Saturday, January 31, 2009

i choose earlier bedtimes

Upstairs, my daughter is still crying, after 25 minutes, because she can't find her purple velvet eye shade. And her good friend (the gracious daughter of my best friend Lisa) stands by in awkward support, even offering her own blue silk eye shade in a please stop the nonsense move kind gesture. I took my girl aside to ask how she would feel if Lexi had invited her over then sat crying on her bed over an eye shade; to no avail - she DOESN'T KNOW how she would feel, she just FEELS SAD NOW. So I offered a sympathetic yet vaguely threatening remark along the lines of "Get yourself together and enjoy your friend or I will take her home right now."

Then my son, who is also having a friend sleep over (um, who does the scheduling around here??), is going all lack-of-focus on us: trying to design the perfect joke that will result in the punchline "Screw you;" still forgetting to put things away after 45 reminders; making a production of putting away the things he kept forgetting about; alternately being Police Captain & Dr. Phil to his crying sister.

I am going now to close everyone's door, run a steamy bath, read & exfoliate a bit, then get into my pajamas and pull the covers over my head for 10 hours.