And The World's Children Turned On Their Parents, And Their Parents Drank Wine

Trevor left early this morning and as he kissed me goodbye, I had one of those moments of being half awake but still very half asleep, a little confused and yet needing to speak for no good reason. I said, "Wait -- you mean no one's up yet? Well that means I get to go back to sleep!" And that was all, I didn't even hear his answer, until the monitor blared and Berit sang out, "MAma, I'm AWAKE, come and GET me!" And at the very same time Marta started talking and laughing in her crib. 

I thought, not bad, they both woke up at 7 a.m., they're both happy, the sun is shining and it is already HOT in the house. Good day.

But by the time we put our two feet on the last step to head into our morning routine, Berit had started whining and crying and Marta was making it very clear that she had two new teeth coming in and she didn't like it a bit. 

No, this did not continue all day. It got worse. Berit spent most of her day crying, an emotional wreck, shouting, pushing, taking, not eating, etc. etc. Marta spent most of her day hanging on my legs, a crumpled mess, begging to be held and begging to be fed and begging to be not fed. 

Luckily, I had scheduled our sitter to come today, since I had a meeting with a friend regarding a freelance job I've taken (which will hopefully be fun and rewarding and not one more thing to do with no time in which to do it). (Friend, if you're reading, I'm doing it to work with you again. Let's have fun and reward ourselves.)

I escaped for a few hours to my favorite local eating establishment for the meeting and left uplifted. When I returned home, nothing had changed (much of this was due to Berit's discovery of an old blister she had on her toe, which she hadn't noticed before today but was clearly old and in recovery mode, but made her act as if she painfully had no foot on which to stand for the duration of the day). 

To make a long story short, there was more whining, a forced walk, sidewalk chalk that couldn't ever be just right, a rough buckling of the children into the car for a ride to anywhere, three McDonald's ice cream cones, two episodes of Max & Ruby, a screaming bath, and an uneaten dinner. 

And now, we drink.