Kids R Crazy and Parenting Is Hard (Or, the Importance of Sleep)

"Kids r crazy."  That's how Sara replied when Julie texted Sara last night that she'd yelled so loud at Joe and Clara, she'd broken a sweat.  You read that, Fans.  She.  Broke.  A.  Sweat.  It might also have been because at one point she was jumping up and down to punctuate her rant.  You read that right as well.  Jumping.  Up.  And.  Down.  No doubt--no doubt--Julie looked like a lunatic.  This might have been why Clara was laughing.  After all, the night before, when Ted marched into their room and tossed the Cars racetrack out into the hallway in pieces, Julie stood in the doorway of the bathroom trying to swallow her laughter.  He looked like a lunatic, but Julie didn't want him to see her laughing because she knew he just happened to reach the end of his rope faster that night but it could have just as easily been her.  She didn't want him to think she was laughing at him.

For whatever reason--probably the newfound thrill of sharing a bed--the bambini have been off the rails again at bedtime.  They laugh.  They cackle.  They screech.  They shriek.  They sing.  They yell.  Eventually, there are tears because eventually, one of them inadvertently kicks the other, or hits the other, or punches the other.  But of course, these are not inadvertent slights to the one who is suffering them.  No, to that one, the blow was not an accident.  Tears might also be shed because in all of the flopping and jostling and jockeying for position, a leg, arm, or head might meet with the bed or the wall.  An animal friend could fall out of bed as well, and well, you know, it's an ocean of fire there a foot off the bed.

Sometimes the bambini risk the hot lava though, and emerge from their bedroom, almost always as a pair.  They walk into the living room, with expressions that seem to say, "Oh.  My.  God.  What are you doing out here?!?! Are you bathing in Skittles while you watch Cars on multiple screens eating ice cream?!?!"  Then Joe, clearly the assumed spokesperson, will say something like "We need water."  (These two would never make it in the desert.  Never.)

All of this means that the bambini have been up until about nine o'clock lately.  That, in turn, means that if, say for example, one asks Birdie to put on her shoes, one is met with petulant resistance that is really terribly tiresome before 8am.

So last night, Julie head reached the end of her rope and was left yelling and jumping up and down like a lunatic.  Joe may have at one point, through tears, wailed, "I can't handle it anymore," and Julie might have roared back, "Well me neither!"  They are both sensitive souls.  Clara of course was laughing at the great show.  Don't turn that dial!

When the storm had passed, of course, Julie felt awful.  Ordinarily, this would be when she would begin crying again because she'd be thinking she'd failed at everything except suggesting to Joe and Clara that a useful way to solve problems is to holler and jump up and down like some psychopathic rabbit.  But, Julie has been working hard at not making these kinds of big leaps, too, and last night, after the storm had passed, all she really wanted to do was be with the bambini.  She wanted them to know she felt awful, and to hug them because she figured they felt at least a little awful, too, having been hollered at by a jumping mother.

So Julie went in the bambini's room, and said she was sorry she'd lost her temper, and she was working on pulling it in when she felt that she was going to lose her temper.  She said she thought it was great that the bambini had someone to talk to and giggle and snuggle with at bedtime, but that they took it too far and needed to work on pulling it in, too.  At the end she said, "O-kay?"  And the bambini said, "O-kay."

So o-kay.

Still, kids are crazy, and what a gift, to have a friend who will tell you that when you forget, so that you can remember the corollary: parenting--raising a person, people--is hard.  Growing up, too.

Which is why it's important, for everyone, to go to bed.

This wasn't last night.  This was the other night ago.  The first night Clara wore underwear to bed.  Three nights accident-free and counting!