Tricks of the Mind and Other Things

It always amazes me how the mind can twist and distort things so that they no longer resemble the original. Something woke me about 2am a couple nights back. Didn't see or hear anything immediately so I started to drift back to sleep. Then I start to realize that I'm hearing what sounds like the slow drum beat you often hear on movies when they want to emphasize the importance of the march they're showing. I force myself to wake up so I can clearly listen to what I hear only to find that it's the dog in her basket sniffing around for what was probably a bone at one time. Of course sleep didn't come for a while after that.

I know that when I was a kid there was always some cool little thing that someone would show us and it was something that we would have to try. The hand games the girls learn..the pencil fights where you try to break the pencil of a partner. The latest thing we have come across now is to lick a pencil top eraser, squeeze it so it has suction and it will stick to virtually anyplace your heart desires. Younger Son had to demonstrate this for me yesterday after he came home from school. At first he simply stuck it to his knee. The next thing I know he has it stuck to his eye lid. Anyone who has had a black eye knows that it doesn't take much to leave a mark on an eyelid. Of course now he has this wonderful little eraser shaped red mark where he had once had his eraser. Thank goodness picture day was on Tuesday so that it wasn't saved by school pictures even though I did get a picture of my own.

Heat and Mood Swings

It has been a miserable season this year. At home, we have fought a couple of battles this summer that we don't normally fight. These are not simple battles, but ongoing battles that are still simmering even though they've been going on for months. Then the heat sets in. Not the typical 90+ humid weather we usually have for August but the 100+ heat advisory weather that we've been having. So I do what I can to keep the kids happy and the a/c from running non-stop. I amuse the kids with movies, video games, books, and a late evening dip in an inflatable pool (bad mom, I know but school started soon). I turn the a/c up during the day to keep it from running all day (and turn on the ceiling fan in the living room). Then I drop it at night to keep it cool enough to sleep comfortably. No cranky, sleepless kids, I hope. So like most every other person that is tired of the heat, I watch the local weather for relief. None. I cringe like everyone else. It's too hot to do anything else. School starts for the kids, and I get a break (read...peace) during the day for a few short hours, until they come in with homework and the hurricane hits as papers fly and shoes are dropped between the front door and the kitchen. For some reason, the last few nights, sleep is wishful thinking. I do sleep some, but it's that real light sleep that leaves you waking up every few hours wondering if you had actually been to sleep at all. I don't take sleeping pills, because I have this (ir)rational fear that if one of the kids wake up and need me they won't be able to wake me or that if the house catches on fire, I will not hear the fire alarm. The same alarm that woke me on my birthday by beeping once every few seconds because the battery was low. Yesterday I decided that I had to empty a box that has been sitting in my bedroom floor for the last two weeks. I don't know why it had to be emptied but by supper it was gone. Finally, I went to bed thinking about another box that was going to be tackled today and I slept...deeply...so deeply that I surprised myself when I awoke at 4am and looked at the clock. Then I went back to sleep...almost immediately. That never happens. I think Older Son woke me up this morning before my alarm, so I got up. I call DH after the kids get on the bus and he asked if I was going back to sleep for a bit. A good idea...another hour or so...8:30 I lay down. I wake up...10:30 so I think ok, time to get up. But I lay there...and when I wake up again it's 11:30. Crap...half the day gone. That box, that I was so determined was going to be cleaned out today (mainly because I need the box) is sitting. Untouched. All that energy that I had yesterday is gone, along with my attitude. Why can't I have just a normal day??...