notes on a 15 hour day

- My children have once again locked themselves into the self-latching bathroom towel cabinet. How wrong is it to leave them there while I read about Michael Jackson for a few minutes?

- Okay, ten minutes. But they like it. I promise.

- How many times have I stacked the blocks painstakingly back in the box today? 3? 5? Really any number over one and a half is two much. I like Tetris as much as the next person (who is not my husband) but I have my limits. Someday I will replace the perfectly sized square box with a big bin, to just dump them all in.

- I made "huevos rancheros" for dinner tonight. The quotation marks there indicate half-assedness. Chase got eggs, the girls got buttered tortillas with rice and beans, and I get a vodka tonic and some popcorn after bedtime, God willing.

- I have a stomach virus (thank you children), which means I have even less initiative than usual to plan things and get out of the house. Also, it is fucking hot outside, for real. Today I filled spray bottles with paint, hung a roll of butcher paper on the bike hutch outside, and let the girls go nuts. It is an insane mess out there, very red rummish- as they seem to have concentrated mostly on the red paint.

- I have been working on a belated Father's Day present for Chase, embroidery based on one of Wren's awesome drawings. Tonight, in my 5 precious minutes of craft time, I managed to sew it upside down on a piece of fabric way too small for its intended purpose. Time to walk away and stare at the laundry, I think.

- Sublist: Things I have said to Jane in the 5 minutes before she joined Wren in the cabinet:
- Get off the table Jane!
- DON'T draw on ANYTHING but paper!
- Close the refrigerator!
- Turn off the water! How did you get in the sink?!
- NO YOU CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER BANANA GOOD LORD CHILD.

- Bedtime thank goodness. I am going to bargain it down to two books tonight, I swear. And Wren is just really out of luck if (when) she hops out of bed with any of the following complaints:
- "I need another story"
- "Will you scratch my back?"
- "Can I sleep in your bed?"
- "What is breakfast tomorrow going to be? Chocolate chip pant-cakes?"
- "Jane is making me stay awake"
- "My pillow smells like pee!"
- "I'm hungry, can I have a brownie?"
That last one is a red herring. She knows she won't get a brownie. What she actually wants is a plain tortilla, to shred into tiny roach-attracting crumbs under her bed. As to the pee smell, I feel for you kid, but it's late. Turn your damn pillow over and try not to pee in the bed again.