Catch up.

Big Al is feeling better. He's still on Pedialyte, not real food, but he's more himself today. He's playing and giggling again. He didn't sleep that well last night. Both boys were exhausted yesterday -- Allan because he was sick and Griff because he refused to take a nap - all day long. And because he was getting Allan's cold. By the time I got home he was fussy and irritable. I wasn't much better. I had spent the entire morning with Allan at the doctor's office making sure that he wasn't dehydrated (since he has hardly been able to hold any thing done since Monday) and that he didn't have pneumonia (since he has developed a terrible cough). He was fine on both counts -- we just have to let him recover in his own time. Of course, Allan has now covered everyone and everything in the house with foul mucus teeming with germs so that Griff has been running a temp since Friday and I have had a headache and tingling in my sinuses that suggests that I am due for whatever the big guy has. Great. On top of that, it is nearly 90 degrees and the humidity equals that. You can't walk to your car without being coated in a fine sheen of sweat. On my way home, I call Jay. Instead of being ready to nuke whatever we have on hand, Jay announces that he "fancies" a nice piece of fish. Do what you got to do, pal, but do it fast because we are not in good humor.

Griff eats his dinner and begins the meltdown. I don't know what it was that caused him to be pissed off, but I was in the kitchen and he was in the dining room whining. When I looked around the corner, he was standing there and would grab a toy and fling it as hard as he could behind him. Then he would yell and do it again with another toy. I started to tell him, no, but didn't. I could completely sympathize with his impulse. He was hot, tired and pissed off and all he wanted to do was let off a little steam by flinging plastic toys across the room. More power to you, little buddy. If people would let me do that, too, we would all be better off.

Jay rolled in and started preparing dinner, but we agreed that there was no way Griff was going to make it until we were through. Early bath and bottle. Poor little guy didn't make it two minutes after the last book before he was out. ("Momma rock!") We snuggled for a bit and I put him down. Came out to find Jay playing on the computer and Allan roaming around like a free range chicken. This.Was.Not.What.I.Expected. Allan was supposed to be sleeping, too. Jay says, he doesn't seem tired. Imagine that, what with the T.V. on, the radio on, the lights on, and you not, oh, I don't know, holding him and encouraging him to Go.To.Sleep. Color me effing shocked. I take him back in to the nursery and rock him (Good luck! sez my husband) and, in 10 minutes, he is out. Honest to God, it is the first time we have had them both down before 7:30.

Unfortunately, Big Al decided that 1:30 was time to be up. What with one thing and another, it was Jay's turn for relief so he headed upstairs and left me to my own devices.

One of the posts that I have not made about Allan that I have meant to is about how he does when he comes in bed with us. First of all, when Allan wakes in the middle of the night, he is completely and utterly irritated with whoever is to blame for the current state of affairs. His hair is usually in an absolute twist and his brow is furrowed and he wants someone to rectify the situation. Five minutes ago. Honestly, in those moments he looks so much like me that it makes me want to laugh out loud even though it is the middle of the night and I want very much to be asleep.

Anyway, you bring Big Al in to bed and he twists and turns and flips and flops. How someone who hardly weighs 20 pounds can cause so much disruption is a matter of wonder to me. His favorite trick currently is this: You finally turn your back on him because he won't settle. He then wriggles his teeny-tiny bottom in to the small of your back and flings his left leg up on your hip and kicks you in the kidneys with his right foot until he wears himself out, sighs heavily, and goes to sleep. Last night's variant was that he worked his way to the top of the bed and kept sticking his right heel in to my left ear. I finally had to put two pillows between us to keep him from waking me.

As Griff is fond of saying, AlJude BRAT!

Amen.

We did okay today. Allan was up at 1:30, back in his bed at 3:30, back in mine at 5. Asleep until after 8.

Griff, God love him, slept until 8 this morning, too. Of course, he woke with a fever and we have been wrestling him to get ibuprofen in him.

Jay took pity on me and took the boys for a long walk down to the farmer's market this morning. Kim came and helped me organize the outside for the in-laws and we went and bought some mums. I did some straightening of the house and then the fellows came home for lunch and naps.

It was way too hot and humid to go outside so we all played a bit in the house. Then Cousin Tyler and Hannah came over to provide some relief.


Daddy had already arranged to tailgate and go to the football game. When T and Hannah offered to look after the boys for us for awhile Jay (bless his heart!) says, you can tailgate with us.


Um, I don't think so -- not standing outside in the 90 degree heat and sweating like a field hand and (worst of all) hanging out with other people's children. Oh.No. I didn't have any where to go or any thing to do, but I darned sure wasn't going to hang with other's people's toddlers.

Which is why I am here now. Tyler and Hannah helped with the boys' baths and bed time. The fellows are both down and out. Jay is at the game which wasn't going exactly according to plan. And I am blogging. Getting ready to shift over some laundry. Possibly hit the sack and read for awhile. Another crazy Saturday night....