Feelin' Groovy

I was kind of expecting a weekend that busy to leave me feeling wiped out, but it didn't. Nothing worse this morning than the usual morning "I'd-really-like-another-hour-or-two" sleepies.

And it was a really good weekend.

I had a great time at the girlie Mary Kay party and got all fabuloused-up, and bought stuff I probably don't need. (I was once again surprised by how nice my eyes look when I put even a little bit of mascara on, but I have yet to figure out how to remove the stuff at the end of the day without getting makeup remover in my eye and turning it all red and puffy, so alas, no sexy eyelashes for me.)

And then I came home and braced for the sleepover. That went pretty well. The girls went outside after dinner to play with Ray, and after a while I took Alex out to help keep an eye on them all. We were outside for a good hour or more, and there was only one spout of tears (Penny got overenthusiastic and bonked Jess with her elbow) and only one argument that looked like they might get out of hand (Ray is going through a no-sharing phase, and Jess was not interested in taking no for an answer -- once I'd broken up the wrestling match, they managed to compromise on him sharing a different toy with her) which is not bad for a bunch of 5-year-olds, really.



I eventually shepherded them inside to clean up and get ready for bed. Jess has apparently learned that the secret to being popular is to be aloof; I overheard this exchange after they got into their pajamas:

"Jess, I like your pajamas! You look really pretty!"

"I know. It's purple."

"Do you think I look pretty, too?"

"No." (She later relented and backed up to "A little.")

I got the inkling that the girls were a touch overtired and overwrought when about every other thing that happened started to result in tears... I wouldn't agree to a third bedtime book: tears. One girl drank her cup of water faster than the other: tears. One girl beat the other in the race up the stairs: tears. One girl didn't know all the lyrics to the song we were singing: tears.

"Okay, are we ready to go to sleep?" I said.

"No," Jess said.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"I don't have a second pillow."

"Well, honey, Penny only has one pillow, too. I think it'll be-"

"I have two pillows," Penny interrupted, "but one of them is this little fuzzy one!"

I counted to ten and tried not to strangle my beloved daughter. Some quick thinking turned up my old tooth fairy pillow, which is about the same size as Penny's "second" pillow, and Jess seemed happy enough with that.

I eventually got them into bed and gave Penny hugs and kisses (that wasn't favoritism; Jess refused the offer) and said, "Okay, go to sleep now. I'm going to go take my shower now, and I'll see you in the morning."

I got as far as my room and heard, "Mom! Jess doesn't feel good!" I investigated, allowed them to share a cup of water, and suggested that they take turns going potty before they go back to bed. I went back into my room and got my shoes off. "Mom! Jess misses her family!" We got the phone and called KT and Kevin and let Jess say goodnight to them. I got the girls back to bed and went back to my room. I got my shirt off and heard, "Mom! My tummy hurts because I didn't finish my dinner!" I convinced Penny that having left a single baby carrot on her plate was not going to cause her to starve overnight and that in any case it was too late to eat anything. I got my pants off, and was working on my bra. "Mom! Jess got hurt!" I ran in, and discovered that "got hurt" was code for "rolled over and bumped her butt against Penny's dresser." "Try not to sleep that close to the edge," I advised.

I finally got into the shower, and just as I was picking up the shampoo, the bathroom door opened. "Mom, I can't go to sleep because Jess keeps talking!"

Oy.

They eventually fell asleep, though, and were so exhausted that they slept right through my 10:00 blood sugar check for Penny. (Well, Jess did, anyway -- I had to wake Penny up for a juice box.) It probably goes without saying that by this time, Jess had scootched around on her mattress until she wasn't anywhere near her two pillows, right? Right.

I'd been hoping all the extra play would tire the kids out a little, but the girls were up at 5:55. Actually, they were probably up well before that; 5:55 is when I dragged out of bed to tell them that I didn't care if they were awake but they needed to be whispering and not waking Matt and me up.

Didn't get back to sleep after that, anyway, but I stubbornly stayed in bed until almost 7, just to make the point.

The girls had recovered from being overtired, at least, and were happy and giggly and in good moods for the morning. Matt volunteered to take the girls and drive Jess home, which helped the scheduling nightmare, since it let me go to the grocery store at the usual time. Alex was awesome for that, even -- he usually gets a bit cranky around the time we get to the last few aisles, but he was cool this time, playing a silly noisemaking game and flirting with other shoppers.

After Matt and Penny got back from dropping Jess off, we had lunch and then headed down to the Virginia Living Museum for a birthday party. Penny was a little shy for the party itself -- Heidi (the birthday girl) is 10, and most of her other guests were of a like age. (Penny got invited courtesy of Matt and I being friends with Heidi's parents, I suspect.)

The Living Museum has a very cool birthday schtick, though -- the birthday kid gets to pick two animals from a list and they actually bring those animals out and let all the guests look at and even touch them. Heidi had picked a screech owl and a box turtle for her animals, and it was really kind of cool, even for us adults. (The owl more than the turtle, admittedly -- we've all seen turtles. But I helped Alex pet the turtle, and he seemed to enjoy that.)

And after the party was done, we were turned loose on the museum itself, and both Penny and Alex had a blast. Alex wasn't terribly interested in most of the museum, but he had fun going up and down some stairs and then back and forth through a door a dozen or more times. He did spend a short time fascinated by some fish, and charged headlong down the (enclosed) nature trail, walking a good half-mile all by himself before demanding that Matt pick him up. And later, he had a good time with the hands-on exhibit, rubbing various animal furs on his face.

Penny actually had some interest in the museum itself, and she really liked the hands-on exhibits and the fish tanks. She liked the night animals and the dinosaur statue, too. She ran excitedly from display to display, exclaiming, "Cool!" and "Look at this!"

Myself, I could have spent an hour by the jellyfish tank -- the jellies ranged from the size of my face down to the size of my thumbnail. They were gently lit purple in the dark room, and their slow floating was hypnotic.

We definitely need to keep the Living Museum in mind when we have a weekend free and need to figure out something to do -- I don't think Penny even saw half of what was there to see.



After all that, I thought I'd want to spend Monday collapsed in a heap, but we were really feeling pretty good. After a calm morning, we packed the kids and went down to visit my mom for a bit. We only stayed about an hour -- both kids turned up tired and got variously irritable and whiny, so we gave up and went back home.

We didn't do anything particularly special for Memorial Day, but I did get Matt to fire up the grill and make steaks for us. (Penny whined at first, but once she got started, she scarfed down her entire 4-oz steak.) I made a bean-and-tomato side salad and threw in some leftover bacon I had in the 'fridge, and it turned out really tasty and not nearly as diet-unfriendly as I had feared.

So today's schedule is a little crazy (all my work meetings that usually happen on Mondays got rescheduled for today, and they're overlapping my meetings that usually happen on Tuesdays) but all in all, I'm feeling pretty good.