PMS*

This is what has happened so far this morning. I didn't quite make it to the 6:00 a.m. club; it was 6:20, which was pointless basically since Elaine was already awake. But I still tried. Then Darren wanted me to help him with something on the computer, and he left me with a barrel of complicated instructions. I was trying to follow all said instructions with Lucy sitting next to me saying, "What does 'I don't know' mean? How do you spell 'one'? How do you spell 'two'? Can I work on my valentines for school now? Can I wear my pajamas until it's time to go to school? What do you get when you put zero and one together?"

Then I went upstairs to take a shower while Elaine decided to come in the bathroom and wash her hands and brush her teeth. She does these activities in the spirit of someone with full-blown OCD. Brushing her teeth takes at least three separate applications of toothpaste (well, it would take more but that's all I'll allow). Same with soap for washing hands. When I finally turn off the water, there is much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth until I distract her with the possibility of getting lotion on her hands. On the plus side, it occupies her fully while I'm in the shower (OR SO I THOUGHT).

As soon as I got out, I smelled something horrible, even though I'd just changed her. I took her into her room to get cleaned up, and I saw that she had gotten ahold of a cassette tape of a children's novel that I love and am saving for her when she gets older (it's only available on cassette) and had pulled all the tape out. So before changing the diaper, I sat down and slowly and carefully rewound all the tape.

We finally all got dressed and came down to breakfast. They decided they wanted porridge just like the three bears, so I made Malt-o-Meal. They got that down with only about three fights in between.

Did I mention it was only 8:30 AM at this point?

* PMS = PLEASE MORE SPIRIT