FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET! or Why We're Always So Tired
Hola, wild boy friends and family!
Humblest apologies for missing last week's check in, we were a little tied up with a soccer tournament and quite frankly, exhausted.
I know we've talked about this before, but I'm pretty sure sleep deprivation is a cornerstone of parenthood. It makes sense, when you think about it - because if you were well rested you'd probably be way more upset about things like being showered with another living beings vomit or poo. So, the whole too tired to care thing is probably pretty critical.
I was thinking this morning, though, that a huge part of this is probably self inflicted. See, we all know soccer season is crazy busy up here in la casa. And just when the end was near, and I was about to have my two month break, we found out we made it to district cup and extended the season.
Yay...
So, being team mom (yeah, I get suckered into that A LOT in soccer), I dutifully helped arrange carpooling and extra lighting with the coach and trudged on for several more weeks of super muddy, super cold practice.
Last weekend the boys played in the tournament, and placed sixth which was absolutely huge. And as I drove home the hour and a half, I thought "we're done...we can rest."
HA!!!!
That was Sunday. And I was SO excited that we would have nights at home. But wait - Tuesday the cop and Gavin left for a week of Science Camp in the Bay Area. I had multiple subpoenas, two half day trainings to teach, and Gabe to juggle, and somehow decided we'd do dinner with friends one night and an art lesson another night...
Art teacher: "What do we have here Gabe?"
Gabe: "It's a dragon, chasing a man. Another man is chasing the dragon
with a bucket of water. It shows movement, like you asked."
Art teacher: "VERY GOOD Gabe! Excellent collage work! And, mom?"
Me: "Uhhhhhh, I made a flower...."
Art teacher: "That's nice dear."
Suffice it to say that come this weekend the cop and I were again EXHAUSTED. We know we should just use the weekend to catch up. We're clever. We're just too stubborn to give in. Seriously, our headstones should probably say something about "They absolutely knew better" because we do. But having not seen each other for a week, we opted to use last night as an opportunity to binge watch shows and hang out, since we could obviously sleep in today.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Here's another thing. Grown up shows necessitate the absence of children. Let's admit it, if there's even five seconds of boob on a show my kid will inevitably run in RIGHT THEN, glance at the screen in horror, and then tell me that it's inappropriate to be watching with children present. I should probably embrace this phase, since I know it's a small window. I seem to recall they were in no way offended by breasts for the first year of their lives, and I'm sure soon enough they'll be as enthusiastic about them as they were as hungry infants. But come on, sometimes I'd like to watch a show that has an adult plot line, which awake children make impossible. So, we waited until bedtime to start watching our show and eating the junk food I'd stashed away for just that celebratory moment.
Three hours later, we'd renamed all of our pets after the four partners of the Cali drug cartel and eaten a piece of cake the size of the guinea pig.
Cop: "holy crap that's huge."
Me, with two forks and a land mass of cake: "We got this. Let's Marie Antoinette this bitch."
We drifted off into sleep (or a sugar induced coma, not sure), super happy that we could sleep in the next morning.
Five hours later, the first cat needed out. Gilbert, originally named for his pet counterpart in the cartoon Caillou, which fostered lots of interesting conversation when first discovered like:
Cop: "Why is he bald? Does he have cancer?"
Me: "No, he just doesn't have hair."
Cop: "Why is he so whiny if he's not sick?'
Me: "He's four."
Cop: "Why aren't his parents spanking him for that stuff if he's not terminally ill?"
Me: "They're Canadian."
Cop: "Ahhhhhhh." Pause. "This show is awful."
Side note, it is. But I TOTALLY digress. Anyhow, Gilbert is Caillou's cat and so Gabe named our cat Gilbert and we renamed him Gilberto after the leader of the Cali drug cartel...I think we're caught up now... And Gilberto absolutely MUST go outside by 5:30 every morning or every piece of leather furniture we own will suffer his wrath. But wait, if you open the door it wakes up the dog and the guinea pig, who demand food. If that can be done quietly enough to not wake the rest of the house, as soon as you drift back to sleep you will be woken by not one, but two boys who will intentionally walk PAST their own bathroom, down stairs, over a dog gate, and into the master bathroom with the door inevitably open into the master bedroom and take turns peeing amounts that seem like the toilet is for sure going to overflow. Which they will then leave like that, seat open, because the damn hippy grandparents and California life in general has taught them that we are forever "right on the verge of another drought" and must conserve water always so if it's yellow we let it mellow, if it's brown we flush it down. They are super stringent with the water conservation, because they also apply it to never washing their damn hands. And IF BY ANY CHANCE you managed to sleep through ALL of that, you will then be awoken either by the smell of stale pee drifting in from the full toilet or worse, the sound of the dog drinking it out the toilet.
I'm not sure who designed the commercials where people wake up peacefully to the smell of coffee brewing. That has never, ever happened here. The smell we wake up to is far more noxious and nauseating.
In a nutshell, that's our lives. It's why we're always tired. I know it's our fault, kind of... I'm going to just ingest massive amounts of coffee and flush the toilet.
To all of the non-parents, enjoy the late mornings. To all of the rest of you, enjoy those 20 hours of awake time every day. Until next time!
Humblest apologies for missing last week's check in, we were a little tied up with a soccer tournament and quite frankly, exhausted.
I know we've talked about this before, but I'm pretty sure sleep deprivation is a cornerstone of parenthood. It makes sense, when you think about it - because if you were well rested you'd probably be way more upset about things like being showered with another living beings vomit or poo. So, the whole too tired to care thing is probably pretty critical.
I was thinking this morning, though, that a huge part of this is probably self inflicted. See, we all know soccer season is crazy busy up here in la casa. And just when the end was near, and I was about to have my two month break, we found out we made it to district cup and extended the season.
Yay...
So, being team mom (yeah, I get suckered into that A LOT in soccer), I dutifully helped arrange carpooling and extra lighting with the coach and trudged on for several more weeks of super muddy, super cold practice.
Last weekend the boys played in the tournament, and placed sixth which was absolutely huge. And as I drove home the hour and a half, I thought "we're done...we can rest."
HA!!!!
That was Sunday. And I was SO excited that we would have nights at home. But wait - Tuesday the cop and Gavin left for a week of Science Camp in the Bay Area. I had multiple subpoenas, two half day trainings to teach, and Gabe to juggle, and somehow decided we'd do dinner with friends one night and an art lesson another night...
Art teacher: "What do we have here Gabe?"
Gabe: "It's a dragon, chasing a man. Another man is chasing the dragon
with a bucket of water. It shows movement, like you asked."
Art teacher: "VERY GOOD Gabe! Excellent collage work! And, mom?"
Me: "Uhhhhhh, I made a flower...."
Art teacher: "That's nice dear."
Suffice it to say that come this weekend the cop and I were again EXHAUSTED. We know we should just use the weekend to catch up. We're clever. We're just too stubborn to give in. Seriously, our headstones should probably say something about "They absolutely knew better" because we do. But having not seen each other for a week, we opted to use last night as an opportunity to binge watch shows and hang out, since we could obviously sleep in today.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Here's another thing. Grown up shows necessitate the absence of children. Let's admit it, if there's even five seconds of boob on a show my kid will inevitably run in RIGHT THEN, glance at the screen in horror, and then tell me that it's inappropriate to be watching with children present. I should probably embrace this phase, since I know it's a small window. I seem to recall they were in no way offended by breasts for the first year of their lives, and I'm sure soon enough they'll be as enthusiastic about them as they were as hungry infants. But come on, sometimes I'd like to watch a show that has an adult plot line, which awake children make impossible. So, we waited until bedtime to start watching our show and eating the junk food I'd stashed away for just that celebratory moment.
Three hours later, we'd renamed all of our pets after the four partners of the Cali drug cartel and eaten a piece of cake the size of the guinea pig.
Cop: "holy crap that's huge."
Me, with two forks and a land mass of cake: "We got this. Let's Marie Antoinette this bitch."
We drifted off into sleep (or a sugar induced coma, not sure), super happy that we could sleep in the next morning.
Five hours later, the first cat needed out. Gilbert, originally named for his pet counterpart in the cartoon Caillou, which fostered lots of interesting conversation when first discovered like:
Cop: "Why is he bald? Does he have cancer?"
Me: "No, he just doesn't have hair."
Cop: "Why is he so whiny if he's not sick?'
Me: "He's four."
Cop: "Why aren't his parents spanking him for that stuff if he's not terminally ill?"
Me: "They're Canadian."
Cop: "Ahhhhhhh." Pause. "This show is awful."
Side note, it is. But I TOTALLY digress. Anyhow, Gilbert is Caillou's cat and so Gabe named our cat Gilbert and we renamed him Gilberto after the leader of the Cali drug cartel...I think we're caught up now... And Gilberto absolutely MUST go outside by 5:30 every morning or every piece of leather furniture we own will suffer his wrath. But wait, if you open the door it wakes up the dog and the guinea pig, who demand food. If that can be done quietly enough to not wake the rest of the house, as soon as you drift back to sleep you will be woken by not one, but two boys who will intentionally walk PAST their own bathroom, down stairs, over a dog gate, and into the master bathroom with the door inevitably open into the master bedroom and take turns peeing amounts that seem like the toilet is for sure going to overflow. Which they will then leave like that, seat open, because the damn hippy grandparents and California life in general has taught them that we are forever "right on the verge of another drought" and must conserve water always so if it's yellow we let it mellow, if it's brown we flush it down. They are super stringent with the water conservation, because they also apply it to never washing their damn hands. And IF BY ANY CHANCE you managed to sleep through ALL of that, you will then be awoken either by the smell of stale pee drifting in from the full toilet or worse, the sound of the dog drinking it out the toilet.
I'm not sure who designed the commercials where people wake up peacefully to the smell of coffee brewing. That has never, ever happened here. The smell we wake up to is far more noxious and nauseating.
In a nutshell, that's our lives. It's why we're always tired. I know it's our fault, kind of... I'm going to just ingest massive amounts of coffee and flush the toilet.
To all of the non-parents, enjoy the late mornings. To all of the rest of you, enjoy those 20 hours of awake time every day. Until next time!
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