Reality Knocks...Are You There, Janeen?

This week has been a hurricane of back-to-school madness, soccer practices that we never seemed to make, re-convening the carpool and refereeing from the front seat, negotiating and nearly snapping over two ungodly early wake-ups (a la Ben, of course), ending with two meltdowns at the pool, a heel split open (Ben's, of course), a missed opening day of soccer due to the heel, an ear-full from the ex and one major puke from the dog.

On Saturday night, I pulled out the Legos, fired up my best calming Napster playlist, grilled some chicken and lit a candle. Ben and I assembled Legos, we played three rounds of a game, I served up dinner and everything seemed to come into balance, at last.

And then I caught Ben slipping the dog chunks of his chicken ("Because it's not nuggets and it tastes like slime!")

And then the dog began to hack.

And then I said, "Quick, get her outside before she throws up again!"

And then the dog started to puke.

And Ben said, "No, keep her in! I want to watch! I don't want to miss this!"

And then, after the dog reconciled her stomach issues and the world settled down again and Ben ate the rest of his "slime" chicken, he somehow convinced me to have a sleepover.

The sleepover that consists of him.

And me.

And endless games of 'rock, paper, scissors' and a claw that got interjected into the framework of the game and wound up Ben to no end.

Was I really in Malibu at this time last week? Staring at a moonlit ocean, surrounded by beautiful people, with a strong cocktail in my hand?

Last Saturday night, it was a super comfy Marriott bed and black-out shades.

Tonight: ear plugs and Ambien.

And please God, no more dog puke.