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Lately the nights are very, very long.

Ezra, our poor sweet aging beauty, can not settle herself in the night.  She wanders from couch, to dog bed, to our bed, to couch, to kitchen, to our bed, her nails on hardwood sounding like an ancient typewriter with a deadline.  When she does sleep soundly it’s usually exactly where I long to stretch out my legs.

Rowan, in spite of three medications, spends her nights punctuating Ezra’s typewriter sentences with a dry grizzly cough.  We’ve been living with her respiratory rattle now for weeks, and the only thing that seems to keep the next cough at bay is me lying awake anticipating it.

Last night the Sandman, sensing a mother dangling dangerously at the bottom of a frazzled rope, sprinkled an especially potent dose of dust upon both Ezra and Rowan, and they slept blissfully.

It would have been glorious. 

It would have been heady. 

It would have been intoxicating if I hadn’t insisted on that fourth child.

At two o’clock he screamed like a cobra was clenched around his neck. 

“Finn!  What is it?”

“Me wear hoop ball jacket.”

“Okay, Finn.  Tomorrow you can wear your football jacket.”

At four o’clock he screamed like Dick Cheney was standing above him dangling a roll of duck tape and a hose.

“Finn!  What is it?”

“Me eat.”

“EAT?  IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!”

“Me eat dake (that would be steak, a food he’s eaten maybe twice in his life.)

I couldn’t have a normal kid who gets thirsty or who’s afraid of the dark?

The only way I could dampen his nocturnal desire for beef was to tell him to rest while I went downstairs to rustle him up a sirloin.  Or not.

He fell asleep waiting.

Rest assured I’ll be leaving a nasty note tonight for that stupid Sandman.

My kids interrupt me all the time. It drives me batty. The sound of a ringing phone has a Pavlovian effect on each of their brains: time to get some extra attention from Mom! I’ve taken to talking on the phone in a Talk to The Hand pose, even if I’m alone in a room. It’s habit. 

A few weeks ago I took a break from cleaning the house to take a call from a good friend. Not thirty seconds after I’d settled in for a chat did the frantic cries for Mommy! Mommy!  erupt. I calmly stopped first Madigan, who barreled into the room bellowing, with The Hand. Then Keira. Then Rowan. The three of them went into immediate conniptions trying to get my attention, but I’m a trained expert in ignoring. I blocked the sight of them with The Hand and continued catching up with my friend.

I’m good. Really good. After about ten minutes of facial and body contortions, the girls wordlessly and frantically dragged me upstairs and into the bathroom where I found this:

Um…can I call you back?

The lesson to be learned: Do not clean out Jacuzzi tub by putting a cup of liquid Tide in it while it’s running.  For an hour. 

Actually, we didn’t think to take a picture until I’d cleaned up at least half the mess.  The mountain was twice as high and pushing out of the bathroom door when I finally gave in to the monkeys.

My general rule of thumb is that nobody is allowed to interrupt me unless there’s blood.  Now, whenever I say that to the kids, they all scream, “or bubbles!”

Ebay is my bitch.  Late in November I took my mom to an appointment with Rowan and Finn in tow.  In the office waiting room was a Toys for Tots drop-off box where Rowan saw the toy that became this year’s must-have Christmas present.  It was called Diva Starz and it is the toy from hell.

In keeping with my general approach to life, I started looking for the hell toy on the 20th of December.  This is the only toy Rowan mentioned when she sat on Santa’s lap.  This is the only toy she wrote on her school holiday wish list.  This is the only toy she mentioned when each of the hundred little old ladies asked her what she wanted for Christmas throughout the month of December.  And this particular toy, I found out on the 23rd of December after frantically searching for it for days, WAS DISCONTINUED IN 2005!

My elves told me to let it go - that Rowan would be happy with whatever she opened and would forget all about the Diva bitch by Christmas morning; but I just couldn’t live with this.  I actually called the doctor’s office on the 23rd and begged them to let me have the toy if I replaced it with some poor kid’s first car or something, but the Toys for Tots people had just picked up their box.

On Christmas Eve I thought of checking Ebay - too little too late - but there it was.  With the auction ending in two hours.  For ten bucks.  With no bids.  New in the box with some shelf damage to the top of the box.

On Christmas morning Rowan grabbed her first gift and yelled, “It’s my Diva Star doll!” 

It wasn’t.

Then she grabbed her second gift and yelled, “It’s my Diva Star doll!”

It wasn’t.

This went on until every present was opened and her stocking was frantically dumped out on the couch.

Rowan was heart-broken.

Stupid elves!

And then she found the envelope hanging on the tree with her name on it.  Inside it said:

Dear Rowan,

One of your gifts fell out of the sleigh somewhere over Topeka, Kansas.  My elves will find it and mail it to you.  Merry Christmas!

Santa

Suddenly all was well with  Rowan.  Three days later she found a box on the front porch.  The return address was S.C. from the North Pole.  Inside was the ugliest, most obnoxious, fat headed Diva Starz doll named Alexa you’d ever want to see.  The box was all bent up and smashed on the top.

“Look!”  Rowan pointed out.  “The box broke when it hit the ground!”

Life is brilliant.

We made Toll House chocolate chip cookies yesterday and it was just like the commercial. You know, the one where the twenty-two year old model mother is baking in her state-of-the-art all white kitchen with her two clean, adorably dressed little ones and the Christmas music is playing and everyone is smiling and giggling and all the ingredients land in and stay in the bowl? Yup, yesterday was just like that.

Except I just thought of the Christmas music now. And I wasn’t wearing heels and designer clothes. I had on my nappy bathrobe and my hair was a little greasy. Finn was in his pjs too with the leg snaps undone so it looked like a dress, but Rowan had clothes on and her hair was really cute. Except for the front sides where she’d chewed on it all morning. These little things aside, it was just like that commercial, and we were all smiling and giggling.

Except when I cursed that once, when Finn drank the vanilla. And that little curse when he spat it all over my nappy bathrobe and greasy hair. Oh, and I may have cursed when Rowan lifted the arm of the blender up so high it splattered batter all over the ceiling fan. I did not however curse when Finn dumped the entire five-pound bulk bag of chips from BJs on the floor and I don’t know why he cried because I didn’t actually pinch him that hard.  Other than that we had a picture perfect experience just like in that commercial.

Except for the part where Finn screamed “ME WANT TITTIES” for the entire 11 minutes it took to bake the first batch and the entire 10 minutes it took for them to cool. The producers would have cut that part, I’m sure. And the part where I cursed because I burned the second batch. And the third. Of course, I didn’t have three goddamn kitchen assistants on the sidelines, did I?  And they’d have maybe cut the part where I got out the whiskey.

Just those few minor tweaks and we had our own little family commercial for Toll House.

CRAP!  I can not believe I didn’t think to video tape it!

Okay, let’s put our nation’s demise aside for a moment, because I have something else on my mind.  Are Manny and Kelly an item?  I mean, he goes to that hardware store every single day and he doesn’t buy anything in bulk.  This can’t be economically sound for crap’s sake - he’s a small business owner!  So I’m thinking he must be doing it to see Kelly, right??  But I just don’t feel the chemistry.  Maybe she’s not into men, and I’m not stereotyping her because she’s into hardware or because she wears her hair short.  Maybe he’s holding out for a Spanish girl, and if so I think a whole lot less of him.  Dude in the Baseball Cap could do a lot worse than that little Irish girl. 

I think they’re just dragging the inevitable out, trying to create an arc, like on The Office.  Alice didn’t fall for Sam the butcher in season one, now did she?  Think how long it took Monica and Chandler to get together, although they both sort of dated other people and Manny doesn’t seem to have anything else going on except a little banter with Dusty the Saw, but I just don’t think she’s his type. 

Now Manny’s singing about Kelly on the radio.  That has to mean something, albeit it’s a commercial about her hardware store which isn’t exactly serenading, but there’s a southern twang to his voice that has to come from heartbreak in love.  All country music is about heartbreak in love, right?

The thought of their future together has my mind wandering to naughty places.  I mean, talking tools and all.  Whose mind wouldn’t wander there…

I hope that little redhead gets her man!

I’ve watched all the Oprah Winfrey shows about methamphetamine addiction.  It’s fascinating and I often wonder: if I took one hit of a meth pipe, on Girl’s Night maybe, would I be selling our furniture on eBay for my next fix?  My rational brain tells me I would never take the first toke; but let’s remember, I don’t often hang out with my rational brain.   I spend far more time with her psychotic sister, the brain that actually worries I might wake up one day, rob a bank, get caught, and spend the rest of my life in an orange jumpsuit.  On a whim.  Armed with a gun I just happen to see lying in a bush as I walk into the bank to make our monthly loan payment.  You can see how it might happen.

So I like to think of myself as free of addiction, as not having an addictive personality.  Amanda recently wrote about cigarette addiction and I chimed in that I’ve only ever been addicted to milk and Nathan. 

I bet everyone believes that about themselves the day before the intervention.

Isn’t the first step on the Twelve Step Plan actually recognizing you have a problem?

Hello Step One.

For weeks now I haven’t been able to turn off political television.  CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and when I’m desperate for a fix, I’ll even risk stroke, heart attack, lung hemorrhage, and self-implosion by turning on Fox News.  That’s when I know I’ve crossed a line - when the high I get from Brian Williams just isn’t high enough and I have to step up the danger with a quick drag of Bill O’Reilly. 

That’s in over your head.  That’s a real cry for help.

The only housework that’s gotten done in weeks is that which can be accomplished in three minute commercial breaks or can actually be achieved in front of one of our two televisions.  Bathing Finn is out.  Hot meals are a thing of the past.  Forget raking the effing leaves. 

The den is clean though.  My closet is organized within an inch of its life.

I suffer painful withdrawal symptoms if I’m forced to leave the house.  Just the time it takes to walk from the den to the car, strap everybody in, get the engine running and NPR adjusted on the radio leaves a rash all over my face and neck.  My breathing becomes jagged.  I hear a ringing in my ears and my heart pounds at double speed.

If I miss the first fifteen minutes of The View nausea sets in.

An hour without knowing how far the DOW has fallen and I start hearing voices.

An evening without Chris Matthews and my head pounds like I’ve been hit with a Hardball.
 
You Tube is my only balm.

Every day I try to quit.  I tell myself I’ll only watch for one hour and then I’ll turn it off and do something healthy like take a shower.  I’ll turn the bedroom set off in an act of self control, grab my towel and head toward the bathroom.  But as I pass the den television the sweat beads up on my forehead and I start to shake.  Just one more hour…

The implications of quitting terrify me.  I may miss the big break in Clothing-gate.  McCain might slip in the f-word at a rally or refer to good old George as Obush.  Or maybe he’ll try to give us Pennsylvanians another compliment.  Michele Bachmann might announce to the free world that she has sex with animals.  Biden may get his foot caught so far down his own throat he’ll choke to death, and who knows?  With the bar set so low I might actually be asked to take his place.  Well shucks, I am a soccer mom! 

If that doesn’t happen I may just turn to methamphetamine for relief.

Either way I’ll probably end up on Oprah.