Crutches

1. My Ergo

2. Alcohol

3. Amazon prime streaming

4. Blackest black espresso

5. Driving aimlessly through the burbs in my minivan because I've forgotten where it is we're trying to get to. Truly.

Enough with the listing though. This week has started out on a rough note. Suspected RSV in the wee one (mercifully not, but still sleepless in Seattle.), a potentially broken finger in the medium one (x-rays on a one-year old are surprisingly do-able.), and endless amounts of willful tantrum throwing and truly horrifying behavior from the resident pre-schooler. Except he's not in preschool yet. But God knows he should be, because he asks me all day long one million and one questions about life and its intricacies, bosses his poor brother around like an indentured servant, and begs me to teach him how to read.

Honey, mommy hasn't taken a shower since Friday, phonics are not happening this winter. Or possibly ever, as the price of tuition leads me to believe.

Even now as I try to string a meager 200 words together he is at my elbow, shoving a chapter book in my face and  dumping shelled pistachios in my lap in some bizarre attempt to capture my attention. I know it's all he wants, my attention, but sleeplessness and nursing and work and dishes and too many demands on a mama's time = go watch more Curious George. Except please don't, because I truly hate the sound of that monkey's voice.

(Oh good, the doctor's office just called with reports of swelling but no fracture in JP's finger. I heart American medicine.)

So just to review: little sleep, few 'wins' in the engaged parent department, and pistachio shells littering the entire main floor of our house. Also, does anyone have an opinion on relieving nighttime congestion in newborns, aside from the usual and obvious? We even bought a nose frida…we're those parents, now. I read one mommy message board advocating straight up mouth-to-nose suctioning, so I'm not feeling completely disgusting…yet.

And finally, Downton: you're dead to me. Honestly, I am in no state to entertain that kind of trauma. I'm still getting over Matthew. How can you be so cruel?