Hi

I compose blog posts in my head on a regular basis. I have about 4 backed up in the netherlands of my brain just waiting to be written. This was not one of those posts. But this is where I am right now.

I try hard not to throw myself woe is me pity parties too often. My life is awfully blessed, and I know it. But just give me my moment to whine here. Despite running solo every night due to Rob's hours (did I mention that?), I generally keep fairly cheerful and carry on, seeing as how that's my job. But not once, but now TWICE in the past week I have sunken into poor me so let me share. I know you are dying to hear it.

You know when you end up having to change your kid's entire bedding ensemble at night? And you usually are saying to yourself that poor sap I feel so sorry for him and you wash it all without a thought for yourself because you feel so bad for the poor sap for being sick? Well, that didn't really happen to me tonight. I just spent an hour doing that plus some, but it wasn't for someone getting sick. And that's really why it's so annoying.

Luke sailed right through the 2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's oblivious to the growing popularity of the nose picking trend. I puffed out my chest proudly as I watched other kids mine for gold during church services thinking, nope! Not my kid! My kids are NOT nose pickers! But then, Luke turned about 7.5, and suddenly picked (HA HA! Picked!) up the habit with such intensity you'd think it paid dividends.

So tonight, I put the kids to bed. I was so excited that I had the entire kitchen cleaned. The dishes were washed. I even picked up and vacuumed the family room. Vacuumed for gosh sakes. I was going to have some free time to do as I pleased tonight after putting the kids to bed,  come hell or high water.

I tucked everyone in by 8:30, and headed downstairs to fold a load or two before I embarked on said free time. About 2.37 minutes after laying his head to his pillow, Luke came down to inform me that he couldn't sleep.

Now, generally Luke is not the one to come down making excuses like this, so one time, in a weak moment, I introduced the "have a glass of warm milk like my mom used to make for me" concept. That was a BIG mistake as I soon had a line snaking out the door every night about 2.37 minutes after putting the kids to bed. I explained that it had been a big mistake, and that the warm milk ship had sailed. So, I sent him back to his bed saying to try longer.

About 5 minutes later, I was upstairs and heard Luke cruising around down here again with a whine, but I ignored it. I had free time in my sights. By the time I came back down, he was back upstairs, and in no time, both boys were standing in front of me, with Jack stating that we had a problem, and blood covering all of Luke's face and hands.

That's right. Plumbing for gold in the midnight hour had led to this. And he had cruised the house looking for me not once, but twice. TWICE people. With nothing but his hands to hold the blood back. I will pause for effect here so you can put it all together.

I then spent the next HOUR cleaning up the trails of blood throughout the house on the floors and carpets. And then the bed. Oh my word. Blood everywhere. He was luckily so freaked out by all of the blood everywhere that he swears he will NEVER pick his nose again. We'll see about that.

So when he came back down 20 minutes into Blood CleanUp 2013, asking for warm milk again? It's possible that I actually growled in my response. Nice mommy had left the building.

So. Here I am. This portion of my free time is dedicated to a long overdue blog post (this was just what you were waiting for, right? a Killian's Red, and a bowl of tortilla chips.

Goodnight.

Editor's Note: I was going to launch into the other time I felt incredibly sorry for myself in this past week, but then I realized I had written this long post about a nosebleed, and you were probably already done with me. So let me just sum it up by saying, it had to do with a painstakingly amazing salad that took a long time to make, and a small adorable creature who wasn't really willing to let me sit down and eat it after all of that labor. You can fill in the blanks but it included statements in my brain such as, "C'mon! I just want to sit down and eat my damn salad! Is that so much to ask?"