Family photos

Last night was one of those rare nights that L wandered in to climb in bed between us. She was having bad dreams, and every time she would wake up and go back to sleep, she would go back to that same bad dream. I’ve had nights like that, and it’s pretty rotten!

She and Jasper had to press their hot-furnace-like little bodies along my back for the majority of the night. Hot flashes, which seem to be worse at night, combined with two hot little furnaces make for a rough night. As if that weren’t quite enough, Jasper still has the GIANT collar on. Every time I or L bump the collar, it is very loud. When he moves, it always rubs on things and makes noise.

Then Jasper, who today is my least favorite cat (though I just had to give him an extra cuddle and treat for typing that), decided about 90 minutes before my alarm was due to go this morning, that he needed to eat his crunchy food and noisily shake his head (and thus the stupid e-collar) every few bites. Of course after a good meal, one needs to visit the litter box, and turn around at least 68 times, making sure to scrape the loud plastic collar against all four sides of the damn box. And being the thorough little guy he is, he had to scratch the sand loudly for about three minutes straight to cover up his business. Then the next 10 minutes or so he proceeded to groom himself, by licking the e-collar with his loud, scratchy tongue, repeatedly while contorting around (again, dragging the collar loudly on every surface in the vicinity. Yelling, “Shut up. Shut up you little fucker!”, did not improve the situation, but it did lead into another hot flash. Needless to say, I remained awake and was not able to enjoy the last, sweet 90 minutes of sleep that should have been mine.

I knew after I finished my makeup that I was still looking pretty rough this morning, but I discovered just how rough at my 11 meeting. I don’t usually think much of it when my mom or a female co-worker comments that I look tired. Women pick up on subtle details like that. When my male user walked into the room and said, “YOU look TIRED!” I know that I’ve crossed into the optically offensive territory—my looks are so disturbing and hideous that I probably shouldn’t be out in public.

Also my hair was in on the ugly today. I almost always wash my hair shortly before bed. I go to bed with my hair wet, wake up with it almost dry, comb it, and that’s it. This morning I woke up to find my hair had tried to commit mutiny overnight. I can’t even describe what was going on or how it happened, but it made my head shape strange and lumpy looking, with one section that shot straight out to the side. I don’t have “hair time” in my morning routine and had no extra time to accommodate it. I pulled the worst of it back, stuck a barrette in and left the house with hair that was less of a disaster, but a lumpy disaster nonetheless.

I’m too tired to come up with any more excitement than that for this blog entry and too lazy to take any pictures. Since we just got our family pics back last week, I will post them tonight. We had them taken at LIV Photography. We had the traditional, more formal shot taken for the relatives. The cow t-shirts & jeans shots are for us. Those are definitely a more accurate depiction of our family. They will probably be the last family photos we have taken, because my children do not make it a very pleasant experience. L would only give a fake smile, and Dej found it entertaining to make strange faces and flare her nostrils randomly in the photos. I was amazed that Sarah (the photographer) found any that were decent!