The Monkey Barrel

Archive for August, 2008

Clearly at 3:30 in the a.m. tired and worn out do not begin to accurately describe how lousy I feel. This poor baby hanging on for dear life in my exhausted womb has really been in for a ride. It seems like every text book thing that can go wrong in a pregnancy, so far, has. And having no prior experience with it makes it all the more frustrating. John and Luke’s pregnancies were energetic and smooth. Granted both boys were night and day when they were actually birthed, but getting them into the world, I don’t wanna say piece of cake but…. So poor Noah gets the ride of his life and I’ll just bet when he’s born I’ll get quite an earful of “what for’s”.
This hour or so between the midnight and wee hours of the morning every night is starting to become a new routine. I have a small ritual to try to combat it but tonight it just wasn’t cutting it. Around 2-ish I wake up, pee for the umpteenth time (and I only mention that because if you’ve ever been pregnant you know how annoying it is when your bladder is being a whiner like the kid on vacation who won’t quit asking if we’re there yet), so, pee for the umpteenth time, gulp down 2 or 3 dixie cups full of water so as to make the next visit to the lieu less depressing, try to find something boring on t.v., fight with the covers, roll a snoring Fred over, fidget with the fan if I’m too hot or too cold, give up in disgust, hike downstairs to fiddle with the air, eat a piece of buttered bread and grab a glass of juice. Then I usually wait a few minutes to see if trekking back upstairs will be worth it or if I should just sack out the rest of the night on the couch. It’s a crap shoot which wins. I guess I should get used to it, because soon enough, there will be a wee little man in his bassinet by my bed demanding my attention whether I rise on my own or had to be wailed into waking.
Oh, and by the by, I was in Barnes and Noble today wandering, smelling books and touching pages. I love the texture of papers and binding and the smell is more intoxicating and heady than any baked good or coffee brewing, though the mix of textiles and Starbucks together is admittedly quite like heaven. Anyway, I digress, it’s 4 now, I think I’m allowed. So I’m in there wandering around, not looking for anything particularly more than the good conversation with a cousin in from the west and perhaps a little something to bring home to the rugrats and I find an old game that has been newly packaged into a handy little traveling case. It’s called Pass the Pigs. If you have children old enough to roll dice, you have children old enough to play. You designate a score keeper and then each person takes a turn tossing the pigglets. How they land determines the points you get. Each set of positions they land in has a silly name and it makes great fun for young and old alike. I’m planning to keep the set in my bag for all the long restaurant waits and all the other times fidgety little boys need occupying. I highly recommend a set for all of you and your chi’ren and they are small enough and cheap enough to be a great addition to any stocking for Christmas. And yeah, I’m thinking about Christmas already, hellooooo I have a baby coming in Nov. If I”m not done by the end of October you’ll all be getting clearance halloween decorations from the Arters clan.
It’s 4:15 and I think I can finally pack it in and get a bit of sleep now before Luke is pouncing on the covers 6:30. Nighty Night….

John has been anxious all summer to find out who his teacher will be. He only knew one name and evidently if you can get a teacher in this elementary school, Mr. Beach is the one to get. Well lo and behold not only did John get Mr. Beach but 3 of his favorite neighborhood buddies are also gonna be in his class. I think that’s a good and bad thing. Poor Mr. Beach my have to separate a very chatty group of boys to maintain order.
We were talking about if over dinner and Luke gets all excited and asks when we can go see the ocean. Fred and I look at each other confused for a minute and then realize that Luke thinks that John’s going to the beach for school. It took several tries to convince him that Mr. Beach was a person not a place. I’m still not sure he gets it. But he sure gets excited when we talk about him. Gonna have to take him with us to open house just so he can see for sure that Mr. Beach is a man, not sand.