1.15.2009

So Maybe I Don't Have The Inside Information

So I haven't been sleeping well since, hmm, since Tom got back from his vacation. Maybe it has something to do with sharing space in our much-too-small queen-sized bed. Or maybe it's simply because I CAN'T SHUT MY MIND OFF!!! Well, Wednesday, in general, is a pretty good day for us here at Hosmerville. A: it's hump day and B: I don't work so I get a nite off with the family. If I can just get through dinner with my sanity, we're usually doing okay. (It's not dinner that drives me insane, it's the fact that I always work 3rd shift Tuesday nite so by dinner time Wednesday I'm running pretty slow.)
Anyways, I decided to take advantage of the little downtime I had last nite and "snuggle" Audrey after I tucked her in. She is forever asking me to snuggle her and I am forever telling her "in awhile" knowing that if I lay down with her at 8pm my kid-free evening will be shot. By the time "in awhile" usually gets around, Audrey's sleeping and I've accomplished something and I can tell her in the morning "I went to snuggle you but you were already sleeping". I know, I'm a mean horrible mommy for lying to my kids. I digress.
Back to last nite. I took my contacts out but I didn't brush my teeth because I was only going to sleep until Audrey fell asleep, then I was going to to get up and be productive. Except sleep is a good thing and after several sleepless nites, my body was craving it. But there is an unspoken rule out in mommy-dom that says " a mommy shall self-sacrifice several hours of sleep each nite to ensure that all in her household is wash, dried, folded, cleaned, organized, arranged, picked up, tucked in, and generally accounted for before she herself may go to bed." So while I decided to take a rare nite off from all mommy responsibilities, I failed to inform the rest of the world and I had phone calls and restless kids till well past my bedtime.
Sometime in the nite (1:30 I later discovered) I was awakened by Lexi crying "naughty Audrey!" Now, if this had been when Austin was 2, upon hearing his cries, I would have immediately jumped out of bed to go comfort him. Audrey being 2, I would have eventually found my way to her room to see what was wrong. Lexi being 2, I just called out "Lexi, come find mommy!" She did and I got her settled between Tom and I only to have her start coughing. I got up to get her some water and was surprised to see that it was only 1:30 because it felt like I had been sleeping all nite. I kissed her good nite and realized she was warm... very warm. Warm enough to make another trip to the kitchen for some Tylenol. I got back in bed feeling for her open lips in the dark to feed her her medicine. I listened to her sweet little chewing noises in the dark and had her take another drink before kissing her good nite and rolling over to go back to sleep. Except it was 1:30 and I had been sleeping semi-uninterrupted for 5 1/2 hours. Which translated to my body that that was a sufficient amount of time for a mommy to sleep and thus it was time to get up. I stubbornly refused and tossed and turned the rest of the nite.
Later (it still wasn't morning!?!) Lexi woke up looking for her boo piggy. I felt around, grabbed it, and handed it to her only to hear "that's my boo bunny!" from Audrey. When did she join us in bed? Hmmm... maybe I really was sleeping after all. And so it went... all nite long!
Tom woke me at 7 and said "it's really cold outside!" Being the ever-so compassionate mommy that I am, I toke several extra steps to make sure my kids stayed warm and comfortable for the trip to Austin's school. I:
  1. Warmed the van up extra long. 20 gas-guzzling extra long minutes to be exact.
  2. I dug out hats and mittens for the girls and insisted that they keep them on. (Usually I just make them go without because as soon as they get in the van, they strip off the mittens, or hat, or both and then something inevitably gets lost forever in our spacious and roomy pimp ride.)
  3. I made Austin wear 2 layers: a shirt and a sweater.
  4. etc.
  5. etc.

Well, driving past the vacant high school should've clued me in to the possibility that school had been canceled for the day. But remember, my MIL has the inside information and she always calls us to let us know that school's been canceled. And there was no phone call this morning. I reasoned that maybe the HS was closed because of some sort of building problem (the furnace wasn't working, maybe?), and the elementary was still holding school for the day. After all, my MIL always calls and she hadn't so Austin still had school, right? Wrong. 10 minutes later we pull into an empty elementary campus and finally figure out that school has been canceled for the day. Still don't know exactly why school was called off. One can only assume it was from the bitter cold below 0* temperatures. But you know what assuming makes. And you can see where it got me this time...

*disclaimer* I have no idea who is reading this (my MIL, friends that will report back to her?;) so I should add that I am in NO way upset at my MIL, I'm just venting my own stupidity for not checking for school closings before venturing out with my kids for the day;)

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