Wanted: sleep

I admit, I'm kind of a lazy person. I believe in sleep training for babies, as long as the baby is receptive to it. But I'm also incredibly addicted to sleep, and it is a LOT easier to pick up a crying baby at 2 a.m., nurse her, and pop her back in bed asleep than it is to get up every few minutes, pat, reassure, and leave, until she settles down. But, that said, she wasn't sleeping for anyone else, either, and it was starting to mess with her during the day. You could tell.

It's getting a lot better. We're down to one waking at night (as opposed to three or four) and it's around 4 or 5 a.m., so things are improving. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I get tired any earlier in the evening and until we get this straightened out, I am living on coffee and hope. My eyes are so tired that I can't put my contacts in until almost noon. Which is practically evening around here.

I don't write this for pity, or even sympathy. I just want you to know the lens with which I am viewing the following activities:

***
It's 8 a.m. I have been up "for the day" for two hours already, have already fielded a frantic (and important) call from a neighbor, done the breakfast thing and am catching up on my e-mail. (That sounds much more professional than "reading through my news feed on Facebook and scrolling through a couple of forums.") I hear commotion in the kitchen and look up to see Anna resplendent in my good colander (the good colander is the one without a cracked handle and a few slightly broken slats).

"Party hat! Party hat!" she's crowing, dancing around like she's got the shakes and riling up Mary. Lily is practically breaking her neck to crane out of the high chair and see past the half wall to watch the show. As fast as the kitchen flash mob performance began, it ended, my colander abandoned on the floor.

***

"Mommy, how big are bugs?" Mary asks, apropos of nothing, as I am cleaning the kitchen. As ominous as this sounds, I don't pause.

 "Um, it depends," I reply.

"Can they be big? Really really BIG?"

"Sometimes..." I answer, the red lights flashing in my brain but my body completely unwilling to investigate any other room in the house.

"What about FLIES? Can FLIES be REALLY REALLY BIG?"

"Yes," I groan, already imagining a Biblical plague of some kind in the toy room.

"Oh. Okay," she replies, and skips off.

I still have no idea what that was about, and I don't want to, especially since when I went to take the recycling out it appears something ripped open a bag near the trash can. If it's a 12 foot spider, I don't want to know.

***

We are driving home from art camp. It's safari week, which is lucky, because after three scrubbing down sessions, including a soak in the tub, Anna is still vaguely zebra striped and at least she fits the theme.

"Mommy!" Mary says, in that tone of voice that implies There Is Big News To Be Had Here. "Do you know how long a giraffe's tongue is?"

"No, how long?" Because even if I know (which I don't, besides "really freaking long?"), I know the point is for her to impart some knowledge to me.

"AS LONG AS MY ARM!" she exclaims, narrowly missing waking the sleeping (finally!) Lily. "AND IT HAS A BLUE TONGUE!"

I glance in the rear view window, where I see Mary and Anna have somehow both found drinking straws and are holding them in their mouths and pretending to lick each other.

"Are you two being giraffes?" I say in my 'how FUN!' voice.

"No," Mary says, as if I'm the village idiot. "I'm a coffee maker."

"AND I BEIN A CAROUSEL!"

Oh. Oh well there you go.

***

"Anna, can I have that toy?"

"No."

"ANNA!"

"Say, 'yes, please.'"

"Okay, Anna! Yes, please?"

"NO FANK YOU!"

"MOOOOOOMMMMMMMYYYYYY!"

*

At the moment all three are chasing each other around the living room/dining room/kitchen loop, the baby in just a diaper, Mary slithering along like a snake (though for all I know she's being an oven) and Anna bouncing along on this inflatable green horse.

And screaming. And laughing. And goading. And tattling.

53 minutes until bedtime.

And counting.