Happy Freakin' Friday

How does one get driven to the brink of insanity before the clock even strikes 7:30 AM? Your guess is as good as mine. Driven to tears of frustration and exhaustion. Before the neighbors even pulled out of their driveway to take their son to school.

It was definitely helped by Genevieve getting up at least four times in the night (I lose count on the bad nights) and then getting up for the day by 5:00 but immediately RUBBING HER EYES and CRYING BECAUSE SHE'S TIRED. Here's a hint kid: SLEEP! MORE SLEEP IS THE ANSWER!

Exhausted by breakfast? Check!

I also woke up to a puddle of MoJo (the cat) pee on Cleo's (the dog) bed AGAIN. Sorry, I should have warned you I was going to talk about gross stuff. GROSS STUFF AHEAD! I have no idea what is up with that cat, but a few months ago he decided that he needed to pee on Cleo's bed, and no matter what we do, including buying FIVE new beds since then and summarily discarding them, he just pees on the new or cleaned beds. If we were just cleaning the beds and putting them back, I might think he was still smelling the scent and going back to the smell, but he does it when we get brand new beds too. He NEVER did this before, and he doesn't go anywhere else out of the litter box, and can go weeks and weeks without doing it if we keep the bed out of the house, but then if we bring in the bed, he does it immediately. I keep reading that if your cat is peeing on soft surfaces it is a sign of a UTI, but he ONLY does it on the bed and, like I said, goes long stretches without doing it. He also has no other signs of a UTI (which he has had before). I AM GOING INSANE!! Our poor dog needs a bed, since we have hardwood floors. What can we do? I need help! I don't know what it is about a pee morning, but it sends me over the edge. 

On top of that, somehow every word that has come out of Josephine's mouth this morning has been a whine or part of a tantrum. I'm sure it also doesn't help that she has been getting up before 6:30 all week because she hears G up and wakes up. 

I called my mom crying, waking her up after only five hours of sleep (oops) and as I was telling her I was already all used up for the day, I had to say to Josephine "Don't put your feet on your sister's face like that. I've told you that is called kicking and it's not kind." I soon got to follow that with the winner of a line "Being a seagull won't solve all your problems." My mom laughed so hard I figured the call was going to have to end.

I could just leave it there, but I suppose I should explain the seagull. 

Very soon after Genevieve was born, Josephine began looking for ways to make her happy when she was crying. One day she made a seagull noise, Genevieve immediately stopped crying, and now every time she does it, Genevieve stops what she's doing and laughs. So when I told her no this morning, she "caw caw"ed in my face, hoping to ease the tension, I suppose. She also asked me not to lose my cool, which is what I have been saying to the girls lately. It's solid advice.

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A lot of this is built up stress from not blogging, which I know sounds super lame, but it's true. I've started a million blog posts in my head the past few weeks, and this week in particular, but I just can't sit down and write them. My head is so cluttered and confused, I can't make heads or tails of my thoughts.

One of the reasons I can't sit down to write is because everything I have to say has to do with my new job (!!!!!) and I have a lot to say about the fact that I am now working from home, and I just can't organize my thoughts properly, so I would be telling you all this stuff that wouldn't make sense unless you knew I was trying to work 30 hours a week from home while dealing with these hooligans, but ... never mind, it was about to get all circular there. I bet you a million dollars I'm going to skip over this paragraph when I re-read to edit. Yikes. Sorry, all. [Editor's note: I totally did]

It all boils down to the fact that I was stretched too thin before and now I'm stretched even more and freaking out a little, but it's only been one week and imagine I will get better at it once I figure out how to schedule things more efficiently and the job becomes old hat. We shall see.

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This is what Genevieve was doing while I quickly typed all this up:

Worth it.

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Okay, fine. The seagull noise. Here it is:

And yes, she did say "And you said 'That doesn't fix it,'" referring to what I told her earlier this morning about being a seagull not solving all her problems. She's a gem, this one.