Who is up?

Last night was rough. My boys, my poor, poor, boys spent all night coughing. I know Turner isn't sick, just allergies tickling his throat. Brad is sick. He should be home, but I'll give you three guesses where he is. That's right Mr Responsible is at work.

I have read that too much work weakens the human being's ability to fight illness. I completely believe it. Brad needs a weekend. Not just an early ending day on Sunday, a whole Saturday and Sunday to be like the rest of us. This is how the end of a job goes though. Work til you can't work anymore.

I sit and await the anouncement of our future residence. Nope, we still don't know where we'll be going. Yep, I am still holding onto hope that it'll be some where not in Colorado. We'll know eventually, and by then I'll be so big I won't care.

How do women have sixteen kids? Being pregnant with the second one is wearing me out. Do they not expeiernce the rib pain, pelvic pain, inability to sleep, and inability to breathe? I watch all of the shows on the Discovery Channel about "married with sixteen children". The wife seems perpetually happy and organized. She seems delighted to spend her entire adult life pregnant. All this tells me is she's a little on the crazy side. No sane person smiles that much and talks in that sing song way all the time. She probably lost it right around the time child number four came into the picture.

My crass and completely unscientific observations have led me to come up with a theory: Two children are managable, three- you start loosing your grip, and anything over four and you've bought your ticket to crazyville.

I live in a really nice picture perfect little subdivision. The yards are pretty, the house neat and tidy, families walk after supper to enjoy the end of a day together, very Norman Rockwell. One house that is roughly in the middle of the neighborhood looks like a bomb exploded. My three year old little cousin was walking with me and she told me "That house is broken". She was right. It is a mess. Too many cars, both running and ornimental, too many toys-mostly the broken kind, not enough yard care or TLC. Why would one family put a smudge on such a pretty neighborhood? Because they have seven kids. They have no choice. There aren't enough hours in their day to keep up with appereances, much less mow the grass. Even if they had the time they still probably wouldn't care because they left the land of reason years ago.

I have long believed that pregnancy zaps braincells, nursing melts them completely and you are left a few IQ points short of what you started out with. Each pregnancy worsens this effect. By the time number three and four start toddling around you should probably have an adult supervisor for yourself.

My delirous notion of having four kids is not looking so charming at the moment. Right now all I can think of is having my body back to myself. Even that is going to take a while. Delivery starts the journey, but I won't have myself back for at least another year. Nursing, teaching a baby to sleep through the night, sleep deprivation, sharring our room with a baby, all what lies ahead. I can't wait for most of it. I think it will be so good this time because I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

With Turner I wasn't sure if Brad and I would ever have our room back to just the two of us. I had a hard time imagining that I would ever sleep all the way through the night again. After Turner was sleeping a solid eight hours at a stretch at night I still got up every hour or so to go look at him. Eventually, it got to be every three or four hours, then it happened. I laid down one night, blinked my eyes and it was six am when I opened them. I panicked. I ran to my neglected infant, who lay sleeping peacfully.

Now my body is in prep mode. God eases you into sleeplessness by making you pee every hour in the last moths of pregnancy. Even if you don't pee that often you can't lay still because some part of you will begin hurting enough to wake you up. That's where I'm at now. Unable to sleep, walking the halls listening to Turner cough. Bringing Brad Tylenol when I know he needs it. What elese should a mom be doing?

I wonder if when your kids are grown you sleep any better? I don't mean teenage kids, I mean those of us who are nearly thirty. My parents know I am not out past dark hardley ever. My sister is a responsible school teacher. We're pretty boring, does this allow Mom and Dad to sleep the whole night through? One can only hope.