Eye of the Storm

The eye of the storm seems to be from about 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. during which I am usually making dinner and the kids are generally asleep.  The evenings have gotten increasingly hectic and Cristin and I have settled into an established separation of labor.  While Cristin is bathing them I pick up the downstairs, wash the dishes and bottles, get Ellie’s bottle ready, get their rooms ready and PJs out, clean the litter boxes, get Rudy his pumpkin to stave off his constipation, inject Tyrone with fluids, and give him and Bugs their treats.  I consider it a challenge to complete everything but sometimes don’t get through it all, particularly if Tyrone is not in the mood for his nightly needling.  I then head upstairs and I read Phoebe her books and put her to bed while Cristin does the same with Ellie.  Phoebe got me laughing the other night when she queried “what’s this one” referring to a knot in the fringe in her blanket in her crib.  What was funny was the way she accented the “this” as if to emphasize surprise. She somehow remembered that I thought this was funny and now goes into this every night like a comedy routine.   After this I head in the basement for biking on the trainer and old episodes of Breaking Bad through amazon.  This escape serves two purposes.  The first is that I avoid having to get Ellie back to sleep if she is fidgety and the second is that I can actually watch good TV as Cristin is playing no part in the selections.   Above:  Ellie has been sleeping like this more often.  When I do this, my arm falls asleep. Below: Phoebe is curled up with Bob (her #1).  Santa (her #2)  is clearly visible near her head.  If you are from my parent’s generation you might be thinking (sneeringly) that you never had video monitors for your kids.  Yes, you didn’t have them because they didn’t exist.  If they existed, you would have had them.   You know you had all the stuff.  Just not the stuff they have now.   I will note that Cristin and I didn’t go so far as to get the model where you can actually talk back to your kids through the monitor so as to soothe them without having to actually go to their rooms.  This seems wrong in many ways.