Today is the last day of spring break and it actually went pretty well. The only bad side was the time change, which always comes right around the time you fool yourself into thinking your kids are on some sort of schedule.

Speaking of our little “schedule”, Em has woken up at some point every night for about the past 5 days. This, from my best sleeper. At-man has had every possible sleep issue you can imagine, but after 4 years we have worked out a system where we can all live in happy denial of them. He goes to sleep in his own bed, although we do have to take turns lying beside him pretending to be asleep ourselves. I have actually grown to somewhat enjoy this time, using it to compose my grocery list and think about emails I need to return. He remains in his own bed until around 12 or 1am and then climbs in between D and I after we have gone to sleep. Other than an occasional foot up my nose at 3am, it all works out pretty well.

Em on the other hand, he is to sleep, what Dali was to surrealism. He will actually even tell you when he wants to go up to bed. You simply place him in his crib and leave the room. It’s just that easy. Until now that is. It started with a couple of 4am wake up calls. Then he jumped right into not wanting to go to sleep in the first place. Tonight he went down for about an hour only to start screaming his head off. As you can imagine, this was quite a sensitive situation. At-man had finally stopped his endless stream of perpetual motion and was sound asleep only 3 feet from his brother who was now reaching a decibel level similar to that of a jet airplane. I held my breath for 5 minutes hoping he would give up and go back down, but much like with lottery tickets, you only get a winner once in a while. Tonight wasn’t my lucky night. I went up, gave him a hug and as soon as he realized he wasn’t going to get picked up he flung himself back on his mattress and passed back out.

My little guy is all discombobulated this week. He has a raging diaper rash, is back to his questionable eating habits, and has been shoving any non-food item that will fit, directly into his mouth (including At-man’s arm). I got a chance to steal At-man away for a little mommy one on one time to run a few errands this afternoon, and despite a battle scar in the shape of Em’s dental records, he still missed the little bugger. Rounding the block on our way home, he told me he wanted “to get Em back”. That’s a pretty sweet way to think of someone who hours earlier tried to take a chunk out of your arm. Obviously he isn’t one to carry a grudge.

Besides the lack of quality sleep, we had a great last day of break. A morning full of thunder storms saved me from having to pack up and haul off to the play ground once again. It’s not that I don’t love the outside deal, but every now and then it’s nice to have an excuse to just stay home without feeling bad about it. Both boys were extra snuggly in part from their fear from all the noise and underscored by the occasional flickering of the lights. At-man picked Milo and Ottis out at Blockbuster yesterday and they happily watched while building a replica of Manhattan in Lego’s (apparently Em, in a Godzilla like moment, decided to eat the Empire State Building. This led to the arm biting incident mere seconds later). Ever since At-man found out that mommy lived in New York when she was a peanut he has been fascinated by the city. We took all the cushions off the couch and lounged around on the floor, finally deciding on a mid-morning project, fruit salad. And no, Em didn’t eat any of it.

As I sit here, the lunch box is packed, little clothes are laid out, and everything is ready for school.
Everything but me, I’m going to miss the little buggers something awful.