Say what? An animal or child woke me up roughly every two hours last night: a nightmare; downstairs scuffling that sounded entirely too mischievous for my liking; coughing in a too-hacky sort of way; scratching and mewing at the door. Something was in bed with me at least 50% of the night and as T is in Boston, it surely wasn't him. I'd finally fallen back asleep when I heard Oliver saying, "Mommy, I can't get out of my bed because my bottom hurts but my sun is up so you should come in." Now I've never been bed-ridden because of bottom pains so I did go to investigate, and it was 6:14 or thereabout. As far as I could tell, there was some minimal diaper rash -maybe- so I put him in bed with me. Then Nutmeg arrived, then Percy. Jack awoke last and, keep this in mind because it'll haunt him later, thanked Oliver for "not waking me up for the first time in a while." We head downstairs, I get breakfast for everyone and start making a crumb cake as a few girlfriends were coming over later. I'd been wanting to try this recipe, a Dorie Greenspan confection, for quite some time because as you may now know, I adore cardamom. Things were going rather swimmingly, and we even had time for a quick game of Operation before carpool arrived for J. He suddenly went ape and had some bizarre meltdown before being belted in my friend's car. Said Oliver had woken him up early (oh really) and it was all Ol's fault. Never a fun spectacle. I got the cake out of the oven, got Oliver dressed for school and went to drop him off. On the way home, I started feeling insanely dizzy, like I'd played dizzy-bat in a room full of fun-house mirrors. Chalking it up to not yet having eaten breakfast and being ridiculously tired, I made it home to brew a pot of tea.

Not a second after one pal knocked on my door, J's school called. He was in the nurse's office feeling ill and I needed to come get him. I was so dizzy that my friend made me sit down and eat some cake which, tragically, I really didn't love but forced down anyway. At that moment I realized what had happened: instead of taking my thyroid supplement earlier, I'd swallowed a whole Ambien. On an empty stomach. After being up all night. Terrific. I went to get Jack and on the way home started having a more-than-sneaking suspicion that while he may have had a momentary pang of something, he was not sick.

Folks, I was beyond irritated. After lunch, I sent him into his room for a reading-only lockdown. He could neither play nor come out until the time at which, were he in school, he'd hear the bell ring. If you don't think we've since had the mother of all conversations about respect, responsibility, honesty and so forth, you're wrong. We've had it twice. This is so unlike him. I get that kids test boundaries, or perhaps he was anxious about something- I get that too, but damnation was it a trying morning and early afternoon. It is always something. Something that might embarrass, anger, disappoint, sadden you, or some fun-time combo of any/all of the above.

Was I just in Charleston all relaxed and zen?