Babies like repetition. This is why Audrey keeps crawling under the kids’ little table and getting stuck and banging her head. It is also why she keeps crawling under the rocking chair, getting stuck, and banging her head. Because it’s predictable, see. Get stuck. Every time. Bang head. Every time.

It’s possible that this is why she manages to get her tiny baby clothes dirty enough that I have to change her outfit three times a day. Because then we can REPEATEDLY enjoy the flailing of arms and the kicking of Mommy as I try to work the buttons. I get the added bonus of repeatedly washing laundry. There is that.

It may also be why Owen continues to inflict mild injury on her. (“What? We don’t sit on the baby? Why not, exactly?”) He gets to repeatedly apologize and repeatedly practice being gentle. See, he’s helping.

And I’ve decided that this is what’s behind Audrey’s disinterest in sleep of late. It’s not that she’s trying to drive us all a little batty by waking up every 43 minutes from 7PM to 11:30PM. She just prefers to have the getting-put-to-bed ritual repeated. And repeated. She also gets to repeat the cranky-clingy baby routine she’s been working on, and I get to repeat my sort-of-still-patient mommy act. It’s working out well for us. And I’m going to repeat that to myself until I start to believe it. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Important bits about my day so far:

I am eating Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream in between sentences right now.

We bought a new electric pencil sharpener last night. The children are awed. Owen has sharpened each and every one of the fifty-seven pencils in our house AT LEAST six times. I am beginning to wonder if it’s possible for my eardrums to actually burst.

The kids are far less flour-pastey today. They’ve been bathed more, which didn’t seem to help much, and combed, which helped a lot. There’s still some stuck in the little fine hairs on their arms up to their elbows. Maybe I’ll try combing that next.

I hear that it’s easier to parent in Canada.

I am eagerly listening for the mail truck to arrive today on the not-remote-but-not-likely chance that she’s bringing me a package. I love packages. Even if I ordered them myself.

I know someone whose toes have fallen arches. Or maybe just one toe, I’m not sure, but it sounds like it’s very painful. I’m now convinced my toe arches are falling, too, though I never even knew I had toe arches until this last weekend. I keep examining my toes and thinking they look a bit flat. Arch-challenged, if you will. (Because, yes, everything is about me. You have an injury? Hey, maybe me too! Oh, and also, I’m sorry to hear that.)

Owen is asking for the pencil sharpener back. I had confiscated it so we could have Quiet Time. With quiet. For a time. Time’s up.

Crud. My ice cream is gone.

Now I’m afraid to post anything for fear that I’ll run out of things to say in November and wish I could talk about stuff that happened in October. Seriously, what if NOTHING HAPPENS in the month of November? It’s possible, you know. I might have to ask for shoe advice again. Or talk about my laundry.

Let’s all just hope lots of things happen, okay? Okay then!

New topic. Anybody know how to get flour paste off of kids? Hosing them off did NOT work. I can’t quite remember why I gave them mixing bowls full of flour and water to begin with. And there is no fathoming why I didn’t intervene when they began plastering their bodies with the stuff. I do remember thinking, eh, I’ll just toss them in the shower when they’re done. And I did. Yet hardened flour paste clings to their arms and clumps in their hair. Because apparently the starch in the flour-starch-water mixture is actually quick-drying cement. Shower time again soon!

I did sit down to tell you all about this last night, by the way, but Dane stuck his head in the room just then to tell me we needed to throw in some laundry before the pile of dirty clothes started throwing punches. Huh. Well, if the man was going to get beat up by old towels and boxer shorts, I was not gonna miss that kinda action, so I watched him do laundry instead of blogging. Alas, there was no laundry violence of any sort. Everything’s clean. None of it will ever get put away. And hey, this post turned into yet ANOTHER laundry anecdote! It’s not even November yet! Help me.

Okay, I’m in.

I won’t be trying to write a novel this round, but I WILL be trying to post to this very blog, every single day for the month of November! Yes, including weekends! That’s thirty days in a row of… of… of whatever it is I do here.

Now I’m worrying we’ll suddenly decide to go out of town and I’ll have no way to post and I’ll let the team down! Though whether ‘the team’ refers to the rest of the nablopomos or to you readers, I do not know. Also, we’ve never ever gone ANYWHERE without weeks of planning being involved. If we want to go to the Farmer’s Market on Sunday, we have to start thinking about it on Tuesday. So the likelihood of Dane and I whisking the three very small children off on a last-minute bandwidth-lacking vacation? Very, very slim.

So… anybody else? Come on, you have nothing better to do with your November! Forget Christmas shopping! NaBloPoMo instead!

Edited to add: Post your URL to the comments of this post to join the NaBloPoMo list. Graphics also available for download at fussy.org.

Audrey’s had trouble falling asleep the last few nights. She’s been awake for hours past her usual bedtime. No reason we could think of, just for fun. And she’s clearly sleepy. Hooray for crazy babies.

Anyhow, after two or three of these nights, we were trying desperately to think of new and brilliant sleep strategies (possibly I need Ann Douglas’ new book). Dane and I were brainstorming ideas at the dinner table before she got sleepy. Like, maybe ten minutes before. Because that’s how much planning ahead we can do.

Since “evening exercise—let her go for a jog” was out, and “read an extra bedtime story” was irrelevant, we were at a loss until Dane suddenly cried out, “Badger Balm!”

Badger Balm, for the uninitiated, is a Vaseline-like substance with a calming smell to induce sleep. Worked for Owen, though he was older and I think we TOLD him it would make him sleep, so there may have been some psychological effect there. Does nothing for Audrey, as it turns out. And now, back to our story.

So Dane yells, “Badger Balm!”

And Owen responds, “Badger BOMB? You’re gonna use a BADGER BOMB?”

We quickly produced the jar to reassure him, but the horrified look on his face suggested he thought we were about to either:

a) Launch some sort of container of badgers. Whether 1) the badgers would overrun our house, somehow causing the baby to sleep, or 2) we were to round up some elusive badgers that were keeping her awake and hurl them onto the neighbor’s yard, I could not say.

b) Find a pile of nastiness left by a badger (ew, badger bomb) and smear it on the baby.

Or, least likely and most disgusting,

c) Detonate a badger.

I very much hope she just goes to sleep tonight. Without any badger involvement whatsoever.

You know how sometimes sunlight streams in through the window, making the room look all warm and inviting?

I hate how it illuminates every speck of dust in the air.

Our computer is currently housed in our lovely and spacious “playroom,” which could also be described as “a crowded little bedroom no one sleeps that is stuffed with toys, books, craft supplies, a pretend kitchen, an easel, a giant treehouse for doll people, and, oh, yeah, a computer desk and related paraphernalia.” Also, did you catch that ‘computer’ bit? Mm-hmm, Dane and I share just the one computer. Awesome plan, seeing as he works from home on the computer, I don’t know, about 800 hours a week. Feel free to send pity. Or a wireless laptop.

I’ve been wanting to move the computer out in the living area of the house, but I’m not at all sure I can stand to look at it all day. Yes, I look at it all day already, but at least I have the OPTION of walking away. At the moment, though, there is no phone jack in any of those rooms (who built this house, anyway?). There IS one covered-over spot where a phone jack could go. But just the one. In the kitchen.

Anyhow, I can’t quite remember if I had mentioned my brilliant furniture-moving plan to Dane before instant-messanging him about it at his work computer, where he spends his other 600 hours a week. (Wait, how many hours are there in a week?)

I thought you’d all like a peek into the crazy that is, you know, ME, so I’ve pasted the IM here for your enjoyment. With smiley things and references to googly eyes removed. (You’re welcome.)

me : hey…
me : just, you know, curious…
me : if I wanted to move the desk/computer, generally speaking…
me : is there more to it than just unplugging and re-plugging?
me : would the modem need to be… reset somehow?
me : Just wondering. [Because dude, if I can’t make the modem work, the computer ain’t going nowhere.]

him : um… the modem would have to be turned off before unplugging…
me : oh yeah? [Don’t you like how he doesn’t seem concerned—or even surprised—that I’m considering major furniture relocation with three small children underfoot?]
him : and I think it has a special DSL connector that goes into the wall jack…
him : but basically you should be able to just move all the stuff.
him : The modem has a power switch on the back.
me : oh, I see.
him : you see?
me : Well, I didn’t actually look.
him : like, you’re looking?
me : I just mean I understand.
him : ah.
him : I see.

me : hmm, how ambitious am I…
me : do we have any blue wall paint?
me : you know, for the kids room?
him : wait, now you’re painting!
me : no, I’m just WONDERING about paint.
me : the phone jack in the kids room is normal.
me : but the phone jack in the kitchen is covered over and painted.
me : brown.
me : so I’d need to I guess switch jack covers
me : and I guess repaint the brown one blue
him : wha…?
him : no, wait for me crazy lady.
me : my plan looks funny in type.
him : yeah, in type…
him : ok, I gotta go [Apparently he doesn’t go to work just for the fun of instant messanging.]
me : ok love you
him : YOU NO TOUCHY NOTHING!

And mostly I have no touchied nothing. I did check if I could switch the phone-jack-outlet cover thingies myself (I could not). I did make phone calls to see if someone else could do it (they could). I did ask about having a jack installed in an entirely new and different location so I wouldn’t have to step back from the computer in order to let anyone else open the refrigerator door (apparently possible, maybe on Friday).

So perhaps next week I will be posting to you from a different location, forty feet away! Or perhaps I will make everyone install the new jack, move the desk and equipment, and do I don’t know what else, and THEN decide I require computers to live somewhere that I can close the door on and walk away. We’ll see.

Hey! I’m at mamazine.com! Or an essay I wrote is, anyway. It’s one of those things that people who know me in real life will read and go, “okaaaay,” while people who know me on the internet will say, “well, yeah, sure.” Now you’re itching to read it, aren’t you? It was inspired by a series of posts at Inkstains (here! and here!).

That other essay? The one I was trying to justify abandoning before I started? I decided to write the thing, because I had done all the getting-ready-to-write business, and it felt like a good idea to just make myself write the durned thing. So I wrote it. And THEN I abandoned it, as it would have to be described less as ‘humorous’ and more as ‘self-loathing.’ Apparently I’m not so much amusing when I have unresolved issues. Go figure. Maybe I’ll dust it off another day, take it in a new direction. Or maybe the sad little file will sit unopened for the rest of the computer’s natural life. Could go either way.

But you! You need some motivation to write, don’t you? I know I’ve heard some of you mention that you have fictional aspirations (er, the desire to write fiction, that is), and it’s NaNoWriMo time again! You know, National Novel Writing Month. Where you and thousands of people you’ve never met before and/or your closest friends all commit to write a novel in the month of November. It’s both quite fun and a bit maddening. (And if you still don’t know what I’m talking about, you can always read the official explanation.)

Now that I’ve provided you with ample reading material (for the next 14 minutes), I’m going to go knit a hat. Because I have yarn, and why not? I’ll let you know how it turns out. Or I’ll knit half a hat and then forget about it for the next several days. But either way, you know, there will be knitting.

Dane, to me: “You’re really fast, for not using more fingers.”

Which of course you all understood to mean that I’ve never learned to type. I use about seven fingers, and hit ‘backspace’ an awful lot. But apparently I’m not terribly slow.

I am so clever. You knew that, right? What, no?! Well, let me prove my brilliance. In an effort to conquer my ever-present mountain of clean laundry (oh, who are we kidding, “make a small dent in” would be more a appropriate description), I invented a little game. The kids were leery at first, but with a little prompting and promises of raspberry sorbet, they dove right in and played “Laundry Treasure Hunt!” Said in a cheery voice! To try to confuse them into the belief that we! were! having! fun!

La-whatever Hunt consisted of me finding an empty wash basket and having the kids throw in every article of clothing belonging to any of them. It was awesome! Like laundry basketball! Okay, no, it was fairly lame, but the pile got sorted and some got put away. So now we still have wrinkled clothes, but we can find them. Good enough.

And I thought I was so smart! The kids helped out, the work got done(ish), and nobody cried. Not even me!

And then, over the weekend, we had to run an errand far, far, twenty-minutes-in-the-car-far away. We’d been on the road maybe three minutes before the kids started politely discussing how very long this car ride seemed to be, how very boring for all involved, and whether our destination was really worth the effort or if it would be best to turn back now. Or perhaps go to Disneyland instead. They always want to go to Disneyland instead.

As I tried to think of ONE MORE car game (“Let’s All Be Quiet” and “Eat a Snack” are my personal favorites, but they’d already been played), my charming husband jumped in with, “Hey! Who sees a tree? Can anybody find a tree?!” followed by, “Can you find a bridge? A truck? Clouds?” And just like that, my residual Mary Poppins buzz was lost. The kids were all over this new game, enthusiastically challenging each other to find “A bird! A house! A plane!” until the adults were chatting quietly in the front seat and the kids were happily engaged in the back.

My game? Took days to think of and perfect! Or at least to develop the will to implement. His? Spur of the moment and without strategy. Mine: involved bribery. His: they started up playing on their own on the drive home. Mine produced a clean couch. His produced adult conversation. Darn it, even I like his game better.