a not-atypical evening

Quite sick, Caleb got a blessing, which I juggled Ben through.

Very late, I remembered I was supposed to edit a paper for a sister-in-law who has gone back to school. It's too late for her to get any benefit out of my help before her students-reading-student's papers session (why do teachers do that?! It's totally useless and only serves to intimidate everyone--the blind leading the blind, often coached, unfortunately, by the blind). Anyway, it takes longer than it should because Benji pulled both shift keys off the laptop, and the hyphen key randomly falls off and must be replaced. While I was working on that, I looked up to see Daniel shoving a king-sized sheet into the kitchen garbage can. When questioned, he said he was keeping it away from Ben. Anda helped resolve that one for me--I'm not sure why Dan thought the garbage was safe from his brother, since Benji spent a great deal of time throwing toys into the same garbage can today, while Anda stood by and rescued them. He also spent a great deal of time pulling things out of the garbage, even after he cut his finger on a can lid.

As I finish that, everyone is leaning on me and whining, literally. So I get up and change a poopy diaper. Then I change a wet diaper. Then I make a floor bed for Caleb in the living room by my chair, which entails help from several people in clearing enough floor space for a seven-year-old to lie down.

Then I make Caleb some spiced cider. He has a horrid sore throat, and I'm hoping he'll manage to eat something. Tim is printing a 200-page document, and I promised to make gingerbread man cookies with Dan, so, despite the fact that it is well after 1:00 am, I start that. Caleb liked his cider, so I turn the molasses bottle upside down to get every bit out I can, knowing we have too little anyway and will have to augment with corn syrup and start getting water to make cup o noodles and tomato soup so that everyone gets something.

Meanwhile, Benji has gotten to the printer, and he pulls all the paper out of the paper tray. While I'm fixing that, he climbs up and turns off the computer that runs the phone system. While I'm fixing that, the kids start arguing over the jello powder that has been sitting in a bowl on the stove for at least 3 days because someone wanted to make jello and got going without me and then lost interest waiting for me. While I'm solving that, Benjamin gets into the printer again. While I'm fixing that, he turns off the phone computer again.

I get back to the stove to boil the water and discover the kids have poured cold water into the jello powder and are stirring. Frustrated, I get them moved to the table, get the stove cleared off, and get the water heating to boil. Then I chase Ben away from the computers again, and come back to the table, where the kids are spooning jello water into their mouths and spilling red jello liquid everywhere. When Benji comes to join them, I get frustrated and put all three kids and the bowl of jello into the tub.

I come back and cut cheese for Caleb's soup and get the boiling water poured into everything that needs it except the jello, put more paper in the printer, and go back to check on the kids. Some are naked and some are fussing and someone is poopy again (I can smell it!), and they've emptied the whole bowl of jello liquid--onto the walls of the shower, where it sticks. It's an old shower, and I'm sure it will stain, so I shower the whole thing off and scold everyone, who are now busy at the sink making more jello powder into jello juice.

I come back, serve the soup to Caleb, dress Anda without bathing her first because I'm too tired and the bottom of the tub is now covered with red jello. Then I go back into the bathroom and find Dan playing in the tub with the red jello, and Ben playing in the potty and licking the water off his hands (at least this time it had been flushed first!). I close the potty and before I can grab him he adds a few more lines to the fingerpainting he's made on the lid of the toilet. He lets me clean him up at the sink and chase him out of the bathroom, change his diaper again, and then everyone eats cup o noodles and tomato soup.

I suppose I should have started back a couple of hours to when Tim was packing, and Benji was helping by adding his bottle to the suitcase, full of milk, naturally, and walking on the clothes, and pushing all the buttons on the computer, and pulling down equipment, and jumping from the back of the couch onto the seat of the couch, and turning on and off the other printer, and tasting the printer cartridges. Anda was begging me to get working on sewing the skirts we planned for her, so I was searching everywhere for the boxes that hold my thread and elastic (which I never did find), and
Dan was jumping on Anda until she screamed, and the house was too hot and not cooling down because I can't keep the cooler pads wet.

And now I have to go. Ben is alternately pushing and pulling off keys on the keyboard, and I just noticed he dumped a half-full cup of noodles all over the kitchen floor, and he stinks again, so I either have to track down where he threw up or change his diaper AGAIN.

Oh, and while I was writing that paragraph, he managed to turn the chair upright and get onto Caleb's computer, which Tim's file is printing from.

That kid never stops! If he's not emptying the silverware drawer, he's pulling the clothes down in the closets, typing on someone's computer who doesn't want their files ruined, or drinking his bottle sitting in the fridge, holding the door closed with one hand so only his little feet poke out!

I think the cookies will have to wait.