Fruit Loop is in the throes of a pretty gross cold. We're talking stuffy nose, junky cough, even more junky junk coming out of his nose...Really slimy, colorful, delightful stuff.

Today we are driving to the store, cruising* down the highway, when I hear a voice pipe up from the back seat:

"Tissue!"
...
"Mom, I need a tissue!"
...
"Mom, do we have any tissues?"

Since his stuffy-voiced self was asking more urgently each time, I finally paid attention. (Heh. Kidding. No, I don't ignore him. He just repeats things at quarter-second intervals until you acknowledge and answer. And then you have to repeat yourself at LEAST another three times. And then you have to scold him for not paying attention. After you repeat yourself one last time. Yelling. Just typing that makes me tired. UGH.) I tell him I'm driving, he'll have to wait until we get to a stop where I can get him a tissue.

(For the record, we DO have tissues in the car. It's just that they are over in the glovebox. Stashed away, keeping the rest of the car nice and organized and presentable and UNCLUTTERED. Which, you know, would TOTALLY BE A LOST CAUSE IF THAT TISSUE PACKET WASN'T KEPT FIRMLY IN THE GLOVEBOX. Where it belongs. The little outcast.)

ANYway.

So I tell him he needs to wait.

"But, Mom, look!"

I look. And ask "What?"

"A boogie!"

Indeed, a boogie. Right there, on the edge of his finger. A boogie which he has just extracted from his nose with said finger. A boogie which is now precariously close to becoming one with the interior of our minivan. And I mean that in the grossest way possible.

GAH. But I can't get him a tissue. We will surely have an accident and DIE. So all I am left with is the same injunction:

"You'll just have to wait." (I'm pretty sure I preceded that w/ an "Ewww, Fruit Loop!" And quite possibly** a wince and an eyeroll at my lot in life. You know, the part in the mom job description that says I will be the boogie picker upper.)

Okay, so, fast-forward to our destination. Just before we get out of the car, Fruit Loop says his nose hurts a little inside. I tell him that often happens when you have a cold, raw skin, blah blah blah.

A few minutes later, as I come around to get him out of the car, I ask if he needs his tissue and where the boogie is.

"I put it back."

You put it back??

"In my nose. That's why my nose hurts inside. Because of the boogie. It's hard."

He put it back. I don't know whether to applaud his resourcefulness or just...ewww, Fruit Loop!

I ended up just laughing. Which, of course, he thoroughly appreciated.

Take-home lesson of the day: Be prepared. In case, you know, you pick your nose and have nowhere to put your petrified boogie.






*Not really - it's Friday, and that means TRAFFIC. But not important. This time, anyway.

**No, definitely.

Well, not really. (C'm'on, people, this isn't that kind of show.)

We have a Netflix subscription. Often we'll alternate between kids' movies and "grown-up movies" in the mail. Let me state right now, for the record, that "grown-up" is not my preferred vernacular. Being the mature and serious soul that I am, I prefer referring to things as, well, they truly are: kids are kids, "grown-ups" are adults. Naturally, I raised Fruit Loop accordingly. Kid are kids, adults are adults.

(Ha, funny story: File this under The World According to Fruit Loop (and Most Every Other Preschooler on up to Teenager.) Apparently, only kids get to do fun things. And adults only get to do boring things. AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. This proclamation was delivered with such solemnity, such forbearance, such dejection ... yet such noble martyrdom, as Fruit Loop came to terms with the fact that he, too, would one day grow up, and, thus, would only do boring things. But, until then, we parents are the ones doing the boring things. And we are totally not allowed to do any fun things. That is within his purview, and his alone.)

Back to our story. We live in a large building. And, as you can guess, large buildings have large, communal mail rooms. Hundreds of boxes. Hundreds of tenants.

I don't know how many times Fruit Loop asked if it was kids' movie from Netflix, and I replied "No, it's an adult movie," and people looked at us funny, and little old ladies fainted, and other parents covered their children's ears... Because, really now.

I have since started referring to adult things as "grown-up" things.

Besides, I'm prrrrretty sure Netflix doesn't dabble in the adult entertainment industry.

REJECTION.

By a 12-month-old.

Doesn't get much more lame than that, folks.

Right, so The Despot is a bit of an independent sort. It's not uncommon for him to wander off exploring whatever he deems worth his attention. He's perfectly happy to be in a different room, away from me and/or Fruit Loop, content to babble his way through one of those randomly fascinating baby experience things, (e.g., banging the cupboard doors, peering out the window, flapping loose electrical cords around...you know, the usual).

So that's today's scene. He's been off doing his own thing for a few minutes, and I had a few minutes' worth of downtime, so I decided to go find him and see what he was up to. (I know, I'm a totally responsible mom. No risk of child endangerment here!) Turns out he's busy with one of his favorite pastimes: opening and closing the bathroom door. This time there's a twist, though, and that is: he typically does this w/ the bathroom door when someone is in the bathroom. Today, however, there is nobody. Lights are off, nobody home. He is sitting inside, closing the door and muttering to himself.

Of course, I know how much he loves this game, and loves to exercise his 12-month-old power and close the door! Haha! Take THAT, overbearing adult lady! So I think I'll open the door and we'll play around. Yet what do I hear when I open the door? What greets my expectant ears? Yells! And a most forceful CLOSING of the door - the little booger wasn't even going to let me in!

When I finally do manage to squeeze my way through, he scoots back and starts flailing his arms, kicking his heels against the floor, yelling in protest.

Dude, I'm that bad? Really?

My poor, rejected self can take a hint even from a 12-month-old. I and my bruised ego slunk away, and The Despot went back to happily playing by himself. In the bathroom. Alone. In the dark.


*****

On a more positive note: I have consumed over a pound of chocolate-covered pretzels in the last 24 hours.

It's for my high metabolism.*

Seriously.

*(I don't have high metabolism. Shhh!)

Mr. Goldfish lives next to the computer here on the desk. He isn't one of those flippy-out-y fish that, well, flips out anytime someone looks at him the wrong way. Or breathes funny. Or comes anywhere in his general area. Mr. Goldfish is actually quite social - and it's an intelligent kind of social, not a random "oh, gee willickers, someone's coming my way, they must be going to feed me, foooooooood" kind of way. Interestingly, he knows exactly when we are going to feed him versus dink around on the computer. Smart guy. I didn't give Mr. Goldfish enough credit for that. Or didn't think he had enough brain cells. Whatever. (I'm a fish person, really!)

***

Two sick kids at home. Which is barely above tolerable as long as Hottie McHotts and I stay above the weather. Which may not be for much longer, since over dinner we both mentioned we weren't feeling too hot. This is ALL KINDS OF AWESOME.

***

The Sleep Situation Saga/Drama of My Life/Minutiae You Can't WAIT to Read About is on hold while the kids are sick. Even I'm not that dumb to set myself up for repeated failure and disappointment by expecting them to improve and sleep through the night all by themselves and whatnot. (But, oh, it would be nice!)

***

I desperately need to go grocery shopping. Keyword there is: shopping. I like spending money, and it can be on anything. I think I get the sweet end of the stick, and Hottie McHotts is stuck with, well...all of the hard work and self-congratulating and pride and other poor-excuse-for-but-still-called-feel-good stuff for being our breadwinner and making the bank for me to spend it all.

But, no, seriously, we do need groceries. Milks (yes, plural - we all drink our own different kinds. Variety!), fruits, veggies, MEAT. We consume so much meat, guys. Every time I see those statistics about "the average American consumes XX pounds of ZZ meat in a year," I snort to myself - but don't do the real math for the amount of meat the average Bootstrap family consumes, because I'm sure it would be embarrassing. And many of the green and crunchy and granola-y folks would be all "FOR SHAME," and I would question whether we are singlehandedly both supporting the various meat industries while sentencing our future generations to a barren, used-up, and corrupted world.

Whew. Glad I could get that one off my chest.

***

Just fed Mr. Goldfish. Wonder if he ate too quickly - he's swimming kind of lopsided right now... WHAT IF IT'S THE BLOAT??


(You should thank me for putting that one up instead of the real thing. Uggghh. And I thought the monthly version was bad.)

So. Done up and did one of them thar trip things on y'all. And now I'm postin' all "ATF" and stuff. (Yes. "ATF" = "after the fact." I am that cool. Or - hrm, high-killing thought - I am that uncool because that little trendy texting-/tweeting-based abbreviation may already exist and I am just waaaaaaay behind the times. Whatever. Whatever! I don't care, I tell you!)

Recap: quick visit to visit family downstate. It was a fine trip (not really the harrowing ordeal to which I previously alluded - just being all dramatic), which is a relief, and I have returned home with two sick little kids in tow. Go figure. Sickness is becoming the hallmark of our trips, it would seem.

The boys are still segregated in their sleeping arrangements. Fruit Loop will forever wake up at night and yell for me, I am sure of it. No matter how much coaxing, encouragement, whisper yelling, and outright threats of losing privileges, no TV, bodily harm, abandonment...Yeah, he just doesn't really take any of that seriously. So, for the timebeing, sleeping will...well, hopefully happen, and hopefully eventually somehow by an Act of Divine Intervention it will be sleeping through the night, UNINTERRUPTED, for all of us.

What? I can dream, leave me alone.

Night #3 was...a slight improvement. Fruit Loop still woke up, but only once. The improvement lies in the fact that he only called me in there 1x before falling asleep. (I feel like I have typed hat before. However, for reasons that will soon become clear, I am too lazy/tired/fill-in-the-blank to go back and check older posts. (But: weeeeird. Have I told you this already? How could I have done that? Before it even happened?)

ANYway. So that is all okay. Baby steps, (although, frankly, I'm looking for some more entirely un-age-appropriate 4-year-old steps. Nobody does high expectations and unreasonable demands like me!) The Despot, however. HOWEVER. Has decided to wake up progressively earlier. We are right around 5a now. Ooof.

I've been giving him the benefit of doubt, chalking his early rising up to The Sleeping Situation, but I think I need to put my foot down. (Or go to bed earlier.) (I have also been loathe to risk The Despot's crying waking Fruit Loop. 'Nuff said on that.) S.O.P. around here is no getting up/out of bed before 6a. I've been cutting him some slack, but w/ worsening of the early rising, I believe it is time to implement Plan: Momma's Gonna Leave You There 'Til She's Done Good and Ready to Come Git You.

Small aside: Dudes, how exciting is this? This is real, edge-of-your-seats, nailbiting drama here! Will they sleep? Won't they? Will they wake up once? Or twice? And who will wake up first? Will The Despot keep getting up early? Will Fruit Loop earn his morning of unlimited TV gluttony? And who shot J.R.??*


*Full disclosure: That was before my time.

How pathetic is that, I can't even keep track of how long this has been going on? (No, really, I can - it just takes a little work and situational reference. It really is night #3...Really.)

So, yes. Tonight is the 3rd night of the whole "we got you a super sweet/phat/awesome bunkbed and now you have to actually sleep in it and maybe even share a room with your baby brother" thing. We have temporarily relocated The Despot (without sacrificing Mom and Dad's personal space - a victory in and of itself, wot wot!), and Fruit Loop has a few nights to get this sleeping thing under his belt.

Here's a recap:

Night 1: FAIL. After several false starts (and repeated wake-ups of The Despot), the boys finally went to sleep...For 2 hours, at which point Fruit Loop woke up CRYING. Real tears, sincere sadness because he was loooonely and miiiiiissed me. (Awwww. I could feel my heart breaking. You know, underneath my Bad Cop Steely-Gazed exterior..) This was 10p, The Despot started wailing, which made Fruit Loop sob that much more, so I was left with the (easy out) option: call the whole thing off. Put Fruit Loop back on the couch, fin.

Night 2: The Despot is relocated. Fruit Loop spends about 30' calling back and forth to me for various questions/"needs"/whatever. He finally goes to sleep. 2h later, wakes up, I whisper yell at him, back to sleep for the rest of the night. IN HIS ROOM. IN HIS BUNKBED. Score one (kind of) for the good guys.

Night 3: The Despot is still relocated. (BTW, the kid is an awesome sleeper. No problems sleeping through the night wherever he is in the house. Huzzah!) I believe Fruit Loop is actually asleep - w/ only 1 time calling out to me after he was put to bed. That is major success. Now if he actually does sleep through the night, no more waking up, no talking, no crying, no yelling for Mom and Dad ... (do you see this, this right here? This is our litany of "DON'Ts" before bedtime. Welcome to Fruit Loop's life.) ... Well, if all of that happens, I have promised him glorious things.

Namely, I will teach him how to use the remote control for the cable/TV. And the clincher is: he can watch as much as he wants, starting as soon as he gets up. Ahhhh, thank you, Comcast, for incentivizing my child.

So. Hrm. Yeah. Our little "experiment" last night lasted all of about 2 hours. Fruit Loop spent the rest of the night on the couch.

Sooooooo...Night #2 tonight. Any ideas? The kid doesn't even remember what it's like to sleep in his own room, let alone on a real bed.

(Ha, as Hottie McHotts said last night: "A $XXXX bed, and he wants to sleep on the couch.")

There are two problems to solve here. 1) Getting Fruit Loop to sleep through the night in his own room, own bed. 2) Getting Fruit Loop and The Despot to share a room.

Maybe alternative sleeping arrangements need to be made for The Despot until Fruit Loop is fine w/ the own-bed, own-room idea. And we'll just cross our fingers and stock up on magical unicorn fairy dust to prevent any sleep problems occurring with The Despot through it all...

But, darn the luck, Target seems to be fresh out of fairy dust.

Woe is me! All is lost!

Okay, interwebs, time for a small confession: Fruit Loop has not had his own bed for .... let's just say "quite some time." He has, in fact, been sleeping on the couch. (A very nice couch, might I add, but a couch nonetheless.) He used to have a bed. (A very nice bed, might I add...) Then I decided to take our Blueprint of Life and tear it into shreds and toss it up into the air like just so much confetti and figure out how to put it back together sometime after the pieces all floated down to the ground, got trampled on and torn, and the fun wore off.

ANYway. More on that some other time. Or not. Whatever.

So it is time. He has been upgraded to probably the best kids' bed ever.

THE TOP BUNK.

(I cannot find you a picture that I can code in here. My powers, they are not great enough. Go here. Or here.)

His is a full over full, espresso finish, (not that he cared/had a say in the matter), and we opted out of the trundle drawer and staircase ideas. (He was a bit puzzled as to how it could possibly come with only a ladder. "No staircase? Just a ladder? But where are the stairs? A ladder?)

The big challenge, though, is this: HE AND THE DESPOT WILL BE SHARING A ROOM. For the first time. EVER.



The Despot is a stellar sleeper. He goes down at 6p, with nary a peep until he awakes anywhere between 6-6:30a the following morning. A true champion of slumber, that one. IT IS WONNNDERFUL. Caveat: he is a light sleeper. He has had his own room for the last 3-4 months once we figured out him sleeping in Mom & Dad's room was what caused his frequent waking - our rolling over in bed (or snoring or sleeptalking or breathing funny?) would wake him up, and knowing that someone was there, in the room, NOT RESCUING HIM... Oy. So, problem solved, he gets his own room, fine. SLEEEEEP - success!

Fruit Loop's sleep habits (OR LACK THEREOF) deserves a whole blog in and of itself. (Or should that be "themselves?") He still wakes up at night more frequently than not. He takes literally ages to fall asleep - usually anywhere from 1 to 1.5 hours. He will happily get up after only 8.5 hours of sleep, ready to take on the day. (But, oh, as only a parent knows, HE SO IS NOT. Ready, that is. Those days are...rough. Yes, we'll just leave it at that.) And, more than anything, he MUST talk. He must, upon first eyelid flicker, open his mouth and call for Mom. Incessantly. Until I arrive. Or Dad, if I am taking too long. (Fruit Loop is an equal opportunity disrupter.) (And: "too long" for him is approximately 1 nanosecond. Ish.)

So you can understand my trepidation.

It has been 20 minutes.

They are quiet. I repeat:






Edited to add: I spoke too soon. GAAAAAAAAH.

I know you come to this blog for some real razor-sharp wit, scintillating discussion, and high-brow antics. I, being a people-pleaser and, thus, loathe to disappoint, hereby submit the following for your entertainment:

Allow me to introduce my superhuman, collagen- and elastin-defying SUPERPOWERS!! (As in, "HAHA, take THAT you denizens of firm, young, supple skin! You got NOTHIN' on US!" - said from somewhere around knee-level, as that is where my decidedly gravity-friendly boobage has decided to settle.) I have acquired, seemingly overnight, the amazing - nay, jaw-droppingly astonishing - ability to stretch strategic parts of my body to lengths heretofore unimaginable. Granted, I don't have a whole lot of control over which parts do the stretching. Aaaand I'm prrreeeeetty sure this awesome stretch capability is a somewhat permanent thing. You know, unless I avail myself of OTHERS' superhuman powers of something like, oh, I don't know, plastic surgery.

But whatever! So my wicked saddlebags and cameltoe combo is a bit lower than expected. It's the element of surprise! And does it REALLY matter if said boobage is in more danger of being hit by a toddler + trike driveby than a random groping by Hottie McHotts?

Superhuman, I tell you - you won't find these gravity-friendly superpowers just anywhere! (Or ARE they? Maybe they are SO extreme they are totally opposite, and have become gravity-defying...)





Yeah, who's got skillz now?


(And, as an added kicker, I am remarkably akin to a water-retaining seacow right now. HOOAH!)

Henceforth, upon long absences and mysterious departures from this little blog, my joyous return shall be heralded by much feasting and sport. And, lo, our first such sporting contest shall duly enjoin the Might that is the House of Pledge and the Upstart that is the House of Swiffer, matched in a competition so great, so epic, that SOMEone shall go home victor...and someone not. I have yet to decide if the victor will be the one successful in clearing away all the dust this blog has accumulated in its short life thus far, or if that is a fate best left to the loser. Hrm. Details. Eh.

That being said, I am back! You are welcome! Be still, your beating hearts. All we did was move. And it wasn't even a huge move - it was in the same apartment building and everything. So, yeah, not much explanation for my absence other than sheer, agonizing moving-related LAZINESS.

For now: that is all. On with the contest! (Whar is mah FEAST??)