I am a 38yo wife, mother, friend & sister. I have been married for 17 years, and I have two children: Music (formerly Karate Kid) my 14yo son, and Drama Queen, my 12yo daughter.
Once in a very great while, my children have a very low-key, ordinary, run of the mill day. It's usually when one of them is gone and the other is left at home without an adversary to fight. Lest I enjoy the peace too much, I can always count on one of my child care kiddos to step in and provide the drama du jour.
My children are out of school for the rest of the week for Fall Break. I, craving the quiet of the normal nap time around here, shuffled children around to new sleeping spots so Drama Queen could play in her room while they napped. I just didn't have the fortitude to hear her complain about having someone in her room or how she was bored or a myriad of other complaints that she lodges during this very elusive time in my day--the hour of peace and quiet. In order to preserve my sanity, I put up a playpen in the "big kid" room. This created a dilemma because Mr. Red Head loves to stand up in the playpen and holler at the others as they are trying to go to sleep (thus the reason he sleeps all by his lonesome in DQ's room). I decided to rig up a tent/divider/obstruction of sorts, thinking maybe he would settle down easier if he couldn't see any of the others.
I brought a chair into the room and draped one end of a blanket over it and shut the other end in the top dresser drawer. One side was high enough but not the other, so I had to figure out a way to raise the lower side. Apparently just a teensy bit of the creativity my children have came from me. I ran into my bedroom and got the clamp-on light that's on our headboard. In the process of getting the lamp, I accidentally unplugged my alarm clock. Does anybody hate having to reset their clock as much as me? It just annoys me to no end. I decided that I would just leave it and set it when I got ready to go to bed. Back in the other room, I clamped the light onto the back of the chair. Voila! The blanket was high enough that he couldn't see over it.
Just as I was getting ready to walk out of the room, I heard Mr. Red Head having a meltdown in the hall. I walked out to see him pointing in fear into my bedroom. Since there is a gate in the doorway, I knew that none of the kids or the dogs had gone in there. I looked around to see what was scaring him, but I couldn't see anything. He kept pointing and babbling/crying, so I looked several more times to try to find the reason for his fear. Have you figured it out yet? It took me awhile. The big, bad monster scaring this new 2yo was: (drumroll please) the blinking numbers on my alarm clock. Seriously. As soon as I set the clock he was fine again.
Just when I think we've cornered the market on insane phobias, someone else comes along and lets me know there's more than enough craziness to go around.
Posted @
2:48 PM ~
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