Good morning, World! It's 4:00 a.m., and I'm wide awake. Last week, I discovered that mothers are awake at 3:00 for a variety of reasons, including movie-theatre-induced vomiting. If you missed that story, I am so sorry... it was a good one! This morning, I've added another reason why mothers may be awake in the middle of the f'ing night. But let's back this story up a little...
... Grampy and Nanny (my mom and dad, for those of you new to this terminology) came to visit us for Ella's birthday weekend. When they left, they took Charlie home with them since we intended to visit them over the long weekend in August, and thought it would be best that Charlie travel in style, with an entire backseat to herself, and an extra week with Nanny and Grampy. We're kind, and considerate like that.
After Nanny and Grampy left, I had to start planning our trip to NB. We wanted it to be a surprise for the girls, so during preparations we referred to "an adventure" we would be going on. Over the course of preparing for this trip, I discovered something... packing and preparing for a family of five is much, much, different than when it was just Danny and I. It's especially different when you're attempting to keep your destination a secret... and you have a 4-year old who wont stop asking questions. But I did it. I rocked the travel preparations. I did all the laundry, cleaned the entire house, packed all the bags, and made a nutritious lunch for the drive. I even fooled Nanny and Grampy into thinking we were travelling in the evening and, instead, surprised them by arriving at supper time. The lack of warning backfired a little on me, because they apparently forgot to turn off the air-conditioners in the house, and the penguins were still hanging out in the living room. See, my mother is old and apparently in "that stage of life" and thinks that she is melting all the time. So she keeps the house at a brisk -1, and wears t-shirts and shorts. My dad used to be normal like us, and combat the craziness of the cold... but sometime over the last four years, my mother has apparently assimilated him into also believing global warming is actually centrally located in their house.
So here we are. At Grampy and Nanny's house in New Brunswick. I love visiting because, let's be honest, I get to take a little break from being a parent. Oh, you want a snack, Ella? Go ask Nanny! You want to play outdoors, Gracie? I'm sure Grampy would love to take you! Poopy bum, Jax? Grampy!! Tonight, the kids were all in bed, and Danny and I headed off to sleep too. Danny, Jax, and I sleep in the two bedrooms in the basement, and the girls sleep upstairs in the bedrooms across from Nanny and Grampy. At 12:35, I heard the click-clacking of doggy nails on the ceiling above me. Charlie, who normally sleeps beside Grampy, was apparently restless. When the pacing didn't stop by 1:00, I figured it out... there's only one reason that dog paces in the middle of the night. Thunder. She may hear it an hour before us, but there's no mistaking the nervous prancing of a dog up and down the hall at 1:00 a.m. I headed upstairs in time to hear Gracie yelling, "Nanny! Charlie wont get off my bed. Nanny!! Nannnnnny! NANNY!" I went into Gracie's room where, sure enough, the dog was sitting basically on her face, and panting so heavily the whole bed was shaking. And then I saw the flash. I told Gracie that Charlie was nervous because of the thunder and lightning and asked her if she wanted to see the lightning. I knew that Charlie would not settle down until it was over, so I crawled into bed with the two of them, and Gracie and I watched the light show while Charlie panted and crawled all over the bed.
As a side note... who knew that a 4-year old talks as much at 1:00 a.m., as at 1:00 p.m. Seriously, the kid would not shut up. And I was tired, so Lord only knows what I agreed to or signed off on during that time, because she rambled on, and on, and on, and on....
So anyway, we finally made it to the other end of the storm. Gracie had fallen back asleep, and the dog had settled down. This was at 2:00 a.m. For informational purposes, I heard tons of snoring coming from across the hall, so apparently Nanny and Grampy were not aware of the goings-on in their granddaughter's room (and this, ladies and gentlemen is who I was able to sneak many a suitor into my bedroom during highschool. Kidding. Seriously!). At 2:00, I contemplated heading back to my bed... and then the panting started again. Round 2!! By 3:00, the dog was asleep, Gracie was asleep, and I was freaking tired. I thought about just staying where I was, but smooshed between a clingy dog and a clingy child was not where I wanted to be. So I shuffled the dog back to Grampy's room, and headed back downstairs. When I reached the kitchen... I stepped in something. Something disgusting. And let's rewind here again...
... Last week, I was talking to Nanny on Skype, and the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hi, Nanny!"
Nanny: "Hello? Are you there?"
Me: "Yes, I'm he..."
Nanny: "Hello? Can you hear me?"
Me: "Yes! I can hear y..."
Nanny: "What!?!?"
Me: "Stop interrupting, Nanny! Let me finish a sentence... also, the camera is pointed at the floor, mom. Look at your screen... see the floor there in the corner. Yeah, that's what your camera is pointed at. Good. Okay. How are you? How's Charlie? How's the weather?"
Nanny: "I'm good... have a little frostbite on my fingers from the air conditioning, but I like it! Charlie's good. The weather is hot and muggy. I think they're calling for thunderstorms tonight."
Me: "Oh, really? If it starts to thunder, make sure you watch Charlie very carefully. She gets the nervous poops when it thunders and she will shit all over your floor. Seriously, don't let her leave the room if it starts to thunder!"
... and back to 3:00 a.m. So I stepped in a pile of runny, wet, dog shit. Because apparently my parents sleep like rocks and didn't hear the 25 minutes of pacing, or the rumbling thunder, and Charlie got the nervous shits all of the kitchen floor. I washed my feet in the kitchen sink, observed the damage, looked at the clock, and thought. Nope. Not tonight. Not at 3 a.m. Not after scrubbing barf of a child and all sorts of surfaces just a few short nights ago. Not after I just got motor mouth back to sleep, and the dog settled down, and everyone else was snoring away. I'll just leave the kitchen light on, so my parents wont step on it in the morning like I had the pleasure of doing just now. I'll help out with this mess when it's daylight. Don't judge... it was 3 a.m. and I haven't been to sleep yet. Oh yeah, and - sorry, Mom!!
I dragged my tired ass back to bed to discover that my parents are not the only ones who sleep through anything. Not that this should be a surprise to any of you, but Danny was still dead asleep. And sprawled across the entire bed... sideways. There was no room for me. And I still kind of smelled like poop, so I came back to the couch in the downstairs living room (because the upstairs smelled like poop, too!) and tried to fall asleep. Except that, aside from the craziness of the air conditioning, my parents are also apparently crazy about clocks. They have 4 of them that tick and tock and chime. All f'ing night long. The one down here is ticking right now. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick (fuck you!) tock. Tick (no sleep for you!) tock. Also, it chimes every half hour. The three upstairs can also be heard ticking and tocking, and also chime every half hour. They all chime hourly, of course, and one even sings a lovely little song. Except none of them have the same time. So they're chiming all the god-damned time. Just when I'm about to fall asleep... DING! 3:30! And then, DING! 3:36 (but the clock thinks it's 3:30). And now it's 4:16, and we're about to go through another round of dinging. I'm going to try to fall asleep before then and maybe get an hour or two of rest... after all, I got some shit to clean up in the morning.
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