Anatomy of a Bad Night

• 10:00 pm—finally decide that I am done painting for the day.
• 10:15 pm—Russ “calls” and we skype for an hour.
• 12:00 midnight—turn off the lamp and get into bed, exhausted.
• 12:15 am—hear something odd near my head.  Could it be a bug?  Move computer from bedside table to another place just in case it is making noises.
• 12:20 am—no, there’s still a whirring noise there.  Turn on the light.  Something sort of like a firefly (minus fire) is on alarm clock.  Fortunately it doesn’t run away when I grab it with some toilet paper and flush it down the toilet.
• 12:30 am—what was THAT noise?  It sounded like someone trying to get into the front door!  Complete and total freakout!  I jump out of bed and run down the stairs where I think I catch a glimpse of Rachel on the front porch through the leaded glass.  Oh that’s right, the girls aren’t upstairs in bed, they’re spending the night at a friend’s house so it could be her.  Not brave enough to open the door to see, though, and I can’t see anything through the leaded glass.
• 12:32 am—I hear garage door start to open.  Minor freakout.  Reassure myself that it must be Rachel (or the handyman come to fix something else) because you can’t get in the garage without the code. 
• 12:33 am—Rachel comes in the back door looking pale and sleepy.  She couldn’t sleep, she says, her tummy hurts really bad.  I hand her two tums (our first line of defense against tummy trouble) and she is off to bed.
• 3:00 am—Rachel comes in my room and wakes me up, says her tummy is still hurting really bad.  I wonder if watching the episode of survivor yesterday where the annoying guy gets appendicitis can rub off on one of my children.  I tell her there’s pepto-bismal in my closet (the location of many misplaced things right now) and it’s a sign of how bad she feels that she gets it and takes it and doesn’t say anything about how nasty it is.  Or maybe she does say something but I’m already asleep again and don’t hear it.
• 5:00 am—Rachel comes in to tell me she has thrown up.  She says that it got on everything, which is bad, but not on the floor, which is good.  I go into her room, still half asleep.  There is vomit, and there is really gross vomit.  This is the latter.  Good thing I am really still asleep, it lessens the need for me to vomit while I get everything and put it in the washer.  I pray that it will actually come clean.  Then I tell her to get in Jenna’s bed and go back to sleep.
• 8:15 am—(you know I would have been up the crack of dawn if I hadn’t had such a bad night…as it was, I was hoping to sleep until noon.) Someone from the realtor’s office calls.  It’s not too early to call is it? they ask.  I reassure them (hoping that they can’t tell they just woke me) that it’s not.  They tell me that someone is coming to see the house today at 3:30.  Hooray…at least it’s still mostly clean from yesterday…

How soon can I have a nap???

• 9:00 am—I am sitting on the floor of my bedroom dividing up the “Easter” candy, which I will distribute today for consumption during conference.  (We never combine “Easter” candy with Easter Sunday, and this seemed a reasonable time to do it.)  Josh comes in and tells me that the realtor is here already.  I panic.

     Best. April Fools. Ever.