Nine Days

I'd known months in advance that Erin's week long Yoga Retreat in Mexico was set for mid-March. I'm not sure what a "Yoga Retreat" entails, just that it meant a significant number of local moms were abandoning the children of Healdsburg to the questionable competence of the local dads. The authorities probably should have been notified.

I wasn't sure if I was up to the task, but it turned out not to be that big of a deal. Seriously! I guess I'm not really sure why I thought it would be. I had to come up with a couple of new dinner ideas and we went through a few more diapers, but really it wasn't so different from any other week.

I think I was worried about Jodee. Our relationship is still relatively new, or at least in my head it's too new to be subjecting it to this kind of test.

Three and five-year-old brothers are, quite simply, a natural disaster personified. There's nothing you can do to prevent a hurricane. All you can do is be prepared for the onslaught, endure it, and rebuild. It's exactly the same with Liam and Finn each weekend we're together. The last nine straight days, however, was like one of those hurricanes that stalls off the coast and just keeps making things worse and worse.

I anticipated this and wisely planned a couple of moments of relief. For example, I scheduled a sitter for Thursday night as a surprise for Jodee. I had no real plan in place for the evening, just a spontaneous break, maybe a walk downtown or a quick happy hour cocktail. This would have been great except I was so scatterbrained trying to manage the logistics of the week I forgot about the sitter until she texted that she was on her way. Of course I received this text while I was on my way to trade cars with Jodee at the gym and go pick the boys up from daycare. I got home 45 minutes into the 2 hour window I'd promised the sitter, so I paid her for her time and went and had a 1 hour 15 minute date with myself.

A Night on the Town

I think leaving town with the boys the following night was a wise move. We hadn't seen my parents in a while so it was off to Berkeley to hear my mother's sweet voice telling me things like "you should take a nap" and "we ordered pizza."

I got back Sunday night. While it was a totally manageable week, I was too exhausted on that final night to do anything but stumble to bed. The boys had napped during the day and weren't ready to end their weekend. Mercifully, Jodee offered to stay up for a bit and put them down for me.

I think she missed us.

Pi Day: Liam Learns About His Spheres

I was posting an article online about a man, named Akira Haraguchi, who memorized a mind-boggling 100,000 digits of Pi, when I heard a loud bang from the bedroom. It was that familiar sound that told me one of the boys was climbing something he wasn't supposed to, and it hadn't worked out. Usually this sound is paired with a cry matching the severity of the injury, but I perked up my ears and didn't hear a peep. This means that whoever took the spill was either uninjured or really injured.

Before I had time to panic I heard Liam shout "hurt?!" He sounded equal parts pained and confused, so I went to investigate. He was doubled-over, looking nauseous, unhappy, and completely dumbfounded. "Awww buddy! Did you get hit in the balls?" I asked feeling truly sympathetic. He responded by going to his room and putting himself back to bed.

I left him alone for the requisite 20 seconds it would take him to recover and went to inspect the scene of the crime. How remarkable was this? It had been just before 9:30am on 3/14/15. I was hyper aware of the time because it's Pi Day and it was around the one second of this century that matched Pi to ten digits. Could it have happened at exactly 9:26:53?

Just an hour earlier Jodee had reprimanded Liam after catching him propping up her foam body roller between my dresser and the foot of the bed and trying to ride it like a horse. Here's what I found in the bedroom.

I think his body roller rodeo days are over for now. I guess Karma is a math dork.

The Case of the Totally Lacking Pajamas

Yesterday I became mildly (read: verging on panic-attacky) obsessed with the fact that I didn't have any pajamas.

You see, today we are heading up to the fair city of Eureka, where we will spend the weekend celebrating the fiftieth (read: Five Zero) wedding anniversary of Paulie's parents. I know. It's crazy. That's a buttload of years to be married to someone. But whatever; they did it, so hoo-ah! celebrate we shall!

The pajama concern came up because joining us on this celebratory vacay will be one teenage son of Paulie, and one girlfriend of teenage son of Paulie. Let the good times roll!! As I am eternally the 'Bad Cop' in this arrangement, it was fun finding lodging that would accommodate Paulie and I, plus a separate bed for the teenage son, plus a separate bed for the girlfriend of the teenage son. Both of the teen beds must of course include many a loud obstacle (old springs, creaking floors, squeaky doors...you get the point) which will alert us to one teenager or the other trying to sneak into the warm, toasty-smelling embrace of their beloved. NOT ON MY WATCH, KIDDOS!!

Anyway, I realized I would be up constantly, making excuses to bumble into the main room (where one of them will be sleeping on the futon) to make tea, or pass through to use the bathroom, or pretend to be sleepwalking - the usual. And if this were going to happen I couldn't just be in my dowdy old 'everyday pj's'...i.e. a variation of whatever I wore earlier that day.

This is my reality

I brought this up to Paulie later that evening.

Me: Sooo...I'm concerned that I don't have pajamas. I think I need some pajamas.

Paulie: You, uh, you have pajamas.

(Therefore unleashing the crazy in me)

Me: No I don't! I have NO pajamas!

Paulie: Yes you do - you just wear the same clothes you wore earlier in the day. Well, the top. And some sweatpants. You have pajama bottoms, at least.

This was sort of my vision

Me: But I'm going to be puttering around making tea and shit and the teenagers will be there and I don't want to be all nipply in my holey t-shirt...I need some bonafide cutesy little pajamas. Like, with a collar or something.

Paulie: Okay baby, if you want some pajamas, you should definitely get some pajamas (side note: I love him! So agreeable.)

Me: And I might need some kicky little robe, you know? Like 'oh here I am in my cute pajamas and I just threw this cute robe over my pajamas because this is just how I roll, kids!' I mean, I need to be like the cool funky step-momish or whatever figure in this arrangement....... (at this point the conversation fades into other mumbly things because it always gets awkward here, ever since I wrote a OBVIOUSLY JOKE blog post about getting married and everyone started freaking out and Paulie got really annoyed with me and I didn't like it. But I can justify the comment above by blaming the teenage son because he's always calling me his step-mom and putting me down on emergency forms as such, because as he says "it's way easier than saying 'my dad's girlfriend who we also live with', god!")

So, while I had grand dreams of slumbering adorably like that girl in that 80's movie, I didn't have the time or money to turn any of this into reality. Instead I brought this hand-me-down cozy-as-all-get-out sweater-thingy that I like to call my Frasier Sweater, because it reminds me of the time Frasier was cat-sitting and he also had a sweater-blanket around him and he looked in the mirror and realized he'd become a Cat Lady.

Thank god I don't have any cats.