family: ... add it up, add it up....

Shit I'd Be Writing if I Were Still Blogging

- written Saturday night
- posted Sunday night

Is it half-past Sunday yet?
(photo by L)

It's 8.59p on Saturday night, which means it's actually 10p but I've already set the clocks for the "fall back" of tomorrow morning. Which means for the second night in a row it's managed to jump from 7.30p (when I got the girls down to bed) to 10p without my understanding how, and it'll be 5a when they get up tomorrow (assuming that L isn't already in my bed, like she was last night starting at about 2a).

I'm solo-parenting this weekend, which extends from 8.30a yesterday through 11p Monday, so I'm more or less fucked. But enough of that.

The weekend scorecard to date:

• 3 - Number of "Belle stories" K has forfeited for poor behavior: last night, tonight, and tomorrow night, all for spitting.
  
  Yesterday we almost made it. She only "spitted" at me immediately after bath, which was less than 20 minutes before the story would have been told.
  
  Today she spat at me twice, once this afternoon while I was talking to Mom for the first time in over a month (I had to cut short the call), and once later in the afternoon. In both cases she seemed unrepentant.
  
  
• 3 - Number of L's clothing changes due to accidents. The first time was this morning, seconds after she announced to me that she had to pee, but hours after we'd changed her from her sleeping diaper into underwear.
  
  Somehow both K and L manage to go almost the entire morning before either needed to pee, and then seconds after L went into the bathroom, she called out "Dada, I'm peeing!" I thought she meant on the toilet, but she meant standing in the middle of the room with her pants 1/2 way down, watching the yellow tide spread around her feet. I got there in time to throw the bathmat down and staunch the flood. Then it was a new set of clothes, and on to other things. The second change came partway through her nap, when I heard something odd on the monitor. I found L standing in her crib saying "Dada, my pants are wet!" This was the second time in 3 days that there's been a nap accident. Luckily this time all I had to wash were her pants, sheet and mattress pad. The third time almost doesn't count. She was sitting on the toilet and peeing, but sitting too close to the edge, so she peed into her pants. These things happen. Happily, she seems not at all bothered by them, and all in all, her transition to underwear has been remarkably smooth.
  
  
• 1 - Number of Black Beauty showings K has lost the privilege of seeing.
  
  I'd been planning on doing a Netflix download for her, a treat we could all snuggle together and watch on my laptop in bed, but she lost that when she continued to spit after losing a Belle story for tomorrow night. Or was it when she hauled off and clocked L with a horse? Or when she smeared the window with cream cheese by pushing her messing mouth up to the glass? Or…? Honestly, I've lost count and lost track of all the times and ways that she acted up this afternoon.
  
  
• 1 - Number of days of school K has skipped.
• 1 - Number of those days I was supposed to work at home.
• 1.5 - Number of hours during that day I managed to get any work done.*
  *these courtesy of the Curious George dvd I popped in and left running.
  
  The plan yesterday (was it really only yesterday? uh...shit!?!) was to drop K at school, then M at the airport at 8.30, then back to West Seattle to drop L at daycare. I'd have the day until 3p to work at home. But we didn't get out of the house until almost 8.25a due to K's stalling, and when we left it was with her in a diaper, so school wasn't an option, even if she hadn't been refusing. Dropping L off turned ugly too, once she realized that her sister was skipping school.
  
  
• 0 - number of desserts they got to eat tonight. Not for any specific reason, but rather because I felt things were already so iffy in so many different ways, that I wasn't willing to add any chocolate to the mix.
  
  On the other hand, they both ate skittles last night, after an agonizing period of indecision. L would have dived in and picked some kind of candy, but she saw K waffling and then they got into a discussion of what was good and what they had in their respective candy bags and eventually they both went with the Skittles, much to my relief. (K took literally 20+ minutes to decide on Skittles the night after Halloween (which, if you're not counting, would be Nov. 1. I just wasn't up for another delay like that.)
  
  
• 1-15 - the approximate range of inches of rain that have fallen since this morning. It's soggy out there, and we didn't leave the house, which was a bad thing in so many different ways and for so many different reasons. I'm tempted to bundle them both up into raincoats and make them go out in it tomorrow.
  
  
• 1 - number of double-timeouts K has had. Shortly after losing Belle and Black Beauty this afternoon, I think this one was for kicking a hard plastic high heel shoe (not one of my purchases!) at L, missing, and having the shoe spin up and into the kitchen sink, where it clattered among the many dishes I hadn't had a chance to wash. Her usual M.O. is to yell "Is it over?" loudly and repeatedly throughout the course of her timeout. I told her I was going to set the timer and when it went off her timeout would be done. Until then I did. Not. Want. To. Hear. A. Word.
  
  And I didn't.
  
  
• 1 - number of CostCo trips in planning. Not my idea of fun, but it's become a necessity because we are apparently out of Kleenex and Maple Syrup, both necessities during a weekend like this one.
  
  
• 0 - number of Cup Cake Royale cupcakes the girls have had. M suggested treating them one day, and it seemed like a good idea. Until K didn't go to school yesterday.
  
  
• 2 - number of days before M gets home. She'll arrive very late Monday, so I've got both tomorrow and Monday evening to deal with. Not to mention the afternoons. And mornings.
  

And on the plus side:

• 1 - number of dogs snoring next to my bed.
  
  
• 2 - number of girls sleeping as the rain lashes the roof.
  
  
• 3 - number of times the girls (K especially) insisted on watching the online video of Zenyatta come from way waaaaay behind to almost win the Breeders Cup.
  
  I think the girls kept hoping that if we watched again she might actually win it. Seems reasonable to me.
  
  

Addendum, Sunday evening:

Today went remarkably well, especially compared to yesterday. Though most things, compared to yesterday, would appear positive. K and I managed to make it through the day without any lost privileges. She and L and I snuggled and watched Black Beauty (more on this later, but can you say 3 men killed on-screen?). The sun came out. And we were blessed with a short visit from my sister and our nephew. Everyone is asleep now. And it's freaking not raining!!!

Good night.