texting mine that I had made it onto the bus.

Something triggered a conversation and we chatted for a while before I read a little bit and went to sleep against the window. I woke up on his shoulder and he was asleep too. Like I said, for some reason, this happens much easier when I sit next to men on the bus. I apologized and wondered if I had been snoring but was relieved to see I hadn't drooled.

When we FINALLY go to New York, I had missed my train and had an hour to kill before the next one. I spent it standing in Penn Station and wondering about the sanity of two thirds of the people around me. On my train I accidentally selected a small quiet, isolated corner, perfect for smothering your victims without interruption, and I sat down. A man sat down across from me even though there were ten other seats and just stared at me with a kind of lazy eye and crooked smile.

Forty minutes of that, and my night was complete.

He nodded off, still smiling crookedly, and I had to lift my suitcase over his legs and them climb over as well when it was time to leave because I had no need for his farewell smiles.

Today has been pretty normal except I am experiencing severe lethargy as a side effect of my life. It may be recovering from the weekend is taking longer than anticipated, perhaps it's the meds, or maybe I just didn't get enough sleep last night. But I spent the late morning giving the baby questioning looks when he did weird things and then laughing at him laughing at my looks. He's one funny monkey.

J is much better and his ears have stopped leaking. E went back to work today and T made it through our entire plague without catching anything.

I spent today doing all the laundry I could find to rid our beds and the house of any leftover germs and reading and rereading the label on my antibiotics, trying to pronounce it so I can request it for next time.

Amazing stuff. Amazing.

Everywhere and all over the place.

This applies to several things today.

My mind, the kids, most of the toys in this house, dust bunnies.

Day two of the longest school vacation in the entire universe is complete.

Monster baby threw another huge tantrum at breakfast time. It's like he knows all the adults are feeling under the weather so he's testing us to see how long he can scream before we all cry.

T hung around until he was fed. None of the kids slept well last night so she felt guilty leaving me today, especially since our play date was on her way. She planned to work from home if I should so request.

But while she was out this morning, J quickly fell apart, escalating from mildly annoying to full blown naughty in under an hour. I checked his temperature, cleaned his drippy, nasty ears and put him to bed. He was more than happy to meet his pillow. In fact, I returned to the other two downstairs and he promptly got out of bed to close the door on our noise, dropped back into bed and fell asleep.

R's little friend arrived and Monkey followed her around with a big smile on his face for fifteen minutes until his bed time.

With both boys out of the way, the girls quickly took over the house. They screamed, the giggled. They annoyed the curse words out of me.

I downed a cup of coffee to lift my mood and sat R down for a talk about being naughty with a friend over. She didn't take my warning very well and ended up in time out. Her little friend, Crazy-Haired Imp as I've taken to calling her, got a stern talking-to as well.

J joined us in time for lunch and they all ate pretty well.

They started fighting then, and I had to send the girls to the basement play room and keep J with me in order to get them to stop telling on each other.

R had an accident, J's ears continued to drip and then somehow, things got away from me and the girls snuck upstairs, but not before a venture into my room to handle some of my craft supplies.

Fortunately for them, the Imp's mother showed up and took her home before I could destroy her. Things calmed down and I cleaned up the kitchen, which had been neglected all day. T texted to see if I needed her to come home but at that moment I didn't so I told her so and she said ok.

T's mom showed up a bit later and entertained the masses while I made dinner. She is such a blessing.

And dinner was dinner. We got through.

E and T got home around the same time and we all got really into a serious game of hide and seek. At the end of it we discovered the mess in the kids' room. They had played a game with Grandma that involved throwing bathing suits at each other. It was a cruel reminder that we can't go to the pool every day for another three months.

We muddled through bedtime routine and then I set up shop in the play room.

That's where I was when I overheard T's phone conversation with her sister. She knew I was there and we talk a lot anyway, so if she hadn't wanted me to hear anything or didn't plan to share it anyway, she would have gone elsewhere.

That being said, I am not rude enough to relate her conversations to you, but I can say that it was about her father, who has been sick.

He fell ill last week and I didn't hear much about why until a few days later.

He had cancer a few years back, I forget where, and it has returned. He's in his sixties I think and in seemingly good health until now. Nowadays, everyone has or knows someone who has cancer, so I'm not entirely surprised and it felt like everyone was being pretty cavalier about it until tonight in that conversation.

T's sister (who I am not entirely fond of) was FREAKING out about the return of their father's cancer. But they are waiting on test results, and at this point the best thing for everyone, especially with T's risky pregnancy, would be to keep a level head until those test results come back, right?

Well, her sister thought it best to assume the worst and plan his funeral. T started crying and yelling at her and then got off the phone and went into the living room.

I thought she handled it well. If any of my sisters handles any of our future family emergencies that way I fully intend to slap them, although I don't think they would considering I am the most dramatic and even I see the flaws in that sort of behavior.

But I am really sad for this family. Cancer is literally everywhere anymore and after losing two completely beloved people to it right before I moved here last year, I was looking forward to not having to think about it anymore.

Silly me.

Please pray for T and her excitable sister, her mother, who has said nothing to me about it (and I spend a lot of time with her) and for her father, who is such a patient and logical and happy man. I really would like to see Christ reach this family and sometimes cancer it was God uses to infiltrate.

Let's pray it happens!

Self preservation.

Hello Monday night.

It's good to see you.

I'm not usually bogged down by the Mondays but let me tell you how the weekend went.

I woke up Saturday feeling like every ounce of fluid had been drained from my body. I'm sure that's not what actually happened, but that is exactly what I felt like. I pulled on a sweatshirt and went upstairs only to find out that it was almost 9 o'clock and the whole family was in the kitchen already.

Where was my alarm?

Good question.

I got a glass of water and tried to say good morning only to discover my voice had left me in the night. E told me I looked hungover and asked if I had a secret wine stash in my room.

"I wish." I whispered because it was all I could do.

"Go back to bed!" T told me. "We're ok here. Go. Get better."

I didn't have the presence of mind to argue. Or the desire. I drank as much water as I could hold, sprayed saline up my nose, which I loathe because it's nasty and I gag while I picture myself vomiting and actually dying from the stuff. I popped two aspirin for the headache because I'm not one of those masochistic fools who tries to "stick it out for as long as possible." I don't get sick often and when I do I want to feel better NOW. Especially when I get a headache. The more aspirin, the merrier, I say.

When I woke up again I think it was after ten but to be honest, that whole day is pretty fuzzy.

E took the kids to the grocery store, something he likes to do after his recent discovery that women as suckers for daddies taking their kids out alone. People smile at him, give him coupons, advice and their place in line. Adorable, huh?

But when people see a mom alone in the store with her unruly children they glare at her.

Not. Fair.

While they were gone I sat on the couch staring at the blank wall. T put the baby to bed and then went to bed. I nodded off.

Somewhere around three I slurped and wiped the drool off my chin and the leather couch when I heard the door open.

The good news was I was way under my calorie count for the day and the day was half over, the bad news was I still needed moisture in my head. Badly.

I took two more vitamin Cs, bringing my tally to six. That's six days worth of vitamins in one.

I helped put groceries away. I even loaded the dishwasher.

E had brought us all pizza, which is good because my plan for lunch was the vitamin C.

I can't remember where the day went from there, just that I hit the hay pretty early that night.

Sunday was T's last open house in the city so we went to the museum again. It was a lot like last time, except this time the baby went to sleep in the stroller and J kept trying to leave. I had to hold his hand pretty hard to keep him and not make T's nightmare that he'd been lost a reality.

We made it through and tried to go to lunch.

And that is when we realized it was a holiday weekend. Not only were we sorely disappointed when there was NO WHERE to park so we could eat, but it also dawned on us all that the kids were off of school ALL WEEK.

We got pizza and ate in the car, each adult going to their dark place at the realization of what the week to come would be like.

Mine was darkest.

J still wasn't quite well, I still wasn't quite well and the baby was getting a runny nose, so we skipped baths for I think the third night in a row, grilled some dinner and dumped them all into bed.

Today, T was planning to work from home. We gathered in the kitchen this morning to talk over the MONSTER baby's screams. E had graciously reminded her that she had a doctor's appointment this morning.

In the city.

On the holiday.

Good luck, Kimmy.

R had a play date right up the street so we walked to drop her off and then I put the boys to bed. They napped.

I half-heartedly cleaned and tried to find an appetite for anything but tomatoes. It didn't work. I ate salsa, tomato salad, salsa and a tomato sandwich. That's good you say?

Tell that to my heart burn.

T's mom called and in my favorite moment of the day, told me she was bringing dinner. My heart rejoiced as I dug into the salsa again.

No sooner had I finished my lunch than it was time to get R. T's mom came to sit with the boys who were still sleeping, while I walked to get R.

The afternoon got away from me somehow. I'm still not feeling 100% and it is largely because any head cold I get settles at some point on the left side of my head, in the form of an inner ear infection and tooth pain.

Monkey's very voice causes a headache behind my left eye.

I had to put him in his crib today during one particularly violent tantrum when I thought it best he leave my sight for five to ten minutes while he thought it more fitting to scream and spit and eventually throw up.

R shook her head and looked at me.

"Who's baby is that?"

"Not mine!" I said, hauling him off to his room.

He did the puke thing twice today. But his behavior was significantly better after his time out. And I've named my headache The Screaming Baby and the kids know it. When he cries we all scream about getting The Screaming Baby and run away from him. It's the only way.

They ate dinner surprisingly well. Monkey did his second puking act and then I told him to knock it off so he did and finished his chicken. Punk.

Mommy and Daddy got home at the tail end of dinner so I ran to hide and sit down without anyone jumping on me for the first time today. While I was sitting T tried to lighten my load by cleaning up the kitchen a bit.

I heard her ask something about the dishwasher being full and I went into the kitchen yelling, "It's clean! It's clean!"

But alas, she had already stuffed a handful of dirty silverware into the clean.

Gross.

She sorted that out while E mockingly yelled, "T, what are you doing? You are not allowed in Kimmy's kitchen! Why are you even handling anything in here? This is not your room!"

We got the kids ready for bed and then they all went to play so we all hid in the playroom for a while. When the small ones found us, the joke was on them. We put them to bed.

Now they'll learn to leave us alone.

Tomorrow is going to be wild; we have a little girl coming over because her mother has a family emergency. T's mom was supposed to come help out but her husband is sick. T asked me if I'd prefer to go it alone or for Mom E to come over.

"Alone." I didn't even hesitate.

She didn't even flinch. I think she was just asking so that if E says, "Why don't you have my mom come over?" She can say that I'm better on my own and it's fine.

It is fine.

I have aspirin, coffee and children's Benedryl in my emergency first aid kit.

We will be fine.

Should I say that?

My answer is always yes, a thousand times yes.

J got sent home from school early today for being too hot.

I'm not kidding.

He's been under the weather for a few days but he isn't running a fever. He seems to just have a cold. He's been falling asleep pretty early the last few nights and getting a good fifteen hours of sleep. In the mornings he is superbly refreshed and ready for the day, but I guess by mid morning he looks sleepy again.

Today at school he asked to take his long sleeve shirt off and his teacher called T and had her pick him up, claiming he was roasting with fever. He was roasting alright, but not feverish. He simply needed to take his long sleeves off.

Whatever.

He came home in the middle of my overhaul of his and R's room. Good thing it wasn't the girl child coming home, she would have had a fit.

I was cleaning EVERYTHING in there and rearranging their wall hangings into eye-pleasing groupings so that I won't twitch anymore when I enter their room. She doesn't like change because she is a drama queen and a control freak and she did complain later on. But her protests were too late. I just have to get through a thing and then I can quell her temper. But if she were to walk in during a change like that...oh no...

This afternoon Monkey thought it would be funny to only sleep for an hour and then screech at everyone for the rest of the day, so while he did that the rest of us hung out at the craft table in the basement.

The following conversation ensued.

"Kimmy, I am going to make you a red mustache."

"No, J! You can't! Red mustaches aren't real!"

"Kimmy, are red mustaches real?"

"Yes, they are. Some people have black hair and some people have yellow hair and some people have red hair. Those are called gingers and they have ginger mustaches."

"Do you want a ginger mustache?"

"Oh, J, nobody wants a ginger mustache, but if you make it for me, I will love it."

A short time later I took a pile of craft trash over to the corner trash can and found a good four inch chunk of curly human hair on top of the garbage. I was confused. My hair had all been chopped off and not in the basement this time either. Who's...waaaait a minute!

"R, did you cut your hair?" I asked, noticing for the first time the huge, uneven gap on the left side of her face.

Mom E had the boys for an hour on Wednesday while I was away. She had blessed J with a pair of "kid scissors" for our craft table. The kids had been sternly warned against cutting anything besides paper. As far as T or myself knew, neither child had been alone with the scissors at any time.

And before you go defending kid scissors, saying they're not sharp enough to cut hair, let me tell you a little story about myself and the cheapest, crappiest pair of dull kid scissors ever created and the worst hair cut my little brother ever had.

Well, I guess that's the whole story...

Back to R.

She looked stunned and then thoughtful and then she said no. When she saw me about to say something else she said, "Oh, that was just some hair on the floor."

"Hair on the floor?!"

Either I hadn't vacuumed the basement in weeks or the child was lying. Or both.

"Go upstairs please, we need to talk."

For the next few hours I tried to figure out when she had done it and how I had missed it. I bathed that girl last night. I brushed her hair. Her mom brushed it this morning. How had no one noticed that gaping hole where curls had once been?

More importantly, when had she been in the basement alone without anyone knowing?!

We still don't know.

But T came home with news that she had received a phone call from R's teacher. Apparently our budding hair stylist also has a taste for human flesh. She licked a classmate today, and this is not the first time.

What?!

Because J got sent home from school and because he has two excitable grandmothers, Shabbat dinner was moved to our house on a moment's notice and T's mom showed up this afternoon with food. E's mom joined us later and they fussed over him all evening. Monkey started to crash about an hour before the adults would eat dinner so I decided to feed him in the quiet kitchen before he melted down completely and tried to kill one or all of us.

I was reciting Goodnight Moon for the zillionth time when R came into the room with a gift bag and yelled, "Happy Valentine's day!" With Mom E on her heels.

Another gift.

Mom E told me in Farsi that she loves me and that I am her love and she reworded it about six other ways, partially in English. She thanked me for being beautiful (you are all welcome) and then left me alone to finish feeding the punk who was yelling,
"Help! Grandma! Help!" as she exited.

I finished with him and turned him loose and then peeked into the Saks 5th Avenue bag to find a red windbreaker sweatsuit, circa 1984. And when I say red, I mean red red.

It's STILL the thought that counts, so I made sure to thank her later and tell her it was great. The wrinkled tags on it suggest that it has been lying around her home along with all the things she regifts to her grandchildren.

R received a coat earlier this winter that looked like James P. Sullivan of Monsters Inc. Exactly like him. We hope the Salvation Army can find a good use for it.

But yes, it's the thought that counts. So even when she took my face in her hands and told me she loved me I didn't slap her, which is usually my knee-jerk reaction to people touching my face.

I thanked her again and wished her a goodnight.

Later I tried on the pants, because let's face it, I'd wear them on laundry day, and thanked the Lord I'm not a ginger and can pull that color off.

Simple Snobby Wednesday.

As I write I am polishing off a sleeve of Thin Mints. In the presence of the hateful green box my self-discipline has completely vanished and even the small voice of reason in the back of my head is screaming, "That's it? That's the whole sleeve?!"

I almost didn't post tonight, but I am being threatened via text message from the church organist (shout out!) who is a friend of my mom's and therefore, in the perfect position to tell me to do stuff.

I being told I haven't written all week, so let me fill you in.

I can't remember the beginning of the week, which is a bad sign.

Complacency is awful for my memory, and that is what I am right now; complacent, mildly bored, coasting. I am so eager for the new baby to come and shake things up a bit. In another few weeks I will have my New York state driver's license (but don't worry, I won't drive like they do) and then a few weeks after that my baby will come.

With the new addition to the family I will be transferring to "driver" while T shifts into "stay at home mom" for a bit.

Until then, my days will continue to run together and I will lose track of them and wonder where the time has gone.

Except for Snobby Wednesdays. They rock.

Yesterday I slept through whatever was going on upstairs all morning. I heard the pitter-patter-stomp of the kids going up and down their stairs. R has taken over the responsibility of letting the dog out and feeding and watering him in the mornings, so I sleep an extra fifteen minutes on my work days.

I heard the alarm beep that announces a door opening, which meant she was letting him out and I checked the clock out of habit. The morning was progressing right on time.

Then I went back to sleep and when I heard them above me again it was so late I was sure R would miss her school bus. But it wasn't my problem so I dozed off again and when I got up for real only T and Monkey were home, and I guess everyone else made it off ok.

No one remembered to put the trash out, although I think that is the first time that has happened since I've been here so that is pretty remarkable!

I chatted with T for a bit and told her I had no snobby plans because of New Jersey Transit. It's all their fault and I am mad at them for not arranging their train schedules according to my life.

I was thinking about going into the city to do some sight seeing and so I got ready to go out. It was drizzling ever so slightly when I left so I packed an umbrella and forgot about five other things that I wanted to bring along.

It was nice enough (the rain stopped completely) to walk into town so I did and I ran a few errands. At the end of my running I caught my reflection in a store window and nearly shrieked at the sight of my un-moussed, un-brushed, un-styled hair. I don't normally leave the house like that on Snobby days (other days are a free for all) but since it had been rainy I hadn't even attempted to tame my fro.

Seeing myself in that window I was appalled. How could I troll for rich men in the city looking like that? Simple; I couldn't.

I went around the corner to a salon I had stopped into a few weeks ago to get pricing. The owner, the man I had spoken with before, was behind the desk.

"I came in a few weeks ago, I was going to call for an appointment." I told him. "But I didn't make an appointment, and well I didn't do my hair today so I need one now."

"Now, now?"

"Now. Now!" Just kidding. I didn't yell at him. Out loud.

He looked like a middle-Eastern colored John Stamos, right up to his perfect wavy hair. I was about to ask him if he had ever played an understanding uncle in a sitcom or an awful cameo in a yogurt commercial, but then he took my coat, hung it up and put champagne in my hands.

My hair-panic vanished and I went where I was led.

Three hours, several mimosas, one Whitney Houston sing-a-long and I can't tell you how much money later, I was so happy with my hair I couldn't stop petting myself. The color and cut are great but what amazed me most in the moment was that it was super straight. And not just straight, but smooth. Shiny smooth. That was the first time my hair ever looked straight and felt like it was supposed to be straight.

He had used oodles of product; I had seen it, but my hair looked natural. I was in shock.

Since that was the snobbiest thing I had ever done or lived or experienced I had to find a layman's lunch, and quick. I hurried across the street to Chipotle and tore into a burrito. Once covered in guacamole I felt more like myself. I washed my hands and went back to petting my super smooth hair.

I was in love.

I put away my Narcissism long enough to catch a bus and get to the area my church is in. I met up with the bestest Taryn and we shopped and went for tea and then to the young adults group at church. Being around normal people grounded me somewhat and provided the reminder I needed that I am not the center of the universe, or even Great Neck.

Did you guys know that?

When I got back to Great Neck there was a new used couch in my playroom and I set up shop in time for my ten o'clock show.

I had a few minutes to reflect on my night and that complacency that irks me. Fellowship with Taryn and the whole Wednesday night group there takes away that urge to move on to the next step right now. At this point those hours are the most definitive in my memory.

I love going home for visits and seeing my family and the kids but the travel time makes those days such a blur that they get mixed right in with work when I categorize them in my head.

But staying relatively local, getting home at a decent hour and unwinding in the company of good thoughts stemming from meaningful discussion makes all this complacency worthwhile until the next big change comes along.

Um...hello? I'M AVAILABLE.

Snobby Nanny fails to see how it can be she has no fancy New York date for Valentine's Day.

I have been relentlessly hitting on random men since I moved here.

Just kidding.

I have done some flirting, but none of it with Christians and so none of them are actual potentials. But it is fun. Lately on the train and in Penn Station the quality of people surrounding me has been altogether questionable so I have laid off a bit, but there is a photographer for Olan Mills in the Penn Station Kmart who I have stopped to chat with a few times. We've exchanged complaints about generic studio photography and had a few laughs but that's all. I'm usually so anxious to get through the conversation and get to the sales that I hurry through the pleasantries and run away.

But I have my little Monkey and his brother; my only valentines this year, albeit naughty ones.

All three kids were terrors this afternoon. R was giggling SO hard when she got off the bus and when I asked her why she told me it was because she and a friend were misbehaving on the bus and it was so funny. She went off to Hebrew school an hour later and then J came home and started fight after fight with the small one.

I attempted two phone calls while the boys were here and it went pretty well. I could hear my conversation for almost the entire duration of the calls but then right at the end there everything fell apart.

I got off the phone and joined them in the playroom and promptly got distracted by my phone. I was browsing Pinterest when Monkey started going, "Shhhhh, J sleeping. Timmy. Timmy! TIMMY! TIMMYYYYYYYYYYY!!! Shhhhhhh, J sleeping."

I leaped into action in a panic. It was nearly five o'clock and J was indeed asleep in a chair in the playroom. I shook him awake and told him he could come help me put the finishing touches on the dinner Grandma had left us. He stood up and collapsed onto the floor. I woke him again and he cried the whole way to the kitchen but then I gave him a chocolate chip to revive him and he set to work with me.

Dinner was a massive nightmare.

R got home right in the middle of it and joined us and immediately started acting up. The other two were already riotous so I just checked out and went to my happy place while stuffing bites of rice into the baby's mouth.

By the end of the meal they had all lost their dessert for various reasons and I was spent.

I decided to just check out the rest of the way. I pretended to be a monster and chased them upstairs and then they went to do...something, I don't even know, and I made up J's new twin bed. Then I locked the baby in the playroom and locked myself in the bathroom where I could text and play online uninterrupted. I didn't come out until E came home.

He helped get them all ready for bed and then I took MONSTER BABY and put him to bed. And then I ran. I ran, people.

Everyone in this house is on the verge of another cold but we are fighting this one hardcore. We're all on triple doses of vitamin C and we eat fruit four times a day. No one so much as breathes near anyone else and we've all become borderline germaphobes. In addition to already feeling a smidge under the weather, all the adults stayed up late last night to watch the worst Grammy's show in the world.

I don't know why I did it; I don't give a hoot about awards shows, but I heard Taylor Swift and Adele were performing and that was lure enough for me. This time E was recording so we could skip through commercials and the boring parts, like the actual awards, and just watch and rewatch Katy Perry's confusing yet entertaining little show.

I actually headed to bed before it was over but the damage had been done and thus, today resulted.

And on a Monday, too.

Tomorrow I am working but you can bet that on Wednesday I am going trolling for a Valentine or at the very least a giant box of low-fat, sugar-free, vegan chocolates.

And they better be delicious!

This is the story.

Last night's Shabbat dinner was a success.

We went to T's mom's house and kept it simply. We were home late, as per usual on a Friday and we deposited the kids into bed and crashed. Well, almost.

I, of course, couldn't sleep. And so I spent an hour on my phone first.

Then I crashed. Sort of.

I saw the clock several times throughout the night and when my alarm went off this morning I snoozed...thrice.

The family was going to temple today, a sporadic event around here. T had briefly entertained the notion of taking Monkey along and had even asked me about it. But when I said I would rather not go she got hesitant and then when E flat out said no, she dropped it. I could tell she really, really wanted to, but I don't want to set a precedent here. If I am going to make it to a service any given weekend, it's mine.

She was completely understanding and said if I had any reservations about it to say no, so I did.

So I fed the rascal and put him down for a nap and super cleaned whatever I had missed in the house this week and then crashed on the day bed for what will be one of the last times.

J has finally outgrown his toddler bed and will soon inherit the day bed. I guess I should clarify that it is not actually a day bed as much as it is a mattress on a box spring on the floor where I nap and fold laundry.

E and T both apologized for taking my resting place, but there is an empty bed frame upstairs waiting for it, and J.

Sigh.

I guess I could nap on the couch.

T got a call about their building in the city and they had to run our of here tonight. They left leftovers for dinner and so I planned a movie night with the kids. We sat down to eat quickly so we could make popcorn and dance.

The big kids asked for a story while they ate and my mind was completely blank, so as I moved about the kitchen adding the last minute touches to their plates and mine and gathering everyone's cups from various counter tops I said,

"This is the story of a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls."

I went on from there, reciting the entire part about the girls, all the way up to where my memory gets hazy and then I laughed and laughed.

Unfortunately, the confused kiddies didn't get it, and also I was seriously dating myself, not only with the song, but with my behavior.

I have seen my mother make a "funny" (and I'm using the term loosely here) and then double over at what she had said and here I was literally reenacting a night in her kitchen during my childhood.

Well that was a sobering thought.

I cleared my throat and tried again.

"The Brady Bunch, The Brady Bunch..."

My mind couldn't stop. The tune was too catchy and no other stories were coming to mind. It was still funny and the kids were still not laughing.

It's official. I have become my mother.

When the kids finally started yelling for a new story I sat down and gave them the only thing I had left.

My childhood.

I told them a few good ones about various nights in my crazy house and that entertained them through rice, chicken and veggie stew.

As we moved on to course three: popcorn, the stories pittered out and we started a movie. The munchkins were introduced to The Jungle Book and more importantly, Baloo, who I still have a crush on. They loved him and the movie and it ended early enough to start another movie.

Their attention spans however, had had it for the day but I wasn't ready to get up, so I will teach you all another gem.

Much like finding diamonds in my hair, this game keeps them occupied and happy while I get a free massage. It's not child labor if they enjoy it.

This actually started with my sister, many moons ago. She would trace pictures on my back with her finger and I would guess what they were. She discovered at an early age how relaxing it was and demanded I return the favor.

When I lived with my niece last year (shout out to Eva!) I asked her to draw on my back with her finger and somehow the game developed into drawing on my back with a pen.

Tonight, when I knew I didn't have the energy to stand and the kids were getting wild I asked them what they wanted to do. They thought hard about it and while we think we stroke our invisible beards and twirl our invisible mustaches. So, before anything else, we stuck on the paper ones we had made in the afternoon, thought about it and then R said she wanted to do something special.



Well, what is more special than drawing on Kimmy's back?

That's right.

Nothing.

Facial hair safely stowed away for future thinking sessions, I supplied them with a pen and they went to town. I wasn't able to photograph my own back but I can tell you that R drew an entire village worth of herself and autographed her work in several places. She only knows how to write her name and so every person she draws is either thinking about her, talking about her or her.

We'll work on her self-absorption after I've dealt with mine.

Snobby Wednesday: Babies and snow.

I went to my room at 8 last night and still somehow managed to stay up half the night. Ok, I know exactly what "somehow" was...internet Scrabble.

I got a grand total of four hours of sleep before dragging myself out of bed with the promise of seeing my sisters and all the kiddies, including the newest addition to the family, baby Ty.

I had a smooth trip down to PA. I even heard two old men refer to "upstate Pennsylvania" as if it were another world. They were remarking on how the power hardly ever goes out up there in the civilized part of the state.

Not true, old men, not true.

After sufficient eavesdropping and three train rides I made it to Harrisburg and found a taxi. The driver was very eager to learn where this Green Lane Farms place was. He drove me out there as promised to come pick me up in the evening.

"And if you need ride to New York, I am ready." He said.

I tipped well.

The kids greeted me with paintings they had made just for me. I was so happy to see them. It's only been since Christmas but still, I used to live with those punks.

Then I met my baby.

I'm trying to load a picture here but the internet connection on this train is questionable at best, so you won't get to see how perfect he is in all his tiny glory. You'll just have to believe me when I say that all the kids in my family are beautiful and much better looking than yours.

He made a few tiny cries that sound like a puppy squealing but for the most part he is the most laid back newborn I have ever met.

I spent the day showing off a few pictures of my crew from NY and playing with my naughty niece and nephews.

My sister Hannah came over (she goes to college local to Harrisburg) and we made a run for junk food in the snow.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have snow. It started to fall as my train pulled in this morning and shortly after I reached the house the flakes turned huge and started to stick. It’s a wet snow, which means if it’s sticking around Great Neck I am going to have a blast tomorrow.

At dinner I pulled a Susan (my mom) and dumped half a bottle of salad dressing onto my plate. Mom has done that exact thing, plus committed a number of other food related messes at the Theron and Steph Perez house. I ate my salad soup with Hannah's help.

The day, of course, flew by and I began the trek home with my cabby retrieving me and asking how my day was. We chatted a bit before I began crashing from my sugar intake today and started to nod off. He wished me well at the station and told me to keep his number and call him on my next visit if I needed a taxi.

I tipped ridiculously well and ran to my train.

Here’s where it gets hairy.

While my morning journey was uneventful, it was still with Amtrak and we are not on good terms. In fact, if Amtrak was a family it would the Montagues and I would be the Capulets and I would try to kill them every time we passed in the street. And if my daughter even thought about dating one of them she would be disowned so fast she wouldn’t even know what hit her.

So that’s how I feel about Amtrak.

And on the ride home there is no direct train so I had to leave my brother’s house after only seeing him for twenty minutes so that I could take a train to Philadelphia and then sit there for an hour. It never makes me happy.

I got a decaf coffee (no sugar -- no more sugar!) and sat down near what I hoped would be my gate. It was posted a few minutes later and I was positioned perfectly to be among the first on the train.

At boarding time no one came to open the gate. I started to pace near the gate, annoyed. Then I noticed a posting for New Jersey Transit on the big board.

Whaaaaaaaa?!?!!?!?!?!

All this time I am riding Amtrak, paying an arm and a leg and dealing with all their stupid policies when Transit runs more than half my trip for a tiny fraction of the price?!

I was appalled with myself for not having known this sooner.

Just as I was beginning to plan my release from Amtrak’s communistic regime the gate was opened and a tall, nasty lady told the five of us who had been at the gate first and were nearest the front that the line formed elsewhere and we would have to go to the back of it. She said it once in a scolding tone and pointed to the end of a five mile line. When a man opened his mouth to protest she made one of those interrupting noises you make at a small child who is talking back and wouldn’t listen anymore.

We trooped to the end of the line, cursing her and everything she stood for.

When I reached the front of the line she was complaining about someone rolling over her toes with their suitcase.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I went down to the track feeling slightly avenged.

And then I got downstairs into the bitter cold where no train was waiting. It was departure time and no train was at the station. Had they sent us down to the track as a joke? Or just so they wouldn’t have to listen to us wondering where our train was?

Either way, color me annoyed.

When the train finally showed up the dining cart stopped directly in front of me and the scores of people who had been allowed in front of me at the gate ran to the coach cars and took all the good seats.

The other suckers and I had to walk through two full cars to find a place and I ended up in a quiet car. I despise quiet cars.

But my only other choice was the café car, which would then close at ten, leaving me forced into the quiet car anyway. I decided to just get quiet and sit down to tell you people about it.

Boycott Amtrak. They are rude.

And don’t let your daughters marry them.

Baby Ty!

Brief things.

I should have:

Gotten out of bed on time.

What I did:

Set a second alarm, ignore it, leap fifteen feet into the air when I realized the kids were in the kitchen already.

I should have:

Folded laundry.

What I did:

Watch Live! With Kelly.

I should have:

Mopped the floor.

What I did:

Mop the floor.

I should have:

Mopped another floor.

What I did:

Nap.

I should have:

Not inhaled while standing that close to the baby's open diaper.

What I did:

Gag for a full minute and cry a little.

I should have:

Cooked the pasta BEFORE going to pick R up from her playdate.

What I did:

Forget, go get her, take too long, feed the kids an hour late.

I should have:

Packed my bag for tomorrow.

What I did:

Get in bed and online.

Going to meet my new nephew tomorrow!!

Diamonds.

As I sit here and ignore the baby screaming from his crib for someone to let him out of bed I think fondly of this afternoon, when he tried this crap with me and it lasted all of five seconds.

I went back into his room and said, "It's Monday, kid. Mommy's at work. Lay down and go to sleep." And he did.

But Mommy is home now and he knows it and he is playing hardball tonight. Still, she's staying strong and no one is going back up there. He's a MONSTER.

He doesn't cry in a tone that makes you feel bad for him. He screams angrily and curses us all for defying his orders.

But he was good all day.

Yesterday E and T had to go visit the building they own in the city for some emergency or another (I try not to listen) and so instead of being able to go to church, I was needed to entertain the kids for a large chunk of the day.

T asked very hesitantly if I wanted to take them somewhere in the city or stay home. I thought long and hard and opted for an excursion in the city.

I took the munchkins to the Museum of Natural Lies and Deceit (History) because J wanted to see the dinosaurs. It was really fun to walk through the displays and use my teacher voice very loudly to say, "Yes, that's a T-Rex but that's not what he really looked like. See this chart here? This is where the 'scientists' were forced to admit their shortcomings. See, the green part is the bones they actually found and the rest of it is all made up. See? It's fake. Just like the stories we tell at dinner time. It's as made up as R's drawing of me as a stick figure. I wish I looked like a stick figure and the 'scientists' wish they knew what dinosaurs looked like. But they don't. So they made it up."

J: "Ohhhh..."

R: "That's what my Morah (teacher) said too."

I am loving this.

I got a few strange looks from passers-by but one family stopped and listened and then smiled and agreed. The father looked at his son and then me and then pointed to the chart I had just shown my kids and said, "Huh, isn't that interesting?"

When we left they were still standing there looking confused and betrayed.

And for you evolutionists who still read my blog, more than half of the dinosaur skeletons used to "prove" evolution are fake. Made up. Bogus. Imaginary. There's an entire species drawn from a claw. A CLAW.

A CLAW!

It really gets me.

Anyway, that's what we did yesterday. We walked through the African animal rooms and the kids ate it up. When we left they called goodbye to Africa and J said he can't wait to go there.

I can't wait to take them.

After we left the museum we went to lunch and on the way home everybody fell asleep. Monkey held out the longest, using every ounce of energy he had left to sing and fight sleep until finally his body won out and he drooled a puddle all over his coat.

At home the other two woke up refreshed and were golden for the rest of the day.

Monkey didn't wake up.

Well, he did. But it sounded like a dying cat fighting a raccoon and then we sent him up to T who was napping and he went back to sleep and slept right through the night.

Today, he was pleasant for the first time in a week. He ate his breakfast without argument. He played. He sang. His nose is unstoppably runny but he wasn't bothered by it. He ate his lunch, he went to bed. He got up he played.

While I was changing his diaper after his nap he was showing off how he knows all the letters on my shirt (he knows all the letters -- I've made him into a genius. Toot toot!) he thought he would show off something else too. He pointed at the Camp Susque logo (Hail dear old Susque!) on my shirt and went, "Triangle."

I was floored. When I recovered I asked him what else he knew to which he replied, "Grandma!" Only in Farsi, and I don't know how to spell that.

But I am picking up a bit more Farsi. Still not enough to say anything with any kind of confidence, but I understand quite a bit. It's just like Spanish. I'm starting to think I don't have the brain capacity to learn another language. Rosetta Stone, here I come.

After dinner tonight I went to hang out in the playroom with all three kids and they asked me about a game I had forgotten I even invented.

You know how awesome it is when someone plays with your hair?

And you know how when you ask a kid to do something flat out their gut reaction is to not do it?

So right after I got here I tried a new game. My nieces will always play with my hair when I ask them to. Eva has a wonderful barley (beauty) parlor in her living room and I have gone there many times to have my hair done.

R will occasionally play salon but her specialty is tearing my hair out by the root so I try to avoid it most of the time.

So one afternoon I told them I hid a diamond in my hair.

R lit up right away and said, "A sparkly one?"

I said yes, but it's pretend.

It didn't matter, she heard diamond. She would do anything now. I sat on the floor and let them search for it.

Tonight, it was actually J who looked at me and said, "Do you still have a diamond in your hair?"

I had to think for a minute and then I remembered.

"I don't know. I haven't looked for it in a long time. Do you want to check?"

This time R was more skeptical.

"Is there really a diamond in your hair?"

"No."

"Let me see!"

Sweet. Free head massage!

Nanny logic.

Today was quite a balance of chaos and relaxation.

Except it didn't feel balanced.

It felt like this:

Everybody, even the kids, slept until eight this morning. Which is good, because we didn't get home from Shabbat dinner until after eleven last night. The kids were a wreck. T and I had both fallen asleep at E's mom's house. I had risen in time to change all the kids into jammies and throw them into the car, but we forgot to potty so Daddy had to wake R up at home and make her go.

That was a bust.

No one else fell asleep in the car; the baby wouldn't even drink his milk.

And we actually remembered (thanks to me - toot toot! - that was my horn) that we needed milk and eggs for breakfast this morning and stopped at a store. It wasn't until we were parked in front of the store fighting over who had to get out and go inside that we realized not one of us had any money on us.

Anyway, we slept in a bit, got up and started the day with a late breakfast and then T, in a rare burst of confidence, volunteered to take the two bigger kids to the grocery store with her.

Score.

The monster baby showed us his dislike for staying up late by screaming all morning and ruining what should have been a productive day.

I got the basement cleaned, something that sorely needed to be done. My shoe collection had taken over my side and my clothes, feeling displaced, had relocated to the laundry room. The laundry room -- well, let's not talk about that. And the playroom and craft table appeared to have just narrowly survived several hurricanes.

I spent the morning ignoring the baby while he cried and played in the basement playroom. I threw out half of the obnoxiously large school art projects that the kids brought home in the half year that I've been here, neatly stacked the rest and herded my wardrobe back into place.

I then spent TWO HOURS trying to get the #!@$%&#*! baby to take his nap.

T came home in the middle of the process and apologized for having to leave me and go again. You're probably wondering where E was in all of this.

Well, I can tell you.

Sleeping.

He has neck pain. Men are such crybabies.

Anyway, the two big kids went into the playroom while I wrestled with Monkey and eventually forced him to sleep.

I fed J, half fed R and then T came home and whisked the girl child off to a birthday party leaving me to try to salvage what was left of nap time.

E chose that moment to wake up. He started feeding J again, who then got annoyed and started whining.

Only a short, precious hour after falling asleep, the monster baby woke up.

Crying.

He snuggled with Daddy on the couch for a good while and I snuggled up with J on the day bed and he played on Daddy's iPhone while I played on mine.

This should have been a relaxing time, since it is Saturday after all, but the baby hadn't eaten lunch yet and I hadn't eaten lunch yet and I knew the whole time I was sitting down that I should get up and feed us before R got home and things got loud and out of control again.

But I just couldn't.

And so instead I had that kind of down time where the whole time you are down you feel awful about it and in the end it's not fun at all.

We did finally get the baby fed and then he spent the rest of the evening making us all wish we were deaf.

E took the two boys to his mom's and I sat down for ten minutes. Just sat. Alone and happy.

And then I ran around the house doing all the things I couldn't do with J or Monkey on my heels or last nerve. I made beds, I changed loads of laundry (don't ask me how long they sat in the washer because I don't know and I don't care!), I ate lunch and I wrestled with a vase of dead flowers T brought home from a wedding recently. Someone had TAPED the flowers into the vase but before that they had also filled the vase with SAND and TAPED that in too. And covered it in plastic wrap. And taped that in too. T said to just throw it away but I wasn't about to let it win.

Tonight when we gathered to heat up leftovers for dinner all the adults groaned. We were tired, the kids were tired and the food did not look appealing. Those of us on diets were not about to eat that rice and I was not feeling day old chicken. T, who is on the opposite of a diet as she is eating for two plain and simply was not interested.

"Let's go out for dinner." E suggested. "Me, you and Kimmy. We'll just leave the kids here."

I wish.

We ordered Chinese. The kids ate the leftovers.

Sort of.

Not one of them wanted Chinese, so that was their mistake. But Monkey apparently hadn't reached his screaming quota for the day yet and he started throwing a tantrum as soon as we sat down. T took him out of the room and fed him alone elsewhere in the house. I didn't even ask where.

J made it through chicken, spit out a bite of rice and was put to bed. R ate pretty well at the beginning and then started complaining that her tummy hurt soooo bad. I said, fine, no dessert and she perked right up again.

And then there was peace.

Bed time was surprisingly uneventful. I watched My Fair Lady, the greatest movie of all time and thought a lot about going to bed but instead sat through the whole thing.

I was finally relaxing for real and I never wanted it to end. And I was thinking how clever God was to throw today at me after how comfortable I have been all week. He is very clever.

I can't remember if I have quoted this here before but whenever I have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days I think of Elizabeth Prentiss. She's a fantastic author with an uncanny ability to speak right to a Christian woman's heart.

She says in one of her books that she gives thanks for the hard days that remind her to look forward to Heaven.

All day that logic has been running through my brain without me wanting it or giving it permission to be there, but it's amazing how much it helps me to laugh at Monkey while he screams for a different water cup or at J for following me around with the iPhone asking me to play the game he wants to play but is too hard for him. All these annoyances are very laughable because they don't matter, and they are just that; annoyances. What is my being annoyed in the face of Heaven?

It's nothing.

And that's magnificent.

And so now I am going to bed, quite at peace with today. And I'm super excited because it is finally cold enough in my room again sleep comfortable under the electric blanket!

Woohoo!

The Torah Science Fair!

For days J has been telling me he wants me to come to his school for this fair. I have been telling him we would see and I forgot all about it. This afternoon when T and I were brainstorming for dinner it dawned on us that it was tonight and the kids would need to eat super early.

I threw together a pizza with a secret layer of pureed spinach and flax seed and everyone ate before the fair.

Only don't try to shorten it to fair or science fair because J doesn't like that.

It's the Torah Science Fair.

We got into the school around 6 (the fair started at 5:30) and it was already packed. I saw several of the neighborhood friends we have had play dates with. The whole basement was a walk-through display of everything the kids have been working on.

It was so. Cool.

I wasn't sure what a Torah Science Fair was, so for those of you like me, let me just tell you.

All the stories from the Torah had been brought to life and covered in glitter. It was beautiful. And the curriculum had woven science into everything in the most creative way I have ever seen. I really hope Christian preschools are doing stuff this awesome.

J's class has been studying Exodus, specifically the exodus.

See what I did there?

They built a BIG glitter-covered tunnel adults could walk through. There were life-size child stand-ups with pictures of each kid glued on and they were dressed in robes. The tunnel represented the sea that God parted for Moses. The walls of it were lined with sea creatures that the children had learned about, made and covered in glitter.

Other classes studies Noah's ark and I don't know how many different kinds of animals. Rebekah and the well, I can't even remember what else. They had built huge exhibits for each story and there was a detailed science aspect to each one. The kids knew their stuff and there were volcanoes and bees and birds and fur, you name it.

It was seriously amazing.

And this is a preschool.

Monkey spent the hour we were there running away from me, slapping displays and then laughing when I caught him. J showed us his stuff and then took off with his friends. R visited her old teacher, got some presents and ran off with her friends.

The temperature in the room was a steady four million degrees so after forty minutes we were all sweaty and the baby was acting tired.

I took him on one more round around the room and we got one more really good look at J's class display. The glitter. So much glitter.

And I don't know how I missed this, but behind the split sea was Pharaoh and his horses and chariots. He definitely looked mad, but he wasn't an Egyptian king I would recognize.

He was the king of Siam.



On the way out I remarked to T how nice it was to go to a science fair that wasn't about the incoherence and loose ends of evolution. She laughed and quoted J,

"It's the Torah Science Fair!"

This is probably my fault...

I need to sleep.

It's been several days since I got a decent number of hours worth of sleep. Partly because of my phone, partly because I was traveling and partly because my next bout of insomnia is rolling in.

The combination has been disastrous and today I was almost positive I was going to crash right around 11 am. I got through the morning with the baby, some cleaning and then I fed him and put him to bed before I collapsed onto mine for a half hour.

T was upstairs working and I stayed down until she headed out for the day.

Since it was GORGEOUS outside I hung out in the front yard with Willie until it was time for R to get home, thinking about how I am going to reorganize my room just as soon as I get my energy back.

I found two rotten bananas in the kitchen and decided to make chocolate chip banana muffins...eventually. Tonight I took out the chocolate chips and ate half of them so now I am all ready to go ahead and bake those.

I spent all evening trying not to react to the kids because I knew I was tired and cranky but the boys were tired and cranky too and they kept fighting. I don't think J got enough sleep last night and everything that happened from the time he got home from school made him cry.

Monkey got plenty of sleep last night but he woke up from his nap an hour early because of a nightmare. I was playing outside with R and I went inside and heard him crying really hard on the monitor. When I went up to see why he was standing and waiting for me. I asked him why he was awake so early (sometimes he takes a giant pooh and needs a change and then he goes back to sleep) and he said, "Bad sleep!"

I held him and kissed him and asked if it was a bad dream. He said yes but when I asked for details he didn't know what to say. He was shaking from crying so hard and as I soon as I told him he didn't have to go back to sleep he perked up. Then he heard R's voice and said, "R is here!" and everything got much happier after that.

The kids were amazingly good for dinner, even J stopped crying to eat like a good boy. I waited until they were done with their stir fried chicken and rice to tell them they had to eat vegetables to get dessert. R gobbled up some stir fried carrots and J thought long and hard about it.

"Do I like zucchini?" He asked me.

I've taken to telling him he likes everything otherwise he claims to not like anything. And while he does hate the actual act of eating, there are several foods that he likes. Stir fry, MY stir fry, is one of them. I make excellent homemade stir fry sauces, if I do say so myself. I told him yes and he ate the required serving with no problem and they all had ice cream before we played some hard core hide and seek.

One of my favorite things to do is run away from them while most of the house is dark, hide and then scare the screams out of them. It's so funny.

I did it no less than ten times before Daddy got home and he helped scare them a little bit.

Bed time was uneventful and then I decided to be smart about tonight. I showered early, got all ready for bed and THEN watched my shows. And now, I am off to bed before 1 am and I am very excited about that.

G'night!