manic tuesday

Sorry to have been so out of touch. I spent the week in Madrid and I'm just now getting back to my regular routine. Oh, wait. That wasn't me.

Actually, I've been extremely busy wallowing in self-pity and plucking gray hairs. Also, my dreams have really been exhausting me.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that somebody told me I had the skin of a 70-year-old woman. When I told Stupid Daddy (in real life, the next morning), he said, "What a bitch!" Which I totally loved, but in all fairness, I had to point out that she was a dermatologist or something and was qualified to say shit like that, though it's true, she could have been more diplomatic.

Strangely--disturbingly, even--after all this time my blog and I have spent apart, I'm still sitting here wondering what the hell to write about.

Dum-de-dum, dum-de-dum.

I took a picture of Iris' blackboard but feel yucky about posting it here. I'll have to wait till her mom does something else truly awful and I get really pissed off all over again. Don't worry, that shouldn't take long.

Oh, here's a little doodad...

The closing act of the drama called Getting the Boys to Bed is having them pee. We like to save it for last because neither one of them gets out of bed on his own in the middle of the night to go; they either hold it till morning or wake up in a lake of piss. And though they rarely, rarely have accidents these days, washing the bedding when I already do at least one load of laundry a day, and then wrangling with that fucking waterproof mattress pad--I'm telling you, it's like the size of a thong (I mean, I don't wear thongs but I've seen them on TV and such; I wear granny panties, very sexy, but what do you expect from someone with the skin of a 70-year-old woman?), and I bow down to whoever can actually get it (the mattress pad, are you still with me?) pulled around all four corners of the mattress without ripping it/pulling a muscle/swearing mightily--well, I'd rather just make sure the boys stay dry at night. (Although, on the plus side, accidents do at least ensure that the linens get washed at all.)

So because they like to defy us and because it's the end of a long day and they're really tuckered out, they usually say, "I went already," when "already" means "three hours ago, before I drank those two glasses of milk and that 40 of water." And we have to insist and demand and threaten before they comply.

Every so often, though, they'll do what they're told and we won't notice because at any given point there are at least three people talking and two kids screaming and a partridge in a pear tree.

Which is what happened the other night, when Ezra dutifully peed one more time, zipped up his pajamas, and then climbed into bed.

"Go pee, Ezra," said Stupid Daddy.

"I already went pee," he said.

"I mean it, Ezra," said Stupid Daddy. "Go do it now."

"I told you, I already went pee!" Ezra screamed. And then, in a quieter voice, his eyes narrowed, every word a tiny dagger: "What is this, your new thing, Daddy--not trusting me?"

(Shit, now that I've gotten to the punch line, it hardly seems worth of the setup. But trust me, it really was funny.)