Unfair Kharma

Sick child wakes us up at 5 a.m. with mild vomiting. After this is dealt with, husband immediately goes back to sleep with that extremely enviable talent he has for attaining a state of complete unconsciousness no matter what the circumstances. I lay there, wakeful, until I hear the baby at 6:30, because if I have to do anything more complicated than go to the bathroom I can never again achieve sleep on the night in question. I have crashing headache by 10 a.m.. I call husband and inform him that I will be going to bed early -- lights off at 10 -- and he'd better comply. He informs me that it's the NCAA final and the only way he's going to bed before it's over is if aliens land on our deck, break in, and forcibly sedate him.

I know this is not going to turn out well, but I accuse him of being mentally ill. Choosing basketball over sleep? Definitely not right in the head. He advises me to take a nap in the afternoon.

I laugh. Take a nap? With a sick child on the couch who has inherited her father's propensity for moaning? Fat chance. Still, I will give it the old college try. Pip pip and all that.

Older child falls asleep on couch at 1 p.m. I lie down on floor (we only have one couch and the bedroom is too far away for me to hear her) but cannot get comfy. Just has I am starting to feel relaxed, baby wakes up after what can only be described as a really bad nap.

Middle child comes home and begins yelling at the top of his lungs. Because he is a boy and this is what he does. Baby is cranky. Older child is feverish. I am starting to feel desperately tired.

I make dinner amid total chaos. It's a wash: all three kids reject it as poison, when in fact it's a lovely egg and cheese concoction that literally melts in the mouth. Whatever. They won't eat it. Bedtimes start rolling around beginning at 6:30 (baby) and continuing until 7:45 (oldest child). Finally everyone is in bed. NCAA game starts and husband immediately loses all contact with his environment. I go upstairs and realize that if I want to sleep, I have to fold and put away about 5 loads of laundry which are currently residing on my bed.

I finally get into bed at nine and watch an hour of TV alone. It is the only hour of the day in which I have not had someone to take care of or something to finish. Naturally, this is when husband comes up and decides to have a conversation with me. So what if he interrupts my program? -- geez, it's not like I'm watching BASKETBALL, for pity's sake.

Husband realizes that halftime is over and bolts back downstairs. I lay in bed from 10 to almost 11, reading and trying to achieve maximum sleepiness. I am almost there, so I turn off the light. This is when husband comes to bed. He is very quiet, almost considerate, but as I am lying there, I realize he has neglected to take the middle child to the potty, something we do every night because middle child has been known to get up and potty in the night, but not necessarily in the bathroom so we try to make sure he does it in a toilet before we sleep so we don't find it in the hallway (bedroom, stairs) in the morning. His father does this chore because his mother can no longer lift him. But tonight, being dazzled by BASKETBALL, husband decides to avoid this duty.

Now, I could let this go, but since I will be the one to have to clean it up in the morning should middle child have an incident, I decide to remind husband of his job. He gets up and does it, but unfortunately, this starts a cycle of extreme annoyance which eventually gets so strong I can't lie still anymore. Instead, I get up and pick a fight with said husband and end up storming off downstairs to cool off.

About 30 minutes later, he comes down and apologizes for being a basketball-watching freak with absolutely no sense of human decency. All is well, but it's now midnight of the day that began at 5 a.m. (Okay, technically it's 12 a.m. of the following day. So sue me.)

This seems to be the way my life goes -- wake up extra early, get kicked in the can by BASKETBALL, stay up extra late, feel rotten.