As a mother of three children under 5 (who are by no means the best behaved children on the planet) it is easy to become somewhat jaded and skeptical, if not downright sarcastic and nasty, about life in general (perhaps you may have gathered this from some of my prior posts). It is also very easy to assume that you know exactly how pretty much everything is going to turn out (poorly). I should, however, after 4 years and 5 months of motherhood, have figured out by now that the only certain thing about children is that nothing is for certain.

For example, I was positive, I mean POSITIVE, that my post this week would be about the horrors of daylight savings time and the fact that I was now getting up at 4:30 every morning wishing particularly horrifying ailments would befall any and all of Benjamin Franklin's surviving decendents. Instead, we let the kids stay up half and hour later (until 7:30) on Saturday night watching Ratatouille (which I particularly enjoyed, since I love that movie, it is based in Paris, and when I said "You know, Mommy has been to Paris." Fraser went "No Way!" Yes, he was suitably impressed) and Sunday morning all three of them actually slept in until almost 7:00! Considering that their bodies felt like this was 8:00, this is nothing short of a daylight savings miracle.

Unfortunately, the cats were not at all fooled by the extra half hour of Disney, and all four of them were sitting on the foot of my bed at 5:30 staring at me like "What the hell is wrong with you? Can't you see we are hungry here??"

Next, I was very much looking forward to watching the Giants game on Sunday since not every Giants game is televised here, but since Andy had to spend the day outside painting the house and I therefore had all three rug rats on my hands, I thought the chances of my actually getting to see any of the game were pretty slim. Instead, all three kids pretty much entertained themselves while the game was on, or actually sat and watched the game with me. Usually the additional viewers aren't the greatest thing for me (that sounds mean, I know) but it is hard to enjoy a game when you have to keep explaining what is going on to a 2 and 4 year old who really don't get it and aren't actually listening to what you are saying anyway. This time however, Hammie was sitting with me when the Giants scored their second touchdown and he jumped up and yelled "We got a touchdown Mommy!" I was so proud!

Unfortunately, this practically perfect afternoon was pretty much ruined by the untimely arrival of both an absolutely horrific head cold and my period which, since I got my monthly friend back this last time, is pretty much torture. I would like to have a word with whoever said that getting your period after childbirth isn't as bad as before, because I pretty much feel like someone is scraping out my insides with an ice cream scoop like they are trying to deseed a pumpkin. (Was that too much information? Sorry about that.) During these beautiful moments of the celebration of womanhood it is a constant struggle for me not to just put on my pajamas, curl up under a blanket on the couch and spend hours moaning like a wounded moose. That is, by the way, a struggle that I lost on Sunday so badly that when Andy came in from painting he took one look at me and said "I think I better order a pizza for dinner." (The bright spot here is that when I was changing Eleanor's diaper and feeling like I pretty much want to curl up and die, Eleanor was squealing like a piglet being electrocuted and I said "Eleanor! Shhhh! Mommy has a headache!" and she looked at me, put one finger to her lips and went "Shhhhh." Priceless.)

Now, I love my husband very very much, and I think he tries very hard to understand what my life this like these days (just like I try very very hard to remember what it was like to have a commute, a full time job, the possibility of career advancement and, I don't know, an identity) but often I feel like he doesn't quite get it (mostly I feel this way when I am getting up with our kids for the god-only-knows-how-many-I-have-blocked-it-out-to-keep-from-killing-them-th time, and he is snoring). So when he looked at me on the middle of dinner and said "Honey, you look really tired. You should go to bed, I'll take care of the kids" I was skeptical. But honestly, I was too exhausted and feeling too horrible to care. So I dragged my pajama clad butt up the stairs, took a shot of NyQuil and a massive Ibuprofen and crawled under the covers. That was at 6:00.

I did hear Andy and the kids come upstairs (with lots of Shhhh! Mommy is sleeping!) and I did get up with Eleanor twice that night (though Andy got up with her too!) but overall I did not really get up again until 6:00 the next morning. I was feeling significantly better at that point, but not half as good as I felt when I got downstairs and realized that Andy had picked up the entire house after I went to bed (and that is a hell of a lot of toys, for those of you who haven't seen my personal Ode to FAO Schwarz, otherwise known as our living room and playroom) AND made the coffee already AND changed the cat litter AND swept up the basement. What more could a wounded moose ask for?