I am the most confused person out there. I think I'm maybe just sleep deprived in general, maybe dealing with a multi-month sleep deficit without a really intelligent reason for it. It's getting harder and harder for me to pay attention when there's more than one thing going on, where I used to be able to do multiple things at once. I went to our co-op today without half of what I was supposed to bring, including the main element for a craft project we were doing. It's not from sitting down, that's for sure--I felt like I was rushing from one responsibility to another--putting together something quickly for lunch, trying to finish cleaning up the disgusting counters, trying to find ornaments in the attic packed full of bags of presents and discarded boxes for all things Christmas, trying to get clothes for Rutledge, who was still in pajamas. It would probably be obvious to people on the outside that I need to make lists or concentrate on one thing at a time, or something practical like that. But for me, I know that this is a chance and a very palpable one indeed. It's one thing to lock yourself out of the car every now and then or to sometimes forget the trumpet, but for me it's become nearly predictable and a vivid contrast to how things used to be for me. I know that if I see a doctor, I'll just be prescribed more Xanax, and I know how well that works! One day they'll do an autopsy and find lesions on my brain or something like that....

My mission right now is to be more hardline about the unacceptable behavior. It would probably be best if I started with my own, but hey, I'm the Mom, so I'm going to focus on the wee ones first. This morning, Rutledge threw an XBox controller at the TV. I'm pretty sure stuff like that isn't covered by the warranty ;) Frances's whining and crying in the morning also has to end if I'm to maintain any shred of control. This morning she was threatening to throw up if we didn't watch whatever show she wanted to watch after Curious George went off. We have a reasonble, though not perfect arrangement in the mornings right now. Rutledge wakes up between 7:30 and 8, but I get to sleep for another hour or hour and a half most days while he squirms around next to me and watches PBS kids. For a while, Sid the Science Kid seemed like an exciting new find, but now everyone just groans when the doofy theme song starts up. So we had moved on to less educational channels and were on Spongebob for a while (anything for a little extra sleep!). But this morning, Rutledge was insistent about Power Rangers, a show I have serious reservations about, and Frances was even more insistent that we not watch that. There was no compromise, and to be honest, nothing really on in the first place that would have worked. We found some really bizarre show called "Handy Manny," which is about animated, talking Hispanic tools. What will they come up with next? Most of my worst injuries as a parent have happened while I was lying in bed and got stepped on in the stomach (or the gap between the muscles covering my stomach...), hit in the face, poked in the eye, or where someone has used their elbow for leverage to stand up by pushing them into my chest or side or leg. So I was ready to just say that the day had begun when all hell broke loose over what we'd watch so I could avoid the day for a few more minutes. Ugh!

Here is a true confession: I have to take a checkbook every time I go to the libary. Just in case. And I take a deep breath and brace myself for the news when I get to the circulation desk. You never know what the fines might be--it's always a bit of a surprise even when I've checked my account online before heading out on my library trip. Today it was less than $10. Yay!

Tonight I read _The Green Ghost_, by the same author who wrote _On My Honor_, to all of the kids. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a Christmas ghost story, a genre that I love. And it was just the right level of complexity and length for a satisfying one-night read. It is also a good and manageable book for introducing the idea of flashbacks and stories within a story and intertwining stories. It took a while for the kids to pick up on the fact that this was happening, and there was special pleasure, I think, for them to come to the realization that the girl in the 1938 portions of the book was the sister of the old woman in the part that turned out to be current. After Frances went to bed, the rest of us started _The Higher Power of Lucky_, one of those Newbery winning books that I think is more appealing to adult literary critics and book award givers than to actual children. So far, I think it is really one of the finest examples of how an opening paragraph can just grab you and have elements that shake up your ideas about children's books (it's the word "scrotum" that sets this one apart). But the actual topics of the book, though it fits my protagonist-the-same-age-as-the-reader-or-younger requirement, are just not within the experience of most kids, and if they are going to continue to develop over the course of the book, it's happening more slowly than what my kids want to feel that they have a handle on what the book is all about. The girl in the book lives in a trailer in the high desert in California and eavesdrops on 12-step "Anonymous" meetings, and an ongoing theme of the book is her own desire to be in touch with her "Higher Power." Amusing and thought-provoking to 37 year olds, but perhaps less so for middle graders, for whom the book was sort of written. So every time this term comes up, I try to kind of explain again. Plus it's just a weird book in general--characters that are a little hard to relate to, lots of little stories, kind of like Because of Winn-Dixie. In fact, this feels so far to me (35 pages in), a lot like a rather more extreme riff on _Because of Winn-Dixie. Girl in a trailer with a not-quite-parent and a dead or gone mother. Quirky misfits around her, including 5 year olds who also are poor and have experienced some loss. A dog with a weird name who helps the protagonist on her quest for self-understanding. Librarian characters. Poverty and brand-specific realism (Fig Newtons, etc.). But this one is a little harder to follow, more experimental in feel. I'm not sure my kids are as titillated by experimentalism as the authors are.

Speaking of good stories, I just checked out _Big Red_, a book that I loved as a child. I am wondering if I'll find it as engaging now, and whether the boys will, too. It's come to my attention lately that I didn't read as much as a child as I thought I did. I missed lots and lots of some basic kids' books and didn't read them until I was much older (never read any Little House books, never read the Anne of Green Gables series or The Secret Garden and read very, very few of the kinds of award-winning books that I can see now would have been very special and exciting to me if someone had just pointed me in that direction). I suppose it's never too late, but I wouldn't be far off if I said that my kids have probably read or heard more books this year than I read through my entire 1st-9th grade years.

Like everyone, I'm kind of in shock that Christmas is next week. My wish right now is just that my house would be really clean so that I would feel relaxed and energized in it instead of overwhelmed by stuff in every corner and on every surface and along the edges of the floor in every room and hallway. The good thing is that there's no pressure, really. Any pressure comes purely from myself. We will be just ourselves this Christmas, with no plans for guests or parties or family visits until the afternoon that Kerry's sister comes by for a few hours, so because we're really set with presents and decorations and all that kind of thing, we're pretty much as ready as anyone can really be. I need to wrap gifts, something I'm not looking forward to (I would much prefer to just sit back and do nothing and listen to Christmas music than to deal with tape and losing the scissors and irregular shaped packaging), but I still feel like there are stretches of time ahead of me to do that. If I was smart, I'd start doing a little bit each day. But I'm not that smart :)

Super neat thing of the day: Frances came home from gymnastics tonight with the roundoff back handspring totally down! She was flipping right across the yard in a perfectly continuous motion. She's awesome! Just a week ago this seemed so far away. The open gym nights have really paid off, and it's so cool to see her boost in confidence. I guess ability and focus totally do turn on a time--one minute there's the slump, and the next minute, they're at the top of their game again. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone just accepted that this is how children learn and had patience to know that things usually work out if you give them time!