Christmas Crazy. More.

Oh, hi.

CHRISTMAS CRAZY!

Perhaps you would like to know how that little project is going so far?

The short answer is that it is going pretty darn well. The longer answer is over there in the sidebar ----->

Did you see it? The Christmas Crazy button? With the total below it?

That's a pretty solid start, but we have a ways left to go if we want to make some serious magic for kids who are currently receiving services through Center for Victims. These are kids who have seen violence up close in ways that I'd rather not think about.

Let's do more. Lots more.

Here's the Amazon Wishlist.

Or you can click the reindeer and I will do the shopping. Either way, we're doing something that matters.

I think one of the people who works directly with the kids said it well, so I won't try to come up with the words. From an email she sent a few days ago: "I cannot express to you how much myself, the agency and our families appreciate everything you do for us especially for Christmas so from the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU!!"

She's talking to you guys.

A Nurse I Am Not

If there is anything that we have learned in the past 24 hours, it's that I would make a TERRIBLE nurse. The worst. Worse than the worst.

It's a really good thing the girls generally don't get sick. I mean, a REALLY good thing.

When Alexis went to bed on Monday, she wasn't feeling the greatest. She had a headache and her belly hurt and blah, blah, blah. There were some complainy words that I didn't hear because I AM A TERRIBLE NURSE. I figured she would forget all about it by the time she woke up. Well, THAT didn't work out the way I expected, so when she harassed me for the 3513423rd time at 5:00 am, I emailed my boss that I would be working from home. I grabbed my laptop and settled in for a whole bunch of productivity.

Alexis ended up not waking up until around 9:00 (which, !!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!), so by then I was thoroughly buried in a Word document. Mila was at daycare, the dogs were in the basement, and I was acting like I was home alone and not responsible for a thing in the world other than knocking out some work projects. Imagine my surprise when I realized Alexis expected me to take care of her.

THE NERVE, RIGHT?

It started with a request for some water. The she wanted some food. On my best days I'm confused as to why the small people think I will remember to feed them. Take away sleep and add in some major work-related focus, and I really didn't know what I was supposed to do.

I gave her a pack of crackers, some oatmeal, a tablet, and instructions to text me if she needed anything else.

Unfortunately, she followed those instructions. She texted and asked for other stuff and then she texted again just to say hi and then she texted some more. It was as if she thought she was a kid and I was an adult responsible for taking care of her.

THE NERVE, RIGHT?

The good news from the whole thing was that Alexis seemed to be completely fine this morning and thus returned to school. Whether that was because she really was better or if it was because she had figured out that being sick at home with me is basically the worst, I don't know.

I suspect that it was because being home with me is basically the worst.

A Post about Nothing because This Week Has Already Been Something.

If you're having one of those days where you're like, "I want a baby!" but you KNOW you need talked out of that brand of crazy, ask me about Sunday night. Any Sunday night. All of the Sunday nights.

Sunday nights are so stupid.

I can't even begin to explain the 17,923 ways they fall apart, but they do. It's sort of like Mila saves all of her sleep drama for that one night, except that each Sunday is it's own special brand of ludicrous. There are no patterns. Nothing seems to be able to prevent it. They all just suck.

Which, if we're going to have sleep drama, at least we tend to have it all on one night? Yes! That!

This week's brand of insanity involved a two-hour kegger complete with a nekkid dancer. Wait, what? YES, THERE WAS NEKKID DANCING. After two hours of just plain not sleeping, Mila pulled off her pants, tried to put them on over her head, and then danced. Oh how she danced. There was a lot of dancing is what I'm saying.

That dancing came after her recitation of every word in the English language, or at least every word that she can say in the English language. Monkey, by the way. Monkey shoe waffle play. That's the code word to get into the party.

Now that you've adequately imagined what Sunday night looked like for me, it probably makes sense that I spent Monday high as a kite on caffeine. I am no fool, so I didn't even think about trying to make it through an entire hour without chugging a cup of coffee. I was planning a nice early bedtime (which probably would have involved lots of being awake because CAFFEEEEIIINNNNNEE! but whatever), but then the other kid rained on my parade.

Alexis, she who rarely gets sick, got sick. She got sick enough to want to skip dance class. THAT is saying something.

When Alexis gets sick, she gets a man cold. That's an important detail because ZOMG SO MUCH DRAAAAAAMA. She really don't know how to deal and every little thing is the worst thing ever. Oh, and she doesn't need to sleep.

So guess who thought it would be totally appropriate to report her not-sleeping-and-still-sick status to me every hour?

BINGO! IT WAS THE KID WHO TRIED TO DESTROY ME! Actually, they both tried to destroy me because eventually Mila decided she couldn't let Alexis have all of the awake fun.

There was A LOT of awake last night. All of it, even.

And that brings me to the point of this entire post. My point is ... HOW IS IT NOT THE WEEKEND? I'm not usually cross-eyed from exhaustion this early in the week. I can't even begin to imaging how much caffeine it's going to take to make it through this mess.