Relax already.

The weather seems to have officially transitioned from late winter crappiness to pre-summer dog days. All I can think is, if it's this uncomfortable now, what will August be like? My guess is that most of the Northeast will succumb to heat stroke and die. I just don't see any other way for this to play out. Our power has already threatened to cut out in response to the overload of demand as everyone in the area turns on their air conditioning in May. MAY! Ours is up and running, and the third floor unit is fixed so everyone is able to sleep this year. It's going to be nice. You know, until that heat apocalypse I mentioned earlier. Our pool opened this weekend and we spent our spare time there, burning our skin off and splashing happily. Well, most of us. In addition to swings and sprinklers, Monkey also doesn't remember the pool. Last summer he thoroughly enjoyed all three and we often had to chase him down and save his life as he ran alone, full throttle, toward one of the three. This year he is taking some time to warm up to each one. He spent two weeks of pure torture crying on the swings at the "froggy park" but refusing to come down from them because that's what the other kids were doing. He's such a follower. His re-initiation to the pool was mildly hilarious. T stayed home with tiny baby and Monkey napped while the rest of us headed out on Saturday afternoon. We were already burnt from playing at the park all morning. It was nearly 80 degrees by ten o'clock and I offered to take the three kids to play. E decided to come along, feeling guilty about not spending weekend time with the kids. He made them all bring sweaters and then, when they kicked off their shoes to go play on the sand-covered playground, he spent a good five minutes hemming and hawing about whether it was warm enough. He was worried they might get cold in the hot, summer weather. I hurried them off to play so there was nothing he could do about it, but he forbade the sprinklers, which looked so inviting I almost strangled him. We muscled through, seeking shelter in the shade when we were too hot. Monkey made a new girlfriend, sought her trust and then promptly ran off with all her sand toys. But she was a spunky older woman (three, going on four) so she didn't mind. I sat to chat with her and her grandmother (who looked young enough to be her mother) and fully approved Monkey's choice in future bride when she threw her hands up and yelled dramatically, "I can't take it! I can't take it!" because sand had stuck to her fingers. Her grandmother rolled her eyes and I doubled over laughing. She made me miss my Nyla more than I have in a long time. I'M COMING TO SEE YOU THIS SUMMER NYLA! DON'T FORGET ME! Anyway, after that we lunched and hit the pool. E spent the entire time telling the kids how cold it was and that they needed to get in the water and stay in the water lest they die. It was...different. Monday was the big Memorial Day grand opening of the neighborhood. Everyone and their mother goes to the pool that day and there's food and noise and general chaos. It's wonderful. I brought Monkey along this time and tried my best to get him amped up for the pool. He had no idea what I was talking about until we got there. He watched his brother and sister jump in and swim around and then grabbed onto me with arms and legs and screamed, "DONE! DONE!" as I waded into the shallow end. Wuss. I tried my best to get him to play around or climb along the wall like he had last year. He tried his best to escape my clutches and get out. Finally, he called for Daddy. In this instance, E was more ruthless than I. It was finally hot enough that he stopped hounding the kids for ten minutes about being cold, but he picked that up again later. But, he took Monkey and dunked him twice. I DIED. We all know Monkey can hold his breath pretty well because he did it last year and he does it in the bath and he even did it in the sprinkler when I was only trying to wash his hands. So E counted to three and put him under and then went Monkey came up and cleared his hair off his face he glared at everyone with the fiery hatred of a thousand suns. So naturally, E did it again. Then Monk asked for mommy. Muahahahaha. She wasn't there! He came back to me and watched E jumped off the diving board. I asked him if he wanted to jump and he yelled, "NO! Not jump in pool!" and when I laughed he continued to tell me how done he was with the whole pool thing. Days later, I can still ask him to jump in the pool and his whole face goes dark and he tries to put gypsy curses on me. I can feel it. I haven't done much cleaning since the baby was born and neither has T so we're lucky if the dishwasher gets run lately. The poor cleaning lady has had to take on all of our regular stuff in addition to the big stuff she usually does. Last night I caught up on laundry that I have been washing and drying and then hoarding in various places around the house. I even washed mine and when I opened the drier, guess what I found in the lint trap? Go ahead, guess. You never will. A wasp. A freaking wasp. And twice I have woken up in the morning and found pieces of dead roly-polies in my bed. Twice. And the other day I whipped a fly with a towel and it fell onto the floor and I left and when I came back to clean it up IT WAS GONE. On a happier note, I have discovered a large herd of cats and kittens within running distance from my house so I have taken to jogging out there in the evening and calling them and trying to pet them. They are literally swarming a house in a more laid back and normal part of town and it reminds me of my house growing up. We were the ones infested with cats and it awed and pleased and shocked and grossed people out all at once. Whatever, we had the cutest kittens ever. Last night, after all the laundry was done and T had helped clean up for the evening, she cracked open a bottle of wine and we spent the night moping because the neighbors were having an awesome party and we weren't invited. E kept checking to make sure we hadnt snuck off to crash it anyway and stuck him with the baby. Paranoid. The baby is growing more colicky lately, but I take a twisted kind of pleasure in knowing that he is calmer with me. E's default plan when the baby cries is to pass him to me and lately, T is catching on. He also likes her mother, so she invites her over a lot lately and one of us usually has the baby and no one makes dinner anymore. We have had several leftover nights this week and then, when we ran out of leftovers, we brought out the crappy processed chicken. E has made barbecue a lot lately because he gladly prefers to escape to the backyard with dinner on his agenda while the women-folk handle the four kids who seem to have taken over the house. But we don't mind. I say, if the kids want to take over for a while, let them. It leaved me more time to catch up on reading and old episodes of Desperate Housewives while I hold tiny baby so that I appear to be busy. In all honesty though, these kids are exhausting lately. By dinner time or bedtime, depending on how late I am working, I can't even think about doing anything but crashing in front of the TV or jumping straight into bed. No one here showers regularly anymore. Twice I got out my computer to write to you people and fell asleep on top of it. No one even expects T or me to get up at breakfast time anymore. E just heads right to the kitchen and starts eggs while the rest of us drag outselves out of bed. But there's an awesome give and take system in this house and I can't help but think how blessed I am to have been given this family. My job is demanding but humane and that is something I don't have a lot of experience with. We're nice ladies though and so in the evening when E first gets home, since we know we're going to check out soon enough, we try to do everything while E relaxes for a bit. I've been talking a lot about what a great team this couple is, and it has been striking me again and again lately. They communicate so well. I am amazed and I hope someday to have that kind of understanding with all thirty of my cats.

Ugh. Natalie portman.

So much to tell you. The two middle boys have formed an alliance. It's them against the rest of us. And we are powerless to stop them. J especially, has been coming up with all sorts of new ideas. A few days ago before T got home in the afternoon, E and I were trying to hold down the fort. The fort, however, was smothering us rather quickly and we were tearing around like headless chickens just trying to get the world in order for dinner time. E is no help at all. I actually have an easier time with all four kids when he (or his mother) is not present. But he was here and he was "pitching in" and so he was irritated and befuddled and I was busy and irritated and trying to not to show it because once the kids know there is room to annoy it's all over. So, that was all going on and we lost track of Monkey somewhere. Somewhere. He was there one minute and I was threatening him with a timeout and then the next minute it was suspiciously quiet. "Where's Monkey?" "Uhhh..."Groan. I went upstairs, checked his usual haunts, ran downstairs, checked again, peeked outside, ran through the house again. I had a hunch he was outside but I didn't see any sign of him out any door or window. I went back upstairs while E was looking in the mudroom. One of Monkey's favorite indoor past times is shaking the frog tank. I looked in the closets that the brat has hidden in before. Nothing. About then the two big kids got wind of the search and joined me upstairs. R began calling and looking with me. J stood there eating his popsicle and smiling. The jig was up. "J, where's Monkey?""Where I put him.""Where did you put him?""It's a surprise." Smiling. "If you don't tell me right now I am going to take your popsicle."Smiles. Wicked, evil, evil grins. "Ok, give me the popsicle.""I put him outside!"Ughhhhhh.I told R to tell Daddy and then I ran out and circled the house. The punk was in his pajamas, trying to get in the side door with a number pad and secret code that I'm sure he doesn't know. J served a lengthy timeout; and here's why. That morning he had gone outside alone himself and gotten in trouble. We had a long talk. The morning before that he had gone outside with no adult and taken Monkey with him. I found them in the street. THE STREET. And all three adults were home and on duty. They are sneaky!So smacks and timeouts are now being distributed generously. We're making progress.To alleviate my desire to hurt small children, I took my regular day off in the city with my sister. We got to hang out and just talk and be stupid, something we haven't had time for since adulthood ruined our lives sometime last year. It took me a while to get on board with the whole thing. We went to see The Avengers, the single greatest superhero movie of all time. It was SO MUCH FUN. I mistakenly watched Thor the next night at home and was grossly disappointed at both the shoddy storyline and Natalie Portman's attempt at belonging alongside Thor. What nerve on that girl. Before sister Hannah had to be off to the bus that night though, we stopped by the house because my kids were dying to meet her. They have seen her via Skype while she was in Rwanda and R especially loves to be part of my life outside this house. She loves meeting my family and friends and hearing stories about that other part of my life. She's cute. So Hannah obliged to meet them and even read them bedtimes stories. She got SO into reading Dora with all the Espanol included and accented the right way that she pronounced the word 'pirates' as peer-ah-tays and we both nearly died laughing. The kids looked on, confused but giggling until we recovered. And then we went out to dinner.The days following were pretty normal. Rough, but we managed. Friday, T's sister came with her kids to play after Shabbat dinner. Our kids completely fell apart around 9ish so we hurried them off to bed. I took the big three to the park on Saturday morning, just to get out of the house and get some sun myself. We were having a grand old time, barefoot in the sand, when J decided he had to poop. Twice. Once I'd worked up a sweat running all three kids to and from the restroom, I was done and we called for a ride home. Saturday night I had to work so we rushed through dinner, hauled everyone off to bed and E and T left me with the baby and a sick J. He started running a fever that afternoon and at bed time he still had it. I fed the baby every two hours until around nine when he usually drops off for at least a three hour block. I accidentally watched three episodes of Psych while intermittently checking on the kids and putting the wandering, fevered J back to bed. Around midnight the baby ate and then I tried and tried to sleep but J was up twice more. I gave him Tylenol and dozed for a hour before it was time to feed tiny peanut again. T woke me up a little after 2 and I went to bed. I had Sunday morning off because of Saturday night but as I dropped into bed at 2:30 in the morning it didn't occur to me to set an alarm. I woke up at eleven, confused and frizzy-haired. Why hadn't I showered? Where was my teddy bear? And how did those kids get into the basement playroom without me hearing them?Groan. I brushed my teeth for like twenty minutes and went to see whateveryone was doing. Nothing. I put the blanket out in the yard and laid down in the sun. The kids immediately climbed on top of me. No one jumped, but old age has ruined my back. It's all over for me. It took a good ten minutes for me to get on my feet and walk off the pain. E invited a friend for dinner and went out to buy the makings of a barebecue feast.While I ate four turkey burger sliders, J sat around looking miserable and still stick and T kept offering me wine. I told her I was in no shape to be drinking lest I fall asleep where I sat. I also told her that after spending half the night caring for a newborn I was newly convinced that I am never breeding my own children. I intend to adopt nine year olds.E's friend, D, chimed in that he knew someone who was adopting an 18 year old and how smart he thought that was. Hm. Very wise. Today is stormy with a side of flash flooding so this morning I rolled up the rugs in the basement and waterproofed my room. Bring it. The power has flickered a few times so we're starting a pool for when and how long we think the blackout will take place. Looking forward to it. Baby's crying so I guess I'm done here.

Key-Uhs

A few things. First, I am no longer spell checking my entries because the changes to Blogger are HORRIBLE and I can't spell check without losing my formatting. If you are familiar with Blogger and know how to alleviate my FRUSTRATION AND RAGE, please share. Second, summer is heeeeeeeeeere!!!!! We've broken out the picnic blanket and had outdoor brunches and barbecues. The picnic table is scrubbed clean and the kids spent a good twenty minutes today running around in the nude to celebrate no longer being screamed at that it's too cold to do so. We spent this week doing more of the usual. School, walking, timeouts, yelling, force feeding, playing outside, lying in the grass, screaming at Willie to get out from under foot. On Tuesday, I ventured out to Pennsylvania to "visit my mother" and by that I mean, to meet a friend and watch ALL of the Harry Potter movies. On Friday, we had a quiet Shabbat, opening with my brother calling me to wish me Shabbat Shalom. He's confused. The kids were in bed on time and all was well with the world. On Saturday, T decided what she wanted for mother's day and it was pictures of her kids. E has entirely rebuilt a townhouse mansion in the city, from the ground up for the last six years. It's for sale now and T is showing it quite frequently these days. It's a five floor, marbled beauty so we dressed everybody up on Saturday morning and spent a few hours taking pictures in every room of the house. It was so fun. We got a nice Victorian formal in front of a fireplace and then the kids in the fireplace, on the kitchen counters, crawling up the stairs, jumping on the roof, playing in a giant empty bathtub. If you have access to any mansions, they are great scenery for taking pictures. After that, since it was so gorgeous out and since we like when Monkey doesn't get a nap and screams at us all day, we went to Central Park and ran around for a bit. We went to lunch and ran around outside the restaurant too. The restaurant had a tiny little garden outside so after we ate, while the grown ups were finishing our wine, we herded the monsters out there to run them around a bit. They were tossing rocks and talking with their friends who we met up with there, when some lady in an apartment above the restaurant opened her window and threatened to call the police if they didn't cease their noise. Then she looked at E, who was wearing a white button down shirt and holding a plate of food so I suppose she thought he worked there and she was reminding him that the establishment wasn't licensed to serve food outside. I burst out laughing, waved at her and headed inside with the kids. E laughed and said, "Welcome to New York." Monkey cried for the first twenty minutes of the ride home at bedtime. With no nap, he had fared pretty well throughout the day, but when he is done, he's done. The only way to distract him from his sleep-deprived distress is to question him and his new fallback, dyslexic reply is "key-uhs" (because), which he yelled through tears every time we spoke to him. When finally he was calm, the other two passed out and he continued to sing and moan and wiggle until we got home. I took him upstairs and tossed him into bed and then spent a good fifteen minutes prying out three splinters R had acquired in Central Park. Only two came out and she screamed bloody murder the whole time. When I was partially deaf, I turned her over to her mother, and went to retrieve a sleeping J from the car. He was stuck in his seat, because he destroyed the release lever that lowers the seat in front of his. He was aslo dead asleep. I was stuck getting him key-uhs T still can't move and climb real well, and key-uhs E was vomitting up his dinner key-uhs, as T puts it, "he is lactose intolerant and doesn't want to admit it." I somehow dug him out of there and deposited him in his bed. Mother's day was all about brunch. I had my alone morning time and then we hurried the kids out the door after nine to stuff our faces at T's mom's house. When we were finished there, we headed over to E's sister's house to stuff our faces again. It felt just like home. When the kids were tired and grumpy, we sent them with Hot Doctor and his sisters to go get ice cream and we all snuck home to nap. We were just sitting down when Monkey came home screaming. I don't know what he was really saying but all I heard was, "YOU JERKS DON'T GIVE ME A NAP TWO DAYS IN A ROW! YOU PUT ME TO BED LATE AND DEPRIVE ME OF MY NAP AND LET ME RUN AROUND IN THE HOT SUN ALL DAY AND YOU EXPECT ME TO BEHAVE LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING?" I gave him a cucumber and ran away for a while. T's mom had sent us home with dinner so at some point we fed it to them and hustled them off to bed on time. This evening has been glorious. I think I'll stay up watching movies all night just key-uhs.

Last night was such a long time ago.

Right now, Monkey and Tiny Baby are sleeping and I have the older two in the basement, working at the craft table. We are making handprints for Mother's Day. They are driving me bonkers. Aside from the fact that every adult in this house slept in this morning and STILL didn't get enough sleep and as a result are terribly grumpy, the kids are still in rare form. I guess it's not that rare, since it is practically a weekly occurence. For myself, I would never stay in a religion that encourages lack of sleep in children week after week. If I didn't have Christ, I would be a Monk, because they encourage strict routine and order. Also, silence. Anyway, yesterday was a long day. All morning I cleaned the few things that our new super-maid didn't get to on Wednesday. I sorted through my growing pile of clean laundry with no home and even folded some of it. In the afternoon, I took the stroller and R and walked the seven minutes to J's school to pick him up. Since My license was supposed to be all clear by the time the baby was born and is not, I have been doing this on nice days and T still does all the running by car on crappy days. We've had mostly crappy days as far as the weather goes. The sun didn't shine here all week and just when we were all on the verge of sinking into deep, dark, weeping depressions, the sun came out on our walk. Which was strange because my little phone told me it was going to thunder storm. Instead, the grey sky turned blue and the sun shone the whole way to his school and all the way until sunset. I went into J's Jewish school, which is in the temple, and went to his classroom and peeked inside. He didn't know I was coming and when his eye caught me his whole face lit up. I love it. And him, when he's quiet. We went home and stayed outside in the muddy yard until dinner time. I fed the rascals Shabbat dinner early and then when E got home and the family sat down we gave them each a bowl of chips and had the most splendid, peaceful gathering at the dining room table that we've ever had. T was so happy she started pouring she and I merlot and then kept it coming the rest of the night. Around 8, her sister came over with her kids and we unleashed all six of the beasts on the basement playroom. E paid me in merlot to keep them down there as long as possible while he had his whiskey. It was an alcohol themed night. When the rugrats finally escaped to the main floor, we put on a movie and they all sat down to watch. Monkey got bored of Peter Pan and went to bully his girl cousin, who is a few months younger than he, for a while. She held her own, screamed in his face, hit him and ran away while I laughed from the couch, helpless to intervene. At some point they all went home and we all passed out in various places around the house. This morning started sometime after 9. I got up and dressed at 8 ish because my bladder insisted, but then I snuggled up on the playroom couch until whenever the kids came downstairs. To silence them, I made chocolate chip pancakes. I also made the mistake of holding Monkey's boiled egg in my hand when instructing Willie to go outside and potty. This dog loves three things: sitting on my feet when it's over 100 degrees in here, carrots and eggs. I had to put the egg down, shoo him out the door and down the porch steps and then insist that he pee before trying to come back up the stairs. He's being groomed now and it's lunch time, which is, I suppose, why these kids are bothering me again. I'm off to feed them and then trick them into napping.

You don't even need to bother with this one.

Where to begin...?

Just a few short hours ago I pulled Tiny Peanut's blanket off him while he slept peacefully in his car seat in order to wake him for his feeding. His eyes flew open and looked right at me angrily, in a perfect imitation of Monkey's angry face.

Tonight, E and T went out for dinner and drinks for the first time since Tiny Peanut was born. Their plan was to party all night til the cows come home, but they only made it until a little after 11 and I was still feeding the little squealer. He's so snuggly.

On the snobby front, and what I mean by that is, let's talk about me, I have been sticking close to home on my days off. I've paid off two more debts in full and I am still battling with the district court of Whitehall, who I am pretty sure wants me to tear all my beautiful hair out.

More importantly, I've finished watching the entire Harry Potter series and still more importantly, I've had some great conversations with so many people lately. With T, with friends from church, with old friends.

Some were greater than others, but they were all pretty awesome.

Much more fulfilling than this awful Lifetime movie that keeps distracting me. I would turn it off, but it's almost over and its end will mark my time limit on writing tonight.

Regretfully, even though it has been so long since I wrote, I don't have the energy for it tonight. My energy is all bottled up on a shelf. I'm saving it for an emergency. Tomorrow R has a show at school and we are all going to see it.

I will be more faithful to you, my faithful readers, through the weekend.