I was complaining to my sister today about how I haven’t had two minutes together to even write a wee little blog post for the past week.

“I noticed,” she said.

I’m not clear on whether she was mocking me.

However! It’s the very middle of the night, the children are all blessedly asleep, and I apparently need to blog more than I need to rest, so! Here we go. (None of this relates to any of the rest of it. Did I mention it’s the middle of the night?)

There is something wrong with my eye. I don’t think it’s pinkeye, as it’s neither pink nor itchy, but the tear duct hurts. My mother is fond of saying, “That’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,” but in this case? It’s really not. It’s about the same as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Except that in the case of the stick, I would know where the pain came from. Which I currently don’t.

Dane is assembling some tiny little Ikea chairs right now. Step one: insert little wooden connecting dowels. Step two: put the rest of it together the end. Thanks, Ikea instructions!

I got my hair cut. Finally. It hits at about my collarbone now, rather than halfway down my back. Yay, less hair!

The children are conspiring to keep me from sleeping, even when I am asleep. The bigger ones have been waking up multiple times every night to tell me things like: I’m cold! I’m getting a drink! I think I’ll go to the bathroom now! None of which requires my assistance in any way. And you wonder why I’m writing a disjointed blog post.

Audrey has napped every day this week. For twenty minutes at a time. And she’s woken up Sadie before and after every one of those naps. My day goes like this: nurse baby, nurse toddler, change diaper, change other diaper, feed child, feed other child, feed other other child, change diaper, swaddle baby, nurse baby, change other diaper, stop child and other child from poking at each other, give child and other child and probably other other child something to do to prevent further poking at each other, nurse baby, change diaper, feed child again, along with other child and other other child… until it’s time to go to bed so they can take turns waking me up every 43 minutes all night. You see how the week got away from me.

And now maybe I’ll go brush my teeth before anyone wakes up and needs something.

Easy path to discouragement, in case you needed one: Have your clock battery run out. Slowly, over the course of the day. The clock will be close enough to on time that you won’t notice it right away, but by the time you’re hungry for lunch, the clock will claim it’s only 10:00am. And that three o’clock hour will drag on for…ev…er. (And if you’re me, you’ll begin to suspect something is amiss when the sun is setting and the clock hasn’t yet hit 4:00pm.)

Not the kind of thing you can plan, I suppose—just one of the special joys of, um, owning a clock. Yeah. Okay then.

I’m having that fun problem this week, the one where I have broken reading glasses and a headache. A headache from the reading. Without the glasses. Because they’re broken. Yes. That one.

I seem to have this problem rather a lot, but it has not yet occurred to me to buy a backup pair of glasses. Or, well, I guess it’s occurred to me now, hasn’t it, but since I haven’t actually done it, I’m pretty much in the same boat I was in five minutes ago. Is anyone even following me on this one? I’m thinking not. My head hurts. Moving on then!

We have managed to miss two playdates so far this week. My Mommy License is going to be revoked if I’m not careful here. Really, though, only one was my fault (because of the rain—er, because it was raining and I’m a wimp); the other one was canceled due to germs (theirs), and I’m really okay with that.

The end result seems to be that we’re spending plenty of time at home just watching Sadie do cute baby stuff. Which is fine, because she’s been expanding her repertoire. She has, for example, begun to suspect that her arms may be good for more than just thumb sucking. She now spends many of her waking moments clutching one hand with the other and studying them both—and when she’s not doing that, she’s busy perfecting her Disco Baby moves. (Fling that arm up! And out! To the side! And down! And up! And down! Hmm, that kinda sounds like Baby Jazzercise. But trust me, it looks like disco.)

Also, unrelated to any of that: Have you noticed that it is still February? This month seems to be going on forever.

My head hurts.

So! Sarah left a comment at mamazine asking for advice on keeping her household running as she adds another member to her family. She’s got three boys, who are being joined by a little sister (congratulations Sarah!), and she’d like them to continue to arrive at school on time, get through their homework every day, eat meals, go to bed at bedtime, that kind of thing.

I want to have something brilliant to tell her. Really I do. But I’m mostly useless—partly because living on minimal sleep fries my brain a little, and partly because I don’t know what I’m doing here half the time (hence the clever blog title).

So I thought I’d ask all of you lovelies to offer your best suggestions. Bernadette suggests making bedtime a priority, which makes sense. I have these couple of gems to add:

Be Lame.
Cut back on whatever you need to. Really. If your seven-year-old doesn’t play soccer (or softball or basketball or chess or girl scouts or whatever) this season, it’s not going to affect her ability to eventually drop out of college and go pro. And really, do you want her doing that anyway?

Be Boring.
Make up a routine to handle some of the details. Thinking of meals was more than I could manage after Sadie was born, so we’ve gone to a weekly meal plan. As in, every Monday night we eat soup, every Tuesday night we eat a roasted vegetable dish, every Wednesday night we eat… blah blah blah. Like that. Saturdays are the bonus not-scheduled night. Yes, I’d rather be spontaneous and creative with food, but I’d also like to only have to grocery shop once a week and then know we have meals ready to prepare. Easy wins over creative. For food. For now.

That’s all from me; what have you got?

Okay, internets, help me out here. Is there a way to make this chair seem vintage-y and cool, rather than just… um… unusual? Keeping in mind that my dining area is not especially vintage-y at the moment–it’s all beige walls and white trim?

My mother suggests painting them, possibly a glossy red. I may be too lazy for such a plan.

So: What do YOU think? Do I want half a dozen of these? My local consignment store awaits your answer.

And hey, here’s a picture of them around a table. Not in my kitchen, but surrounded by miscellaneous furniture:

Thoughts? Anyone?

Let that which is unsaid be said. Send one of these.

We are one of those freaky-weird families that has only Certain Kinds of Toys. You know what I mean. We mostly have wooden trains and waldorf dolls and whatnot; there are no cartoon characters or lights-and-sounds push button toys here. (Feel free to roll your eyes at me now. Or at any time, really.)

For Christmas, we received exactly one plastic, battery operated toy. It was a tiny remote-controlled helicopter, and it was for Dane. (And yes, it’s way cool—it lifts off right out of your hand! But we have no idea how to control the thing, so once it’s airborne it pretty much runs into the wall or gets tangled up in my hair and then crashes to the floor.)

Today we saw a notice that it has been recalled due to a tendency to SPONTANEOUSLY BURST INTO FLAME.

That’s all. I have no punchline. It BURSTS INTO FLAME. I think I’m going to put it outside now so it doesn’t take out my kitchen or anything.

You know what’s really great? Having an Overtired Baby who has been kept awake too long by the Overtired But Couldn’t Quite Fall Asleep Toddler.

This leads me to say things like, Hey, I’m going to go lay down with her and pretend to be asleep and see if she believes it and goes to sleep too. To which Dane replies, Well good luck with THAT, suggesting that he’s heard of less likely things happening, but only maybe two, ever, and he can’t actually remember what they might have been. And then, of course, he’s right, but she does eventually fall asleep anyhow.

But on the actually and not sarcastically awesome side, he did make me Second Dinner (Third Dinner? not sure) while I put her to bed. Because I’m pretty much a hobbit: Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Elevensies, Luncheon, Tea…

I will admit that I am tired today. Also, I have a headache. Okay, yes. But you might think I would still possess shopping abilities under those conditions, no? Online shopping abilities, at least?

Apparently not. I’ve been waiting to order some books for the kids, and today was the day. (No good reason why today, I just decided.) But! Some of the books are out of print! Some are only in print in hardback, when I wanted paperback! Some were available used, but then I would have to pay shipping for each seller!

Decisions, decisions. In the end I ordered from Powell’s, which meant I couldn’t use my fake-o monopoly money—er, I mean, my Amazon gift card—but which also meant I could get everything in one order (and with free shipping!). And seriously, now I want to go to bed. That was exhausting.

But instead I will tell you about Owen telephoning his friend Ella. Lately, every time he calls her, I remind him that he may not invite her over to play. Unless we’re calling for that purpose, but usually he’s not. At any rate! He agrees to this requirement, then immediately says, “Hi, Ella! You want to come over to play now?” Every time. Except not this time! This time he understood. Can’t ask her to play. Got it. Okay.

We dialed the phone, they said their hellos, and he panicked. “Mom!” he whispered. “Now what do I say?” I gave him some suggestions, none of which were acceptable. “Can I ask her to play NOW?” No, I said, not today. “Okay, well, bye, then, Ella.”

Poor girl must have wondered why he called at all. “Hi, Ella! Bye, Ella!”

Oh well. She’s only three. I don’t think she’ll hold it against him.

Question: Why does it seem like every time I almost catch up with the laundry, almost get all the dirty stuff washed, almost get all the clean stuff put away, almost, suddenly another six loads burst forth onto the floor of my hallway demanding immediate attention?

Answer: Because THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS. Every time.