I think we’ve finally settled on the half Clonidine in the morning as a means to help Thomas settle and focus at school every day.  The sleepiness and fatigue have worn off and his teacher reports that he’s doing fine.  I forgot to give him his medication on Friday morning, but luckily it was Pajama Party Day, so all the kids were running amok.  The teacher said that he was excited, but she chalked that up to the “party atmosphere” – a term that reminds me of my dorm days at college – so she wasn’t concerned about his behavior that day.  He was not excited about wearing pajamas to school, but he did it.  He was also concerned about the whole party thing, saying that he didn’t want to have a pajama party and that it would be “horrible.”  What he’s really saying is that he doesn’t understand what a pajama party entails and that he is, if not afraid of the unknown, ambivalent about it.

            When I picked him up after class on Friday, he reported that he had a great time and that the pajama party was “wonderful.”  That’s really the word he used to describe it!  My children have fabulous vocabularies, a trait that I’m proud they inherited from their mother.  As a reward for not pitching a tantrum about the party and both of the kids staying in their own beds on Thursday night, we went to Chuck E. Cheese’s for lunch.  It’s so great going on a school day when it’s nice outside because the place was a ghost town.  They had fun and when the tokens were gone, they agreed that we should go home.

            Jonathan and I had parties all weekend, or at least I did.  My sister’s bachelorette party was Saturday night and I stayed over at the maid of honor’s condo.  We had a great time, but the kids didn’t want me to go.  Jonathan is out of the house all day last Sunday at the Bears game and they didn’t bat an eye about it, but if I take my hair dryer out from under the sink and start blow-drying, they know Mommy’s planning to leave the house and they start putting up a fuss.  Jonathan does too, he’s just not as direct about it.  Thomas gets upset when I walk the dog for forty minutes every evening, saying, “Don’t go Mommy!  I’ll miss you!”  Very cute, I guess.

            I’m getting so old.  At ten-thirty on Saturday night, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.  The other ladies at the party were sort of the same.  We kept looking at our watches and exclaiming, “It’s only eleven?  Gee, it feels like 2:30 a.m!  Do you have any coffee?”  The maid of honor, in her infinite coolness and wisdom, went to the Cheesecake Factory and bought eight different slices of cheesecake which we all passed around and shared.  We all sat there, our mouths full of whipped cream and cake, saying, “God, this is way better than any stupid stripper!”  We all had fun, especially the bride.  The next morning, I got up and went for a jog around my hometown, which was so much fun (except the jogging part).  I ran by the houses we grew up in and our friend’s old houses.  I was running by the junior high and remembered that the last time I ran down that block, I was probably being timed for a mile.  I’m glad I wasn’t being timed this time.

            Yesterday afternoon, my cousin Susie came to watch Thomas and Hayley while Jonathan and I attended a retirement party.  The kids are so good for babysitters, and especially our family members.  The kids know Susie from vacations, and it appears as though Hayley has the same stellar memory that Thomas does.  We were telling the kids on Friday that Little Susie (so called because her mom, my aunt’s name is also Susie) would be coming to watch them and Hayley said, “Yeah, remember at the vacation house when she helped us bring food in?”  Jonathan and I stared at each other for a moment and then remembered that Little Susie had helped us bring in groceries shortly after we got there.  We never would have remembered that.  The kids get confused and call her Aunt Susie sometimes, which is total payback because I used to babysit her and her older sister when they were young, and they called me “Aunt Jenny” or sometimes, my favorite:  “Cousin-Aunt-Jenny.”  Little Susie was also the one who, when she was three, told me that I had a lot of nose-hair.  I’m still waiting for Thomas or Hayley to get her back for that one.  It’ll happen – I just have to be patient.

            So I wasn’t home for most of the weekend.  We’re keeping next weekend open just for incidentals and anything I have left to get, buy or help with for Tina’s wedding in less than two weeks.  I can’t believe it’s upon us!  Rehearsal Dinner Friday, Jonathan is taking the day off work and my mother-in-law is taking the kids all weekend, probably through to Monday since that’s Columbus Day and there’s no school.  I talked to my sister Tiffany last night, who will be flying in with her fiancé the Wednesday before the wedding and she has promised to bring candy and gifts for my children.  I say load ‘em up on Friday…they’re going with Grandma!

            We have a hectic and exciting two weeks to look forward to while also trying to keep things sane and on as much of a schedule as we can.  I can’t even think about Halloween costumes or anything like that at least until after the wedding.  My brain is aging.  I can only take so many marbles rolling around up there at a time.