Please go to sleep. Please go to sleep. Please. Go. To. Sleep.

It’s been a harrowing three days, fraught with danger, excitement and temper tantrums. Many, many temper tantrums. It turns out that the “terrible twos” are aptly named, actually.

I have been single parenting this weekend while Chris was up at the North House Folk Craft School in Minnesota learning how to make baskets out of ash trees, and let me tell you something.

Holy hell.

I never, ever, EVER want him to leave again. Somehow, he does this day in and day out. He manages to keep the kids, the dog, the fish, the houseplants and himself alive, on a regular basis, whether I am travelling or home. Me? I am now only a shell of my former self.

To whit:

- Three temper tantrums before noon today.

- I can not seem to remember to keep the fish fed, or to turn on their light when I am supposed to or turn off their light when it has been running for 24 hours straight, because look! I remembered to turn it on the first place, o.k.?

- I have cooked one meal in four days. It was meatloaf, and even Ella wouldn’t touch it.

- Jay has survived on crackers, fruit and atmospheric dust, as far as I can tell. I do not know what he has eaten.

- Ella has developed her own form of temper tantrums that I am ill equipped to deal with. I am a pretty mellow person. So when she starts slapping her head and screaming, red faced, at the top of her lungs that SHE! WANTS! THE! RED! SHOES! THEREDSHOES! THEREDSHOES! I don’t know what to do. Should I give her the red shoes? Is it even ABOUT the red shoes? If I give her the red shoes will it set a precedence for being a weak parent when I already told her that she can not wear the red shoes because they don’t fit anymore forchristsakes and plus they are for wearing with fancy dresses and we are just going to the sandbox? How do other parents deal with this age? Do they also secretly wonder if their child is possessed and start calculating how much Benadryl they’ll need to get a good night’s sleep?

- I have never dosed anyone with Benadryl who was not fighting an allergic reaction.

- But come ON. Am I the only who has wondered?

- And now you see why Chris stays at home with the kids.