Carnage

This may come as an unpleasant surprise to some of you, but the military here thinks they have some important business to attend to. Some boring blah blah blah about communists and missiles and dictators, oh my!

The military personnel (aka 'dads') have been working hard leaving early and coming home late because more blah, blah, blah. This leaves the rest of us (otherwise known as 'moms' or 'spouses') suffering from battle fatigue, sleep deprivation and/or PTSD as we pay the bills, get the kids to bed and suck down bottles of wine take out the recycling alone AGAIN.

Hangovers Motherhood Lack of sleep causes all sorts of bad decisions, poor judgment and sloppy execution. It's why Lightning McQueen got into that whole Radiator Springs debacle, why Marge Simpson didn't stop having kids after Bart, why Van Halen hired Sammy Hagar, and why my children eat off the floor, among numerous other catastrophes and questionable practices.

Today, it caused carnage in the elevator. I still don't know what actually happened. Exhausted, I was wheeling the stroller into an elevator full of people. The stroller was full of assorted toys, shoes, food, sippy cups, and an onion plant in a cup full of dirt mixed with diluted pee, and the boys were on foot. They were behaving pretty well, maybe about like halfway trained circus bears: wildly unpredictable but docile in appearance to the casual observer. I would have waited for an empty elevator but they had already run in ahead of me as soon it arrived. After successfully shoving aside six or eight innocent victims with my behemoth orange double stroller, I turned around to push the button for our floor. When I turned back, Shane was on the floor screaming.

The high-pitched shrieking and disapproving looks were, of course, nothing new to me, but the blood spurting out of his mouth was a little unexpected. I sopped it up with my shoulder, which happened to be foolishly covered up with a brand new white shirt and toted him home chanting my new mantra: 'Zin-fan-del, Zin-fan-del, Zin-fan-del'.

Before my mother freaks out, let me assure you he seems to be fine. He does have nice gash in his upper gum but it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, right after my shirt was ruined. I gave him a sea-lion sized dose of motrin and tossed him and Weston in the tub with a couple of cans of shaving cream. Right now he is sitting on the couch watching Bob the Builder with his hand down his pajama pants, so I guess all is well. For now.