girlfiend

I’m sure that Iris didn’t mean to completely offend me when she referred, in a comment, to the physical and emotional abuse I suffer at the hands of my three year old, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the comment and feel like I should explain.

I am (was, anyway) a teacher. I worked in some of the most poverty stricken neighborhoods in Philadelphia. I taught children who had seen people killed in front of them. I taught children who came to school reeking of pot and alcohol because their homes reeked of pot and alcohol. I had parent teacher conferences with parents who were visibly intoxicated. My first year of teaching, at 21 years old, I had kindergarten students who had been left back with parents that were younger than I was. In other words, I am no stranger to fucked up kids.

My kid is not fucked up. Yes, he is overly emotional right now, partly because of his age and partly because I am pregnant again. He was a wreck after T was born and even though he probably doesn’t remember it, he understands on some level that his little world is about to be completely disrupted again. On top of that he wants to do things that he is not allowed to do. He does not like limits and boundaries, but he has them, and it makes him angry.

If it were up to him he’d watch a combination of Caillou, Barney, and Teletubbies all day long while playing games on PBS Kids. He’d eat nothing but potato chips and sandwich creme cookies washed down with apple juice and lemonade. I’d read him the same two stories 7000 times in a row while ignoring his brother. He would stand naked in front of the television, peeing wherever he wanted. I would clean up the mess. On occasion he would emerge from his television/video game haze to play at the playground. I would push him in the stroller so he wouldn’t get too tired walking. On the way there we’d stop at Dunkin Donuts and Bohema, the local hippie store he loves to browse in. On the way home we’d stop at the bakery for cookies, the first pizza place for chicken fingers and french fries and the second pizza place for pizza. He would mostly likely eat none of the foods he asked me to purchase, because he actually prefers not to eat because he is too busy. We would also go to the zoo and the children’s museum and the playhouse and every other playground he’s ever seen before returning to his den of irritating children’s programming. And I’d buy him Thomas trains. All of them. Battery powered, wooden, Take-along, the whole line and all of the accessories.

His three year old fantasy is not too far off from his three year old reality. He gets to do all of the things he wants in moderation. He doesn’t watch TV or play video games all day, but he gets to play while his brother naps. He doesn’t get to play at the playground for seven hours straight, but on most days, even when I’m freezing my ass off he gets to play for a little while. I let him eat junk food sometimes after he’s eaten a decent lunch and he gets to drink watered down juice on occasion. We go to the places he likes to visit on a pretty regular basis considering how fucking tired I am all of the time. Sometimes I even buy him donuts or cookies on the way home.

He’s got it pretty good, but he’s not spoiled. He loses toys, television and computer privileges when he doesn’t listen. There are still trains in the basement from the last time he hit his brother with a toy. He knows that screaming gets him nothing and that he has to speak nicely if he wants me to do things for him. But knowing that there are consequences doesn’t ensure good behavior. He is three, almost four and he can’t control himself. He’s overtired and hungry many days because he refuses to go to sleep at a regular hour and doesn’t want to eat. The combination of tired and hungry is more than he can take. He just can’t control his behavior sometimes.

Like last night. Yesterday was a pretty good day. We went to story hour at the library then picked out books and movies and played on the library computers. He ate lunch and drank lemonade, watched Barney while I put his brother down for a nap. Then we read the 7 stories we picked out, some of them twice, and built a giant train set on the floor. He got to watch Dinosaur Train while I cleaned up and prepped some things for dinner, then we played with trains together until his brother woke up. He played some games on PBS Kids then had a snack. He said he wasn’t hungry for dinner yet, even though it was ready for him and went to swim lessons at 6. He got home in a good mood. Then he refused to eat his dinner. I made him eat half. He asked for a bagel and refused to eat it once it was ready. That’s where it all went downhill. For the next two hours everything was a battle. Everything. B took over so I could get T to sleep, but T couldn’t sleep through the screams. F refused to pee and refused to eat and only wanted to wear wet pajamas to bed because he doesn’t like dry pajamas any more. 2 bedtime stories wasn’t good enough he needed 3. Then he wanted the bagel he didn’t like because he was hungry and I just wanted him to shut the fuck up so his brother could sleep. By the time he did quieted down so T could sleep and fell asleep himself I was exhausted. Then he had nightmares all night long, whimpering about pajamas and shouting for us to go away and leave him alone. At one point he had his hands on Boyfiend’s face and was shouting at him to stop touching him. B tried to explain that F was touching him, not the other way around, but how do you argue with a kid in the middle of a nightmare? B went upstairs to sleep. And of course F was overtired this morning from screaming and staying up too late and nightmares, and I am overtired from the screaming and being kicked awake all night. And the cycle continues.

He did not want to go to school today. Well, any day really- he just wants to stay home with me and watch Caillou. Today I asked his teacher, Miss P, how he was doing. I told her about his behavior at home and explained that he doesn’t want to go to school any more. She seemed completely surprised. She told me that he always plays nicely, alone, one-on-one, or in groups. She said he never raises his voice and never misbehaves. She said he’s got a sweet personality and gets along with everyone. The assistant teacher said she’s never had to correct him. Ever. He’s just a sweet kid. Miss P told me that her daughter is having the same problems with her three year old. He’s terrible with her, nasty, but at school or with Miss P he’s helpful. He, like F, has taken to throwing fits, refusing to eat, refusing to sleep and running away.

It was a relief to hear my kid is not the only one who acts that way. I mean, I know my kid is not the only one who acts that way. There is an entire book, Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy, that explains the behavior and says that the parent is their child’s worthiest adversary. They recommend getting a good babysitter. But still, I don’t really see F’s friends act that way, and the kids at his preschool all seem to be able to leave the playground afterwards without throwing shit fits, so it was really good to hear from his teacher, a woman who has been teaching 3 and 4 year olds for 15 years that F is not the only one, and that he’s a great kid at school.

I feel like I’m just babbling. My point is that my kid doesn’t need a referral. He’s a sweetheart (when he’s not acting like an asshole) and this is just a stage. He will grow out of it. At some point the good days will begin to outnumber the bad days again and chances are that I will then be venting about T or the new baby. The Fiendling is a great kid. I just don’t get to see much of the good stuff these days. He reserves it for everyone else because he knows I will still love him even when he acts out.

Our bedtime experiment results have been mixed. T has adjusted nicely to the new room and likes climbing up on the big double bed to read stories before he goes to sleep for bed or nap. He didn’t nap particularly well most of last week, but I think that’s due mostly to his incoming 2 year molars and a slight cold. When I remembered to dose him with Motrin he slept through the night and took his usual 2-3 hour nap.

F isn’t adjusting. After the first night, when he woke up twice and woke me and his brother in the process, he went right back to sleeping in our bed. Right now this isn’t much of a problem. Except for the sideways sleeping. He likes to sleep sideways right beneath the pillows. Head by me, feet by B. Sometimes he switches and I get stuck with the feet. Most nights B moves him so that his head and feet are where they should be, but he doesn’t like sleeping with blankets and kicks himself out.

Early this morning I awoke to little feet kicking me on the legs and back. F was sideways, and angry. I don’t know what kind of dream he was having or what pissed him off, but his kicks, instead of accidental became shoves and he started yelling, “Go away,” and “leave me alone.” B woke up and went to the bathroom. I tried to calm F and turn him around, but he just got more and more angry and so did I. After a minute he seemed fully awake and aware so I told him that if he wanted to stay in our bed he was going to have to stop yelling at me and kicking. I told him I was going to bring him into the other room to sleep on the couch if he didn’t stop. He responded by throwing his water bottle then ripping a pillow out from under my head and throwing it. I lost my temper, picked him up and carried him into the other room where I dumped him on the couch. He got up and tried to run back into my room. I stopped him and put him back on the couch. He got off and tried to escape again. Same thing. By this point, really just a minute or two after he’d woken up in the first place, I was done.

B came out of the bathroom. I gave him the rundown of the previous minute and told him I was done. I went to the bathroom, then ignored the still angry and fighting Fiendling on my way back to bed. A few minutes later B and F got back into bed. I pretended to be asleep. F told B he wanted some water. His water bottle, which I’d collected from the floor was on my bedside table so I handed it to him. He said thank you then gave me a kiss. We all went back to sleep.

F didn’t wake up for the day until 8.30. I thought about waking him earlier but decided I’d rather have a peaceful hour or so with T. When he woke up he yelled for me. I went in to say good morning and sit with him for a few minutes while he adjusted to being awake. I asked if he remembered waking up in the night. He told me no. I reminded him of the events of the night before, glossing over the parts where he kicked me, threw his water, stole my pillow and got forcefully ejected from bed for a few minutes. He didn’t remember any of it.

I don’t know how I’m going to get my bed back before this baby comes. There’s no way I’m going to be able to share a bed with Boyfiend and the Fiendling and nurse a baby on and off all night. Even if I manage to stay awake for each nursing session and put the baby back in the pack n play, it’s still going to be a challenge.

First, I’d like to thank you for indulging me on my recent comment whore post. It’s nice to know my lack of posting/lack of anything funny or interesting to write about hasn’t scared everyone off.

Second, my friend/cousin’s wife just bought her daughter a big girl bed and asked us to take the crib off out of their house right now thank you very much. Since I have no interest in moving a kid who sleeps well in a crib out of one, and we will in the next 6 months need another crib, we were happy to oblige. We went over yesterday and the kids played while B dismantled their crib and loaded it in our car and I went through her maternity clothes, finding some things I’d been missing. I also scored a bunch of soft, cuddly PBK crib sheets, a snuggle nest and some girlish bedding they forced upon us in the hopes that we’ll have a girl, keep it for while and they can unload all of the rest of their girly baby stuff on us.

We got home and started to rearrange the upstairs. By we I mean Boyfiend. I hung out with my friend and her super cute, squishy baby who has not yet learned about free will, disobedience, and hair pulling. B dismantled the double bed in the guest room and F’s twin bed and switched them. We then (and by we I mean we) somehow maneuvered the twin sleeper sofa from F’s room into the guest room. Today we set up the crib in F’s room and rearranged the furniture to accommodate the double bed, crib, train table, bureau and bookshelf.

F has been saying that he only likes to sleep in big beds, so hopefully the larger bed will be incentive for him to sleep in his own goddamn room. He’s also suggested that he’d like to share a room with his brother, so again, we’re hoping. The other room now has a twin bed and the twin sleeper in it so we can always move the boys in there if we do ever actually have a guest that requires a double bed.

I am fearful, but tonight I’m going to put both of the boys to bed up there together. The odds are that F will end up in our bed 5 minutes later. Either that or he’ll keep the poor, tired baby awake. The timing is pretty much shit since T is getting his two year molars and I am cranky and pregnant, but there’s no time like the present. The worst that can happen is that we give it a couple of weeks and it doesn’t work. T will be comfortably sleeping upstairs alone and we’ll still be sleeping with a pain in the ass preschooler for the rest of our lives, ensuring that this baby-to-be is our last without the need for surgical interventions.

I’m so tired. I’m not even halfway through this pregnancy and I’m done. My standards keep getting lower and lower. My house is a mess, we’re pulling wrinkled clothes out of the clean laundry baskets, and we’re eating fewer vegetables in a week than I used to eat in a day. My temper is short, my kids aren’t getting enough of my good attentions, and I just want to get into bed. My refrigerator is nearly empty, we’ve run out of all of the breakfast cereals my kids will eat and I think they both had bread and butter followed by cheese crackers for lunch today. After we stopped for cookies at the bakery.

The Fiendling is still sleeping in our room. He manages to stay in his “bed” on the floor one night out of five. The rest of the nights he ends up in our bed and keeps me awake most of the night. He’s still being a bit of an asshole, but I think, and I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself or jinxing myself here, but I think he’s snapping out of it. When I give him specific instructions with definite consequences in advance he tends to be cooperative and not throw a complete shitfit when it’s time to leave someplace that he’d like to stay. That’s not always the case. Yesterday he ran away from me twice when it was time to leave the (cold, deserted) playground and I nearly fucking killed him after I had to drag him kicking and screaming to the car, but that was the first time it happened this week, not the fourth.

When he’s not yelling at me, refusing to eat, making unreasonable demands, fucking with his brother, or otherwise being 3, the Fiendling has been awesome. He’s taken to snuggling with me sometimes in the afternoons while T naps.  He likes to sit on my lap while I watch Friday Night Lights on Netflix. He also likes to play with flour when I can bring myself to bake. He drives his engines through it, narrating stories about crashes at the flour mill, snow storms and other disasters. I think he’s pretty close to reading too. He’s been sounding out words and has been even more interested in letters and their sounds than he was before. He likes to take the scrabble letters and spell the words he knows and the names of his engines.  And 9 times out of 10 he wipes his own ass without asking for assistance.

The baby, who is in the middle of the 18 month sleep regression, is mostly sleeping through the night again, but refuses to go to sleep and screams for an hour most nights before bed. He’s taken to throwing tantrums too, biting, hair-pulling, pushing and screaming when he doesn’t get his way, and I can’t tell if it’s because of his age or because he’s not talking at all and his inability to communicate is frustrating him. I’m sure his brother isn’t helping matters much, snatching toys away from him and yelling at him for playing. When T pulls F’s hair, pushes him or scratches his face I have to remove him from the situation, but secretly I like that my baby is fighting back a little. I hate to say it, but F deserves it a good portion of the time.

Tantrums or not, T is the sweetest kid.  He has finally (and I say finally because I feel like F started much earlier) started to bring me books and sit on my lap so I can read them to him.  He’s been so snuggly and sweet and generous with kisses that it almost makes up for the scratches on my face. And he can blow his own nose. I appreciate that in a child.

Just to get it out of the way, I’m pregnant. I figure 80% of the people who read this are either facebook or real life friends and already know, so even though I’ve been trying to come up with some interesting way to reveal it on the blog what’s the point?  To answer any questions, no it wasn’t planned, no we aren’t finding out the sex even though I want to, I’m due in early May which makes me 14 or 15 weeks pregnant, and I’m back on the stupid message boards and my head hurts just thinking about it. My friend E suggested I refer to this baby as Fi3nd, or F3, or maybe just 3. I think he’s on to something.

For those of you not keeping count, I have already been pregnant and/or nursing for 52 straight months. It’s a fucking miracle I haven’t lost my mind completely. Another miracle is that for some reason I haven’t been gaining weight like I did the first two pregnancies. My OB, the woman who scheduled an extra ultrasound just because I’d gained so much weight and asked if I was *sure* I knew my pre-pregnancy weight, told me to start eating protein bars for weight gain. I guess that’s what running around after two small children will do.

I am exhausted.

Both children awoke at the same time last night. I heard the close of the door and the little boy feet on the stairs as the quiet whimpers of just awakening started in the nursery next door. The Fiendling made it into our room before the whimpers turned into wails. The wails began in earnest so I tucked F into bed and told him I was going to put the baby back to bed and I’d be back in a few minutes. He cried, “No, take me with you. I want to go with you.” When I told him he couldn’t go in with me he said, “Bring him back in here!”

I tried to settle him but the baby was getting louder and he was getting louder. The longer the baby cries, the longer it takes him to go back to sleep and the longer the Fiendling is up and talking the longer it takes him. Of course Boyfiend was still sound asleep. It took a minute of me saying his name for him to register that I needed him to wake up and help. He muttered something to F about staying bed and went back to sleep. Luckily, F stayed in bed with him when I left.

When I got back into bed F was still wide awake and B was snoring. F wanted some of my water and wanted to know what time it was and if it was morning yet. After ten minutes he fell back to sleep. A few hours later I awoke to a kick right smack in the middle of my chest. F had somehow turned sideways in his sleep and nailed me. Then the baby started crying. I tried to ignore it, hoping he’d go back to sleep, but he was screaming so I got up again and went into the nursery. Once he was asleep again I tried to put T back in the crib, but of course he started screaming at the top of his lungs because it’s a Wonder Week and he’s getting another molar. I left him to cry and bury my head under the pillow. By the time he fell back to sleep I had about 20 minutes before (the still sound asleep) Boyfiend’s alarm woke me again.

This is the norm in my house. If children are waking in the night I am dealing with them. If children are in our bed I am being kicked by them. If children are screaming I am the only one who hears them. I am convinced Boyfiend was dreaming about the two wake ups I slept through the other night.

Things are a little bit better. A combination of Motrin and teething tablets for the molar that’s coming in resulted in one really good night and two okay nights of sleep. Last night he was up at 4.30 but back to sleep by 5. It sucks that he’s waking, but at least it didn’t take too long to get him back down. We bought him a big boy bed to see if that helps at all. We’re hoping that at the very least it will eliminate the step of transferring him from glider to crib. I don’t know if he’ll sleep any longer or go down any easier, but it’s worth a try. I’m still tired and run down but I’m not quite as miserable.

The Fiendling’s been going through yet another fucking sleep regression where he won’t go to sleep and he wakes in the night and every time he falls asleep on me or Boyfiend he wakes up as soon as we try to put him down, either on the crib or on our bed. How does anyone ever have more than one kid? Seriously, this is awful. I know there’s an 18 month sleep regression, but he’s 19 and a half months old and the last sleep regression, the 16 month sleep regression no one told me about, lasted more than month.

For the past hour and a half I’ve been trying to get him to sleep and all I want to do is go back to Boyfiend’s birthday party, which was supposed to be a happy hour because I didn’t want to feel bad when I had to go at 8 to put the Fiendling to bed. I knew we couldn’t have a party here because of the stupid sleep thing, so Mix had it at his house and now everyone’s there having fun and I’m here listening to the Fiendling cry. He’s been asleep, snoring even, three times already.

On top of it, there are ants in my kitchen. We went to the pumpkin patch this morning for a hayride and lunch and I got rear-ended on the way home. The Fiendling fell asleep in the car but woke up as soon as the car stopped 25 minutes later and of course, because of this stupid 19 and half month sleep regression he wouldn’t go back to sleep. So I tried to make icing for the birthday cake (I’m not currently enjoying at the party) with a fussy, tired toddler climbing on the fucking window sills. I had chocolate and butter melting in the double boiler when he took off upstairs. I was too far gone to stop what I was doing so I had to wait about three minutes to finish stirring and take it off the heat. When I got upstairs he’d figured out how to unlatch the laptop and had ripped off three keys. One, the up arrow, is still missing. When I got downstairs I realized the kitchen sink was covered in ants. I think they’re coming in through the window.

I called Boyfiend because I was downstairs, didn’t want to go upstairs to get on the up arrow-less laptop to see if it was baking powder or baking soda that’s supposed to keep them out. I got an answer, baking soda, and poured it all over the cracks of the window, killed every ant in sight, washed my hands and the surfaces thoroughly and iced the cake which was a whole other nightmare with a still miserable tired kid.

Hours later, the ants are back in full force. The baking soda didn’t do shit. They’re everywhere. On the stove, in the sink, everywhere, and I’m so grossed out. Of course we don’t have any chemicals in the house because of the fucking environment and baby-proofing, but I did manage to find a small bit of Fantastik near the cat litter so I sprayed the shit out of every ant in sight, hoping any new ones would see their kin dying painfully in a puddle of all-purpose spray.

I suppose it’s time to try to get the Fiendling to sleep again. Wish me luck.

The Fiendling is seventeen months old today.

He’s getting more and more verbal at home but less and less verbal around other people. Newish words include ball, bird, pop, bubble, apple, baby, tired( ti ti), rabbit, boat, hop, boom,dog,banana (nana), pee pee and stomp. I’m sure I’m forgetting many of them, but these are the ones we hear pretty regularly. He also says diaper time (di ti) when it’s time for a change.

He lies on his back and lifts his legs so you can change his diaper which is a pleasant change from the poopy dashes across the room. He’s also gotten more agreeable with other daily tasks, like lifting his arms to take off his shirt and stepping into his pant legs. He likes to smear sunscreen around on us, while we apply it to him.

He scratches our backs when he’s asked and does a pretty good job, though he’s not quite able to move left or right or up and down. I’ll take what I can get.

He’s taken to wearing a hat, even indoors. I did the same thing when I was a toddler. But I took it a step further and refused to leave the house without a hat.

He loves babies, especially looking at the babies in books and pictures and identifying them as babies. He also recognizes the mama and dada in books and pictures. He loves looking at photo albums and pictures in flickr. He points to people he knows and says their names. He looks at pictures of himself and other babies and says “baby!” and sometimes leans in to give a kiss or says “mwah,” and moves his hand to blow a kiss. Looking at flickr pictures is the only time he’s content just to just sit and look instead of assaulting the laptop.

He no longer screams when he wakes up in the morning. Instead he calls for mama and dada and smiles when we get him. Nighttime wakeups are a different story. We’re in a nasty rough patch sleepwise. Every few days he wakes in the night crying and screaming. He doesn’t want to be held but doesn’t want to be put down. He clutches his water cup and insists he’s thirsty but won’t drink any and cries when it drops or we take it away. When I try to rock him to sleep, which he’s just too big for, he scratches and claws at me and pushes me away. When he finally gets comfortable and stops crying, the slightest noise or movement will bring on a fresh round of ear-shattering wails. He has trouble falling asleep as well, but it’s not nearly as painful as the night waking.

He prefers eating with a fork to a spoon, and lets us feed him more now than he ever did before. He’s surprised me by eating beets, chicken, a few bites of steak, balsamic glazed carrots and Frosted Mini Wheats. He still loves to feed us.

He likes to roughhouse, pushing us over and pulling us up. He laughs like crazy when we let him pull us around by our toes. He loves being chased and caught.

He proudly claps once when he completes a task like putting a toy away, a book on a shelf, or throwing something in a hole. He really enjoys throwing things, like rocks, shells and sticks.

He’s really begun following the movements in books and songs. He always sort of participated before, but now he’s more coordinated and gets the movements at the right time. He pats his head when the monkeys bump theirs, he opens and shuts the doors on the bus, and he plays pattycake pretty well.

Ring around the rosy is a favorite game right now, but he tends to jump the gun and fall down too soon. The next part, “The cows are in the meadow, eating buttercups. (rhythmically, bang the floor) Thunder and lightening (bang harder, like thunder) we all jump up!” is his favorite and he loves to pull me up to start the game again.

He sings Joshua Giraffe and it’s quite clear what he’s singing. He hums a few other tunes, but they’re unrecognizable. On our long ride home from the Outer Banks (Pigs- we stayed in Salvo) we put on the Kids Stuff station on Sirius and he clapped and sang for hours. Boyfiend and I weren’t quite as fond of the music, but whatever keeps him happy.

The Fiendling is definitely a toddler now. He has full on temper tantrums for no reason and wants to do things himself and gets frustrated when he can’t. But he’s so much fun I don’t care. I love the games and the roughhousing and I love the sweet kisses and the big, exuberant toddler hugs, even when he practically knocks me over. I enjoy spending time with him, which adds a whole new dimension to our relationship.

Smashing a castle at the beach

I didn’t sleep well last night. I fell asleep around 11.30, but it was a light sleep, the kind where you’re not quite sure if you’re thinking or dreaming. Then the Fiendling woke up at 1.30 and I went in to nurse him and fell asleep in the glider, not waking up until 3. I slept for real after that but he was up again at 6.30 for the day leaving me exhausted. By the time we left the playground around 1.30 this afternoon I just wanted to go to the Mexican place nearby for a veggie burger with cheese fajita style and a very large margarita. Instead I went home and made hummus and falafel, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, and weeded the front garden.
After his nap and a snack and after we picked up the first box from our farm share, the Fiendling helped me spin the salad greens for a bit. Out of nowhere he decided he was hungry and he became inconsolable. I wrestled him into his booster chair and offered him a variety of foods which he promptly rejected through his wails. Eventually he calmed down when the cheddar bunnies appeared. I opened the fridge to get him something real to eat and he thought he wanted everything he saw but really wanted nothing. For dinner he ate a handful of noodles with mixed veggies and tomato sauce. Then he threw what was left and indicated he wanted the noodles with mixed veggies with no tomato sauce. Then he threw that on the floor. He pointed to the falafel and was outraged when I told him I had to cook it first. He thought he wanted the red Thai curry but after a few bites of broccoli realized he didn’t. He made it through one and half strawberries before deciding they weren’t what he wanted. The falafel, once cooked, appeased him momentarily but soon joined the rest of the rejected food items on the floor. At this point I made myself a margarita.

Margarita in hand I gave him a bowl of baby food (Earth’s best plums, bananas and rice) and a spoon and he was happy. He ate most of it with his hands and cried for more. I tried to spoon more into the bowl but he just wanted the jar so I gave it to him and cleaned up a bit while he ate out of the tiny jar with his tiny hands. To buy some more time to finish my drink I gave him a chunk of carrot cake which he covered in baby food before eating. Eventually I cleaned up everything but the floor around him, cleared his tray of all projectiles, wiped him down, shook him out over the sink, and occupied him with his shape sorter while I cleaned the floor as best I could in the few minutes I had.

He’s now bathed and asleep and I’m showered and exhausted and instead of going to bed I’m writing this. Boyfiend’s still not home and I’m debating mixing another margarita. But I think I’ll just go to sleep.