Life: Idiotropic

A couple nights ago while cuddling with Elise and trying to get her to settle down, I began to think how marvelous it would be to have a big bag of light green ping pong balls at my side. The next night I laid there armed with a nice round red plastic tomato. Last night I had plastic grapes.

Thankfully, I haven't had to use them yet and I am still on the lookout for those ping pong balls. So that, while trying to get the three little ones to bed, I can just gently lodge a ping pong ball in the direction of the popping, snapping, clicking, kicking child across the room so that the gentle tap of the harmless ball can act as a firm reminder that her mother is in the room and it's time to be quiet.

May be it's just the long vacation and being out of the routine, but the strange nighttime noises are pretty much driving me crazy. Elise will be almost asleep when I hear a wall-shaking YAWN. My reflexive reaction is SHHHHHHH. The reply is always, "I was yawning!" said in the loudest whisper possible.

I know it's a phase. They won't do it when they are 16. I hope. So the problem now is just making it that long without losing my sleep-deprived mind.

(Update: The ping pong dreams have not subsided. At least 1/3 of the nights, I lay there with three little girls loudly whispering questions to me like, "what are we going to do tomorrow," "Can I have a fruit roll-up in my lunch," and "Pssst, Mom, can I have a pony someday?" Shh. Shhhh. Shhhhhh. The other night I did resort to tossing a beanie baby across the room at Luci. It kind of worked - for a couple seconds anyway. Let me know if you find any green ping pong balls.)