everybody should get some women like this in their life. but you can't have mine. so back off.

For this whole entire week, my short people have been sick.  And my tall counterpart has been working stupidcrazyinsane hours.  Consequently, I am exhausted and have had it up to here with the needy people in my life.  Also, the cats are living on borrowed time.  I'm not sure who they keep borrowing this time from, but there aren't that many people left in this world who like them, so I'm certain I'll be able to kill them soon.

Today went a little something like this:
7:42 a.m.  Woke up to Wee Man shouting at me that Daddy didn't go to work....HOOWAY!!!!
7:42:03 a.m.  Ran to see what was the matter with The Mister that he didn't go to work.  Turns out?  He actually does need to sleep more then four hours a night, and he is just plain worn out.  He ended up taking the day off (except for the musical), and it all was very nice.

Enough with the time thingy.  I sat on the floor of the boys' room, HB glaring me down in some sort of Diaper Stand Off.  He didn't want me to take his nicey diaper off, and I really did want to take it off because he stunk like yesterday's pee, and eventually the impasse was over and I sat on him and I am the winner nanny-nanny-boo-boo.  Ha.  

HB followed me everywhere I went for the rest of the daylight hours, whining and using his arms to indicate he wanted me to pick him up.  Except I am really not a subscriber to the "pick up the verbal child who is whining and grunting" school of thought, so for the rest of the daylight hours, I said, Use your words, Ork.  Tell me what you want.  No bloody whining.  Ach, that noise...it's making my head explode.  Talk.  Use. Your. Freaking. Words. Already.

Also I said: GO AWAY. And I meant it.

During the times I was not vertical, for example, mealtime, bathroom breaks, sitting on the couch with my other sick short person, and my sadly neglected short person, HB was considerate to climb all over me like a rabid mountain goat.  

And this, people?  Is just today.  This is a tiny little snapshot of my week.  And yes, I know that this is what I signed up for, I really do, because, ummm, hi, this is my life I'm talking about here, and this is only one of the flavours of crazy we serve up here.

But tonight?  The babysitter came.  And even though she made about ninety-five self-depricating comments about being stupid (this is me, suggesting to prospective sitters that this is, in fact, NOT a good choice of topic the second time you are in charge of the lives of my babies), I left my children with her and each other, and went to spend some time with The Natty Moms.

And can I just say?  I love those women.  True, I'm engaged to two of them at the moment, but I love the rest of them.  

We learned about essential oils, which is a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother day, but it is fascinating.  And we sat around talking about hilarious conversations our short people have with one another, and about whether or not our boy short people are circumcised or not...and also our husbands...and we share cases of raw honey and talk about disinfecting our cloth diapers in the dishwasher (after they've been washed in the washer, for the record), and our various methods of schooling our babies, and when to talk to our short people about S-E-X (it seems earlier is less, ummm, weird and gross for everyone involved), and about when our newest babies are due, and on and on and on and on.

We are all totally different from each other, we have all different numbers of short people in our houses, some of us really like our husbands, some don't.  We don't all worship the same Fella in the same way.  Some are completely loud and some speak so softly you need to lean in to catch what is being said.  Some of the families are much more well-off than others.  Some of the women seem to really have their stuff together, some of us don't.  Some are crafty and artistic, some are more of the engineer/accountant type.

It just works, all of us, all together, listening and laughing, and, well, sometimes not laughing.  I can't really explain the dynamic.  It just works.

And tonight, it worked its magic on my worn-out, tapped-out, all-done-giving self.  So when I wake up tomorrow with someone shouting at my eyelids and a stinky diapered butt in my right ear?  I will be able to deal.

And that is what it's all about.