oh mercy. mercy me.

I'm not sure why it is that now that I have all these extra hands to help around the house, I feel so tired. I'm exhausted. Completely beat. It seems that I'm totally sleep deprived and now that my mother is here, my body is just giving out on me.

At night, I'm wasted by 10:00 - which is usually the time I hit my stride.

I tried to jot down some thoughts last night and I fell asleep sitting in front of my computer. I woke up when my head snapped back seconds before hitting the keyboard. My post started out coherent enough and then, it seems that I started typing some dream that I was having because my storyline goes from how utterly precious three-year-old children can be, to cooking spinach fettuccine in a tent.

Charlie's been out of town for the past three days on a business trip and if not for my mother being here to help, I'm sure we would have eaten delivery pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

There would have been no baths and no teeth brushing, either.

And no laundry. We'd just wear our bathing suits all day, everyday.

This morning, the baby who I had pulled in to bed with me at 6:00 and tried to nurse so that he would just lay still, climbed over me and took off crawling around the house. For a good 10 minutes, I charged two of my three-year-olds with the task of safe guarding their infant brother, so that I could close my eyes for just another minute. I finally climbed out of bed when I heard them yelling "Mommy! Henwee in the TOILET!"

I took a 2.5 hour nap today and fell asleep sitting on the couch watching footage of the DNC, tonight. So, blah, blah. I'm tired and I wonder if I have mono. Here are some other interesting tid bits from the week.

I almost dropped dead of a heart attack this afternoon when I was inside preparing dinner and saw William throw his baby panda on top of the roof of our house. And then watched my mother's 84-year old fiancé climb on top of a rickety chair to try and get the panda down with a broom and when I was rushing out to get Jim off the chair before he fell and broke a hip - spotted the baby, toddling almost 6-feet off the ground, on top of the fort.


Henry has mastered the ladder.


Oh mercy.

Mercy me.


Now you see me.

Now you don't.

Speaking of ladders.

We are the proud owners of a new bunk bed. When it was delivered on Tuesday, the kids were all in bed taking their nap. When they woke up and saw the newest piece of furniture, they promptly changed in to their pajamas and climbed back in to bed where they remained for the next two hours, until dinner.


I took down the ladder and have expressly forbid them from going up top. So far, so good. Now all we need to do is disassemble the bunk bed and move it in to the girls room because it is too big for the boys room it is currently in. (I knew that it would be too big for the boys room, but no one ever listens to me. I'm sure I'll repeat that only one or two more times in my lifetime.)

But before we move it in to the adjacent room, we need to paint the girls room from pink to something other than pink, and change out the hardware for the curtains. And then we need to paint the boys room because that is where the girls bed will be going. And why oh why, didn't we just paint every bedroom gender-interchangeable green?

Charlie went to pick up my new camera - (a replacement for the one that William destroyed when he dropped it in to the hot tub in Louisiana) - and instead, returned with a Wii.

My husband totally forgot to get my camera - even though the sole purpose for going to the store was to get said good. Apparently, the store had just received a shipment of 10 and when Charlie saw the pristine boxes stacked, all he could think to do was buy the coveted game and run to the car before he was ambushed by people who missed their fleeting opportunity.

I must say, the huge marketing and sparse distribution of this game has been spectacular. I really applaud the people at Nintendo who figured out the best way to keep the population rabid about their product, for years, is through scarce supply for overwhelming demand. Sure, they could stock all the stores in America with enough of these things so that every family has two. But, then, no one would want them anymore.

This much is true. Charlie has wanted a Wii for a while. And even though he forgot to get my camera, I love this guy so completely and I am so glad that he is home. I love playing footsie with him at night before we go to sleep and I especially love that he will get up with Henry in the early morning hours and insure that my baby doesn't fall in to the commode, while I sleep on.

For that act alone, I'm convinced he can have whatever he wants.