Wednesday

Last night I woke up from a deep (feverish, guess who is sick again?) sleep. Anna was SCREAMING her head off. Not like her occasional crying because she's lost Stocking (her favorite blanket) in the middle of the night. This was different. I jumped out of bed and flew into her room (not gracefully, but running and crashing into stuff). I turned on her lamp, and my heart, which was already beating WAY too hard for 2:30 AM, almost stopped! She wasn't in her bed! Then I heard her scream, MAMA! HELP! and I saw a flash of blonde hair coming out from under the bed. Phew. Okay, at least my child is still in her room, and her brother, who normally comes to her rescue, apparently heard her screaming before I did, because he was stretched out across the bed with his hand hanging off. But he was snoozing away. Maybe in his sleep he started to try and help her but could not wake up enough to do so. Anyways, I got her unlodged from underneath the bed. She was sobbing and pretty hysterical. I asked her, How did you get under the bed? And she wailed, I don't KNOW! She didn't go down through the top, by the headboard, because there is a lot of pillows barricading that off, and they were all intact when I went in there. I am guessing maybe she fell out of bed in the dark, and instead of working her way back up to the bed, she went underneath instead? It was dark in there, and she was panicked, and sort of stuck under the bed frame. I held her until she went back to sleep, but it took a long time for me to calm down and fall back asleep.
So I am supposed to be using this morning, when I don't have to work and the kids are both at school, to clean house and grocery shop, but I am too sick to do either. I just have a bad head cold. I think it will pass over soon.
An update on Jonathan's "truancy" situation: Dave took the letter in and spoke with the principal, (who has to be one of the kindest, calmest, SUPER POSITIVE people I have ever encountered) who reassured him that it is a form letter, Jonathan is not in danger of failing due to absences yet, and that she understands we can't send him when he is sick, yet not every virus merits a trip to the pediatrician. Sometimes actual people can be so much easier to deal with than the letters they send out. So that situation seems okay for now, as long as we can make it the rest of the semester with minimal absences.
I am trying to figure out Anna's birthday party. It is always an issue, because it takes place smack dab in the middle of the insanity we call Christmas... basically the whole month of December is overscheduled and stressy. Anna wants to invite certain people who I don't want to invite, because they always exclude us from their festivities. And I get the feeling they really don't like us, and I know I am probably just being Jamie (maybe that's why they don't like me???), but that's how I feel, and of course, I can't explain to her that I feel this way. Also, she wants to have a Transformers/Princess party so that boys will be happy there too. I really don't understand where to go from there. How do I decorate? What sort of cake/pinata/party favors do I select? Also, she has her heart set on Jacob and Zachary coming. Jacob and Zak are in high school. But they do usually come to things like this, and she knows they came to Jonathan's last 2 parties, and she adores them (as does Jonathan). I can't decide if we should have it at my Mom's like usual, or try to have it somewhere else. I just can't make any decisions about it. And now time is passing by... I really need to pick a date/time/location/guest list/party theme and go with it. Lately, I have been feeling a.) insecure and b.) guilty. Just all the time, for random reasons, or maybe reasons I can't even really identify. But all of my insecurity and guilt seems to be focused in on Anna's party now, and I have this sense of doom about the whole deal, like if the party is a disaster, I will have failed on a much bigger scale. I don't really know how to explain, I am just very stressed out.
On a lighter note, I finally know why it smells like something died in the room I tutor in at one of the schools. I was going through the bins yesterday, and I said, Ugh! It just smells like death! And the other tutor there, she just nonchalantly points up at the ceiling and says, it's that dead mouse. We figured it out while you were gone last Tuesday.
Oh, well, then. Just a dead mouse hanging from the air conditioner vent, blowing its rotten dead mouse fumes on us in our tiny room all day. But! I really think it might be a bat. One of the tutors that came in later said she brought binoculars so that we might get a better look at it. For some reason, I really hope it is a bat and not a mouse. This is one of those situations where being a mature adult really sucks. The child in me wanted to shriek in disgust and run from the room, get in my car, and say, I will see you all when they remove the dead animal and get some Febreze going in there! But no, I just got over it and kept working. I can almost guarantee you the dead animal will be there when I go back tomorrow. It was so much better before when there was just this vague rotten smell. Now I know what the smell is, and it just freaks me out! And I keep thinking, what if it suddenly falls down from its high perch and lands on me when I am trying to work? Will I be able to remain composed?