Rip van Em-i-lis

All day yesterday, I had a vague sense of achiness. My muscles felt like overcooked linguine, and there was a pain path from my inner ear down through my throat. Because I loathe being sick, I excused these symptoms as extreme fatigue, a definite possibility. At 9:30p last night, T said "why don't you sleep in the basement as an early start to Mother's Day." I think I was already halfway down the stairs as "Day" left his lips. During my extraordinary slumber, I had another series of wildly vivid dreams. There was a seriously exclusive party I attended (something Hamptons-enclave-like) which culminated in my date being stalked by bad guys (and maybe killed?) while I ran through alleys trying to escape. Weird. I also, in the midst of an enormous thunderstorm at some estate I seemed to be visiting, concocted a superb cocktail called the Lidocaine, a jalapeno-infused coconut milk drink with vodka and some TBD sweetener. Doesn't that actually sound fantastic? Imagine it served with a stalk of fresh lemongrass...I'm going to try this at home for sure. What a trip it'd be to have made up a good drink in a dream. KRush, what do I make of this series of nightly adventures?

In the midst of leaving the weird party, the phone rang, for real. I awoke with a start, checked the clock and was STUNNED to find it was 11:45. As in almost noon. As in, I'd slept for 13+ hours. And I could have continued sleeping. I still feel like mushy pasta.

Presently, Oliver is doing tangrams while I comment enthusiastically from the couch. The sun is out, the skies are blue, Nutmeg is wreaking havoc in the boys' costume bin, Percy is looking at me mournfully (which is how he always looks). T is painting, Jack is doing homework in a mild state of panic because despite my suggestions each and every day this week that he get started on this large report, he did not get started and now has a frickload of work to do. I told him that I wouldn't let him go to the Nats game today until he did at least 40% of the work, because really, hovering over a procrastinating 1st grader is not completely how I want to spend Mother's Day tomorrow. Oh to watch your little ones learn life lessons. It's hard sometimes, to let them stumble, but doing so is surely the right thing because how else will they learn what they really can and must do by themselves?