The plumber is coming again today to put our shower faucet out of its misery. It's an old-school faucet, with "hot,"  "cold" and "change function" knobs.  The change function knob doesn't work - if the water is on, it's always coming out of both the tub faucet and the shower head; it just favors one over the other, depending on how you twist it. About every two months, the whole thing breaks and we have to cut off the water to the entire house and beg the plumber to come.

I've described our plumbing adventures before. You can read about them here and here.  I believe at one point I told the story of how we had to call the firemen when I was seven months pregnant with the little angel and Sybil the cat somehow got into the crawl space below the tub, but boy, that was a long story and the post must have gone into Typepad Archive Heaven, because I sure as hell can't find it.

Anyway, he should be here in about fifteen minutes.  I'm a wee bit nervous. 

I type to keep myself from falling asleep face-first on the monitor. The little angel and I played "in the bed, out of the bed" last night from 2:30 to 4:30 a.m.  This is called "the rubber band technique" by one of the 800 sleep experts whose books I have read and thrown across the room in the past six months. I don't remember which one. It most reminded me of a quote from an obscure '80s Justine Bateman film, Satisfaction. They were living in their van.  Or something. And one of the ditzy girl-band members kept saying "In the van, out of the van, in the van, out of the van."  That's sort of how I felt after putting the little angel back in bed for the 21st time with her protesting, "No, Mama rocking. Mama rocking!" and stamping her little feet.  I actually passed out from exhaustion face-first on the carpet after she stopped making noise.  I had fully intended to go back to bed, but woke up at 7 in a puddle of my own drool with the little angel dancing on my poor, twisted back. 

But enough about that.

2006 Resolutions

1) Stop talking so much about how my child doesn't sleep. Or how she hasn't slept through the night more than three times since August. The Internet doesn't care.  My own family is growing bored with it. I'm so bored with myself talking about it, I could just die.  The more comatose I become, the more likely it is I will stop taking the energy to talk at all, so this should be pretty easy.

2) Publish more.  Print stuff, that is.  I make this one every year, but dammit, I'm serious now. I was on a roll while getting my master's degree in fiction, but then the child emerged. I'm with Alice on that one.  And it has to be something in addition to the article on picking out your own wedding ring that I am working on. This has to be something of the poem-and-short-story variety.

3) Recarpet my upstairs and get rid of the damn lead-paint-containing door that goes to the playroom. The door haunts my sleep and drives me insane every time I look at it.

4) Finally remove all the leaves from my yard before the trees start budding again.

5) Buy cooler clothes when I once again get access to my own clothing budget.  I figure the more I buy the little angel on Ebay, the more money there will be for me. I am an awesome mother in this way.  She has so overspent on her distribution of the resources, anyway. I mean, she did just get a new bed and everything.

6) Extend and keep more social invitations.  I spend too dang much time trying to catch extra sleep since I don't do any of THAT at night.  It has totally made me an irritable hermit.  But there I go talking about the "s" word again.

7) Swear more when not in the little angel's earshot.  I can't give up swearing. I love to swear. I just need to change the location and do it more in the bathroom or something.

8) Find some nature.  I realized when I was at my parents' house so much over the holidays that I really miss hiking in the woods. I would like to hike in the woods again. I wonder where they might be located in Kansas City?

9) Cook something that doesn't come microwavable in a bag at least once a week. When I'm not trying to sleep.

10) Did I mention I want to stop talking about, reading about, and thinking about sleep?  Is there some kind of Sleep CQ patch I could look into it that would administer small doses of REM to me during the day?  Man, if I could harness THAT invention, I could quit my job right now. I would be the hero of parents and rock stars everywhere.

I think that's it for now.

This morning we took the little angel to the walk-in hours at the pediatrician's office because she had a weird rash on her wee tushie.  The early-morning doc ordered a platelet count because he detected petechia which can mean something as mind-blowingly horrible as spinal meningitis or as bland as, well, trauma caused by too-tight diapers. Put that choice in your pipe and smoke it.

While I was waiting four hours for the results of said lab tests and desperately trying to concentrate on editing a training manual, I happened to walk past the television my mother was watching (guardian angel that she is, she who makes my daughter sleep through the night for the first time in four days with her very presence) and see George Bush.  The sight of George Bush never does anything positive for my blood pressure. Today he was talking about how sometimes people give up on kids learning to read and write, and isn't that sad.  Can you imagine how sad it is to let someone ignorant slip through the sytem?  Can you fucking imagine? WHEN MIGHT THAT EVER HAPPEN?

Ahem.  George?  This from someone who said, "Wow, Brazil is big?"  I'll save my diatribes about all the children and presidents who've been left behind for another day when I'm not trying to make up for lost time.

Happy weekend. 

The little angel's sleeping average has dropped to 32% since the week before Thanksgiving.  Every night this week she has broken my will be waking up between 1:30 and 4 and refusing to go back to sleep. Without my back-up pinch hitter, otherwise known as my husband, I don't have the will to stay up all night every night with no chance of a nap and a hectic corporate job to deal with during the day.  We've ended up on the couch a lot.

I don't know what happened. It was all going so well with the big-girl bed.  The enticement of Elmo, the blinky-light shoes, the new stickers we got at Target last night, nothing works.  When my beloved returns, there is going to be a showdown SuperNanny-style.  But for now, I'm just...really tired.

Wah.

The little angel was again the perp today.  Her big, pointy teeth were her weapons of choice. 

What We Wish She'd Say Tomorrow:

Dearest Baby M.,

I wish to extend my most sincere apologies for leaning in to you yesterday so tenderly the teachers thought I was giving you a hug, then taking a huge chomp out of your pudgy baby face.  After Mama had a long talk with me over my Elmo coloring book, I realize the errors of my ways and feel deeply ashamed.  I realize now that friends are of utmost importance, right up there with mommies and daddies and kitties.  If there is anything I can do to rectify the harm to our friendship, please allow me to do so.  I also promise to send back all the dirty money donated to my last campaign.

Leave long and prosper,

Little Angel

What She Will Really Say Tomorrow At Waddler B:

Sucker.

The little angel was again the perp today.  Her big, pointy teeth were her weapons of choice. 

What We Wish She'd Say Tomorrow:

Dearest Baby M.,

I wish to extend my most sincere apologies for leaning in to you yesterday so tenderly the teachers thought I was giving you a hug, then taking a huge chomp out of your pudgy baby face.  After Mama had a long talk with me over my Elmo coloring book, I realize the errors of my ways and feel deeply ashamed.  I realize now that friends are of utmost importance, right up there with mommies and daddies and kitties.  If there is anything I can do to rectify the harm to our friendship, please allow me to do so.  I also promise to send back all the dirty money donated to my last campaign.

Leave long and prosper,

Little Angel

What She Will Really Say Tomorrow At Waddler B:

Sucker.

Well, after an amazing three-day sleeping frenzy last week, the little angel has gone back to her late-night partying ways.  What a mistake it was to take her to my parent's house for New Year's Eve.  We live and we learn.  The next time I'm forced to choose between expensive but bad champagne and a full night's sleep, remind me to choose the full night's sleep.

To boot, my beloved is in St. Louis this week, so the combination of the little angel's Midwest trotting and her daddy suddenly missing in action has wreaked havoc on the allure of the big-girl bed.  Two nights ago she did make it until four before she howled, but last night it was 2:30.  I attempted to get her to go back to sleep in her bed, offering back rubbing and some whining from Elmo that he didn't want her to leave. She was having none of it.  Finally after about an hour, I gave in and brought her down to the couch. I figure we can deal with it when there are two of us and I can apply earplugs every other night.

The saddest part, though, was that I showed her the next developmentally appropriate Ebay purchase:  the size 7W Stride Rite blinky-light shoes.  I showed them to her right after her bath.  She immediately wanted to put them on with her baggy pajama bottoms, causing me to momentarily mistake her for Julia Stiles in the second half of Save the Last Dance.  The little angel squealed with delight, gingerly lifting a foot then stamping it down to watch the lights go off.  She tore off down the hall to show Sybil her new kicks.  I leaned back, wondering if bribing her to sleep with shoes would trigger some $40,000 Jimmy Choo habit later in life. 

Oh, well. It didn't work, anyway. I had to sneak in to her room this morning and hide the shoes.  No, she's not wearing those babies until she sleeps through the night.  IF you're going to use bribery, for God's sake, there are RULES.

Well, after an amazing three-day sleeping frenzy last week, the little angel has gone back to her late-night partying ways.  What a mistake it was to take her to my parent's house for New Year's Eve.  We live and we learn.  The next time I'm forced to choose between expensive but bad champagne and a full night's sleep, remind me to choose the full night's sleep.

To boot, my beloved is in St. Louis this week, so the combination of the little angel's Midwest trotting and her daddy suddenly missing in action has wreaked havoc on the allure of the big-girl bed.  Two nights ago she did make it until four before she howled, but last night it was 2:30.  I attempted to get her to go back to sleep in her bed, offering back rubbing and some whining from Elmo that he didn't want her to leave. She was having none of it.  Finally after about an hour, I gave in and brought her down to the couch. I figure we can deal with it when there are two of us and I can apply earplugs every other night.

The saddest part, though, was that I showed her the next developmentally appropriate Ebay purchase:  the size 7W Stride Rite blinky-light shoes.  I showed them to her right after her bath.  She immediately wanted to put them on with her baggy pajama bottoms, causing me to momentarily mistake her for Julia Stiles in the second half of Save the Last Dance.  The little angel squealed with delight, gingerly lifting a foot then stamping it down to watch the lights go off.  She tore off down the hall to show Sybil her new kicks.  I leaned back, wondering if bribing her to sleep with shoes would trigger some $40,000 Jimmy Choo habit later in life. 

Oh, well. It didn't work, anyway. I had to sneak in to her room this morning and hide the shoes.  No, she's not wearing those babies until she sleeps through the night.  IF you're going to use bribery, for God's sake, there are RULES.

Ever since I lived in Chicago, I have preferred being where the action is.  However, this often comes with some, er, side effects.  When I first moved to Kansas City, I moved into a very cool ex-hotel on the Missouri historical registry.  Unfortunately, it was next to an abandoned building and a few streets down from some, well, crack houses.  I remember one night I got so weebed out by the gunshot sounds that I nailed my window shut.  (I've had brighter ideas in the past, looking back at the fire hazard that THAT was.)

From there, my beloved and I moved in together into an also very cool second floor walk-up in Midtown.  There I learned about a cultural event that involves taking out your handgun and shooting it in the air on the Fourth of July and on New Year's Eve at the stroke of midnight. 

After that place, when we decided to buy, we wanted to stay in town a while longer.  We moved about three miles south into one of those neighborhoods often referred to as "up and coming."  That's a nice way of saying "shitty now, but there's hope."  It was all we could afford at the time.  We did a ton of work to This Old House, and bless them, the neighbors have started doing some work to their old houses, too.  The neighborhood is really coming around.  That's why I was surprised last week when I left the little angel's bedroom at 8:30 to hear my beloved whispering, "Come here!!" in that excited, let's watch the house fire sort of voice.

We went outside on the porch to see five squad cars with their lights flashing.  A paddy wagon was double-parked two houses down. We sat down to watch.  A guy came out of one of the houses with the best Christmas lights in cuffs.

"Do you think I should be scared about this?" I asked.

My beloved laughed, a former small-town-Iowa-boy-turned-city-veteran at my insistence we live in "cool" neighborhoods.  "Not now - see, they got him!" he crowed.

Yeah.