“when I am a Mommy I will NEVER…”

“let my baby cry it out.” oh, no. I wanted to gently soothe my baby to sleep, because babies cry when they really need to be held. Well. That is one of those Statements That Is True Until.

Until I start to wonder if, on the night of the next full moon, I’m going to stumble across the hallway, grope around in Keeghan’s crib, and scoop up a wolf cub.

Until I start to get nursemaid’s elbow from holding my 20 lb baby 24 hours a day.

Until I am being summoned by hysterical shrieks every time he burps. Or toots. Or rolls over. In other words, every 45 minutes, night or day, except when it’s more often.

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Until Mr Too Smart For His Own Good figures out that if he holds out until Mommy Goes Crazy, he’ll get to ring in the New Year.

Until enough nights of no sleep plus a day of No Hot Water pushes me over the edge, and i realize that patting his back until my arm goes numb Is Not Getting The Job Done.

Whereupon I will give my beautiful boy a kiss at 6 pm, tell him I love him and Night Night, put him to bed, and go set the kitchen timer. And he’ll be asleep in under 30 minutes. And stay that way for 5 hours. Hallelujah.

More on the Pitter Pat

So last night I had this dream. Yes, I know a lot of stories that start this way are boring, but humor me.

In this dream, my friend Julie called to say that her firm had tickets to something or other with Daniel Craig, and would we like to go. Thinking I was saying yes to movie tickets, I enthusiastically agreed that yes, we’d LOVE to go. She said she’d meet us there, so we all piled into the car, because for some reason we really had decided to take the kids to something that would doubtless be completely inappropriate for them. Which is all cool because this is a dream, and, unlike all the Reese’s I ate yesterday, this bad decision won’t be coming back to haunt me.

We get there and find out that this is really a VERY fancy theater and I’m starting to be impressed when I realize Julie’s face is on all the marketing materials, and I remember that she’s started her own, obviously quite successful, firm. And as she’s telling me how uncomfortable it makes her to see her own face plastered everywhere and how ridiculous she thinks it is that some famous person designed and named a color after her, I am overhearing someone in the hallway or an adjacent room repeatedly asking people if they’d like to see Daniel Craig.

I laughed and asked Julie, “Well, who WOULDN’T want to see Daniel Craig,” because I think this is a really good question. And she thinks that’s very funny and wants to know if I’m one of those crazy stalker type fans, which is DEFINITELY a good question since, as we all know, I’m prone to enthusiasms.

I explain that I prefer to enjoy the public personae created by celebrities and how knowing too much about them can spoil it, and I wouldn’t want to name names but, for instance, let’s talk about Christian Slater.

So then someone official comes and is recruiting kids for an activity. And Michael takes Ian, who is wearing his Halloween costume, and I keep Keeghan with me, where he is no doubt enjoying my continued thoughts on The Hotness of Daniel Craig, which Julie is finding funnier and funnier. Until the curtain opens and I find out this is not a movie but a play, and that Ian’s going to be in it, which we all know would be a horrible idea, unless he’s a T-Rex, in which case he’ll be brilliant.

I look around me and see a lot of empty seats, formerly occupied by members of the cast. Which is when it dawns on me that Julie is so amused because Daniel Craig has been sitting behind me the entire time I’ve been discussing my Male Hotness Paradigm, which petty much goes: 1. Michael 2. Daniel Craig 3. Everyone Else.

At this point I was Rudely Awakened by One of My Children, but we can take a few things away from this. For instance, of all my friends, my subconscious picked Julie as most likely to have a color named after her and be acquainted with movie stars. Also, that I should look behind me now and then, even in dreams. Last, and far from least, I should stay away from Reese’s if I’m serious about Project Hold The Line.

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