I’m home now. Tired-beyond-crankiness Patches has been put to bed. Tired-to-hyperactivity Gleek has also been put to bed. Link & Kiki are still up because they’re being quiet and I’m not ready to fight another round of “Do I have to go to bed now? I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! Fill my waterbottle! Where’s my blanket? I want a story! The dark spots are scary!” So I am hiding here in my office hoping that journaling will grant me the fortitude to finish my parental duties for the evening.
Tonight was the Relief Society Christmas dinner. I was not in charge, I was a worker bee. For most of the evening I got to sit at a table with my two neighbors who are moving, and visit while eating a yummy dinner. That was really nice, I’m going to miss these neighbors. I hope the new ones will be as nice. The working part of the evening was setting up and arranging the Sharing Table. This is a table where women from the ward bring stuff they want to get rid of, and other women take what they want. It is like a yard sale where everything is free. At the end of the evening I scoop up everything is left and donate it to a local thrift store. Usually one table is sufficient. Tonight we needed three. They were fully loaded and then half emptied. The back end of my van is full of stuff. Helping set all the stuff out and then loading it all up at the end of the night represents about an hour’s work for me. But it is hauling and lifting work. I’m happy to donate that work because I love the fact that we’re able to share with others. More than once I have found a much needed item on the sharing table. In fact 90% of Patches wardrobe came from the sharing table.
My children run rampant while I’m setting up and taking down the tables. They can always sense when I’m too busy to make them behave themselves. Mostly they go up on the stage, turn on the multi-color spotlights and make rainbow shadows. Sometimes they run through the halls screaming at the top of thier lungs. Often they jump off of things. Sometimes they come and inspect the sharing table where they invariably find a treasure that they simply can’t live without. Sometimes they rescue items I placed on the table hoping it would go home with someone else. Tonight nothing was rescued, but Kiki came home with a large wicker basket and a clock. Gleek came home with a My Little Pony bank and a matching cup. Link acqured three chalk eggs which supposedly have rubber bugs inside them. Patches didn’t aquire anything, but threw several tantrums for which I was able to discern no cause other than him being over tired and over stimulated. Being in a childcare room with 25 other kids can be a bit much after awhile especially when you’ve skipped your nap.
I skipped my nap too. I don’t usually need naps. But for the past 3 nights I’ve been staying up for hours past my bedtime because Chalain & Chaliren loaned us CSI season 5. Howard and I know we should go to bed, but instead we talk each other into “just one more.” I intended to nap today, but the nap in the morning during NotMyBaby’s nap wasn’t long enough, and the afternoon failed to provide a good opportunity. I could fall asleep right now, but Howard will be home soon and there are still disks of CSI waiting.
Of course I can’t watch any CSI until after all the kids are in bed. I may be morbidy fascinated by the exploration of human depravity which CSI provides, but my kids would be terrified and nightmarified. This brings me back to where I began this post, enjoying the quiet and pretending that I don’t have two more kids to put to bed. Maybe they’ll be kind and co-operative. Not likely, but I can always dream.
Isn’t it funny how they can sense when you’re too busy? It’s infallable, I swear!
You might be surprised at how little that kind of graphic show will effect kids. I was horrified to learn what the wasband had let Emily watch but she didn’t seem disturbed by much of it. Confused, sometimes, but not really disturbed and certainly not frightened enough to have nightmares.
That’s how we have been over the last 2 or 3 weeks with FireFly. We would look at the clock, um, well it doesn’t have any commercials…. so it’s not like it’s a WHOLE hour…. Shall we be stupid and stay up too late? (in unison) YEP! Next Episode! (:)
We are tired, but, happy to have seen all the Episodes and extras. And ready to see the movie!
I suspect the nightmarification power of CSI is directly dependent on whether the kids could identify with the vicitms. Most episodes probably wouldn’t have much effect because the evils portrayed are too far outside the kids’ sphere of experience. I know that some episodes are far more disturbing to me than others. Usually the episodes that disturb me are the ones I feel could actually happen to me or mine. (Somehow I’m just not afraid that I might die because I was hit by a car while crawling across the road in a drunken stupor and wearing a fur suit.)
Possibly. But remember, the original Grimm’s fairy tales were pretty gruesome. Kids actually like gore and mahem for some reason… it’s the adults that are bothered by it.