I know a picture would save 1,000 words, but...

...this isn't a picture I could post online - so you'll have to make do with my 1,000 words. (I'll try to keep it at less than that, but in order to paint you a literary picture, I'm gonna have to get just a little wordy.)

So, tonight's my first night here with my cousin's girls. They went to sleep fairly quickly and painlessly (halle-freakin-lujah!), and by 8:30 I was so tired I was yawning my own face off, so Cousin Lisa (their aunt) went home early so I could go to bed and get in some good sleep before tomorrow comes and I have full-time-mom duty.

No sooner had Lisa left than I heard crying coming from one of the girl's bedrooms. As I am a firm believer in letting kids cry it out (now that I've let that slip, I'm sure that none of you will ever want me to watch your kids, and I'm fine with that), I let her sob her little heart out. After half an hour of incessant crying... I started to worry. (Not about the crying kid so much as I was concerned she was gonna wake the other three up. Can you imagine the horror that would have ensued, had that happened?!)

I went in to check on her, and Par was FAST ASLEEP, crying her fool head off. I patted her back and tried to turn her over (thinking maybe her arm was stuck in a bad position or something)... and DANGIT ALL TO HELL, she woke up. I mean, bright-eyed-bushy-tailed woke up. Heaven help me.

So I picked her up to cuddle her back to sleep - which didn't work (she just kept crying). So I carried her downstairs to get her away from the other sleeping children... and she still kept crying. So I did the only other thing I could think of - I sat down in a dark room, grabbing my cell on the way... and called her mom (who is in Hawaii) to ask if this is normal behavior, and what in the crap could I do to make the kid fall back asleep. Julie gave me the run-down of what I could do to calm her down/stop the crying... and by the end of the conversation, Par had zonked out on me. (I guess taking kids into dark rooms and making long distance phone calls is the best way to get them back to sleep. Who knew?!)

Anyway, so now I had Par asleep on me... but I needed to get her back in bed. So I picked her up and carried her like a baby (because it's the easiest way to control her body - making sure that she a) doesn't flop about while I drag her back upstairs, as well as b) stays asleep.

As I took the first step up the stairs, both arms wrapped firmly about the 4 yr old I was carrying, I realized that my pj bottoms were... uhm... falling down. (They're a little big. That's right - I buy them big, because I want to be comfy. And big pj's are GREAT, to sleep in. It turns out they're not so great to carry sleeping babies in. Good grief.) By the time I hit the 5th stair, I was stepping on my pj's --- because they'd just kept slipping, and me walking on them wasn't helping. By the 8th step, the elastic waistband was around my knees - and... you guessed it, by the time I reached the top stair, I was wearing pajama tops, a 4 yr old sleeping child and ... my panties. Nice. ... And there was not a blessed thing I could do about it. And as I was carrying the sleeping child back to the last bedroom at the end of the hall all I could think was "thank heaven they're all asleep, they'd be FREAKED that I'm not wearing any pants". And then I had to giggle... I mean... LAUGH OUT LOUD giggle at how ridiculous the whole thing was.

And as I thought about how funny/stupid the whole thing was... I actually got a little bummed that there wasn't anyone to share the memory with (kinda like when I peed my pants in the movies last summer and then blogged about it) ... so I had to tell you all. Judge me if you will... I don't even care. I'm just bummed that all the laughing at myself totally woke me up and now I don't know how I'm ever gonna fall asleep... and I've got to get some sleep tonight, because tomorrow I have to pack sack lunches, get kids off to school, potty-train a 2 yr old and then deal with piano practice and dinner tomorrow night.

Ugh... Pray for me (and my slippery pj's), please.