happened?

From thee 4th. I thought a little b&w action might throw you off my scent but now you're in the know. Lucky.


(Simon is working a hellish shift this weekend so I'm going to scribe my traditional novella about how horrible it was for me. Skip if you don't like optimism and sunshine.)

Whenever anything unfortunate happens, such as Sebastian falling and hitting his head on the floor or Julia falling and hitting her head on the floor or my coffee mysteriously morphing into a toddler beard, Julia always immediately half declares and half asks, "happened?!" I don't know if she is trying to convince me that she is innocent and did not have anything to do with Sebastian's head trauma or her own klutziness or the coffee that she tidily consumed. I don't think she is quite that smart yet; I think my little mockingbird has just heard me half accusatorily ask and half sigh, "what happened?!" 56 too many times.

Well, little bird, I'll tell you what happened today. Simon is on call ("on call" being an inadequate euphemism for being at the hospital and working every blessed second that he is there) this year for fewer weekends than he was last year but his shifts are a looooooooooooooooooot longer. I'll be sure and do a side by side pro/con chart after this year is over and let you know which setup I hate more. Probably both equally. Anyway, this weekend was the start of the new loooooooooooooooong shift for us - I mean - Simon, whatev. Of course the kids woke up at the exact same ugly moment of the day in nasty moods with Sebastian just wanting to playfully paw at Julia's teeth while he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and Julia wanting to kill Sebastian while she greeted the day. I sprinkled the living areas with Cheerios -- hoping the genius tactic would keep at least one of them happy for 27 seconds while I went outside to see if the weather was scorching enough to skip my physical activity for the day (nope) and throw together my creamer, milk, and dollop of coffee. The tactic totally worked and I think I'll try it again tomorrow while I simultaneously test out the kids' short term memories. You have my permission to try it too. No copyrights here.

Moving on.

last recycled pic. I promise.

We survived the early morning with minimal tears, only one coffee beard, one emptied tube of toothpaste, one Costco bag of chocolate chips found and consumed by crawler and toddler and related to the latter two items of biz: a quiet shower for the adult in the crowd. Not perfect but we've weathered worse so we trudged on before we skidded and plateaued. We hoped to see Simon for a little cafeteria fare and adult interaction/English language but had to settle for a short parking lot hello/goodbye because the plethora of pregs had some serious needs that were somehow thrown above my own in the hierarchy of importance. I took it like a woman - terribly well.

I didn't mean for this to become a timeline of the day. Whoops, but it is.

Naps. Glorious naps for the kittens while I ate potato chips and took photos of my clothes like someone who has a real grasp over the true purpose of her life. Sebastian woke up 90 minutes before Julia did like he always does. He lovingly carved new bite marks into each of my toes while I debated shaving his head for the third time in his life (eeny-meeny-miny-no) before sleeping beauty woke up and instantly filled the house with an aura of post-nap pleasant. She also left me a present of ninja vomit, urine, and guess what was behind lucky door #3 right next to her little potty just as I was trying to rush the turtles out the door for try #2 (you like that pun, don't you) to see Simon.

Almost done. Running out of boring steam.

Our valiant efforts to see Simon were briefly deterred and then halted in the parking lot (again) by a patient's claim that her Miralax wasn't doing the trick (I'll respect the fact that she considered this to be an emergent situation but I strongly disagreed with her at the time). Finally, not unlike the pot of gold at the of a rainbowy day, we got to feast on cafeteria cuisine. Julia drank and spilled another child's chocolate milk. Sebastian ate 12 French fries. Simon only got called away once. And we initially left the cafeteria without Julia. I can still smell the success of the sojourn from my view up here at hindsight.

And that's what happened ... with just eight more hours to go.

:)