They call me Heat Miser, whatever I touch starts to melt in my clutch...I'm too much!

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I am printing out Thomas coloring pages to keep Jude occupied while I blog. Thank God for the Internet. Simon is on his way over to his cousins’ house for his first-ever sleepover party. We carefully packed, into his Winnie the Pooh backpack which is almost as big as he is, extra socks and underwear and shirts, and his Winnie the Pooh bear, and his toothbrush and toothpaste, and his bunky (a flannel plaid blanket that I could not even stand to LOOK AT in this heat) and his potty seat in case he has to take a crap while he’s there and is worried about falling in….Good Lord, I hope I remembered everything for the following sixteen hours that he might need. So Jude is enjoying his sojourn as an only child, although he was pretty forlorn at first. But I fed him an ice cream sandwich and we played with the hose (he figured out how to turn it on and point it at me, little booger) and now he is getting to color without fighting over the crayons (although the constant monologue continues). I hope he doesn’t get too used to it. Although after the past week of hell, with the boys sniping and fighting and pushing and screaming nonstop, and temps in the high nineties, and my feeling nauseated and exhausted perpetually, I could get used to having only one child around. But I’ll never admit I said that : )

Oh, Dan just got home. Jude plastered his nose to the window.
Jude: Mama's tar here. Daddy home....my brudder here?
Me: Jude, honey, Si is at Aunt Diana's.
Jude: No! My brudder HERE! [begins to cry]
Poor little guy. He misses Dyman.

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In the past week, Simon fell off the top of his little ride-on car (please don’t ask…*I* think *he* thinks he is Evil Knievel)and skinned his chin; Jude fell off the door of the same car (again, better not to ask) and has a lovely snot-looking scab right under his left nostril. I am considering putting said car out in the garbage. Thank God I did not give into the entreaties by various in-laws to buy/give them battery-operated motor vehicles. We’d probably have ruptured spleen and broken ribs instead.

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The past week has been indeed hellish, for any variety of reasons, most of which I am unable to articulate other than it’s hot, I am very pregnant, last night I couldn’t extricate my Zoloft from the medicine cabinet because Dan had masked and taped off the entire bathroom to paint it, and we have houseguests coming on Sunday for five days. (Did the nuclear waste test give you any idea of my mood? : )) I love these people, but as I’ve mentioned before, Dan apparently feels the need to live in House Beautiful and I have been extraordinarily stressed and pissy and evil. But I am feeling much better today – something to do with the following three things:
1) this morning I cranked up the boys’ ac and went back to sleep till noon
2) when I woke up, I got in my car and went to B&N and spent money
3) have I mentioned I have only one child to care for the next sixteen hours?

So I went to B&N to buy birthday presents since we zoned on the children-who-are-coming-to-visit’s birthdays. Emma is 11, and a sweet, intelligent, beautiful girl, who is pretty innocent for eleven these days, I think. She really likes theatre and art, and books. I got her one of those Klutz crafty books about making hemp and bead bracelets, and a copy of Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game.

Noah is 7, and one of the smartest little boys I know. When I see him, I have a feeling I know what Si will be like in several years. When I first met Noah, he was two, and we were houseguests at his parents’ while we attended Dan’s 15th college reunion. I was four months pregnant with Si, not particularly familiar with the ways of small children, and mostly preoccupied with vomiting my insides out 24-7. Two memories stand out (about Noah, that is; the reunion itself offers all sorts of memories, most of which just piss me off – can you say, “ex-girlfriend from hell”?):

1)It was bedtime after a very full day. Noah was scrubbed and PJed and ostensibly ready for bed. But then he came downstairs and asked his dad solemnly, “Dad, can I run around the couch?” Andrew said yes and Noah did about ten laps around the couch at full speed. Then he happily went back upstairs, got in bed, and went to sleep.
2)We were sitting at the dinner table and Noah was crying about something - choice of food, or whatever. His mom said, “What’s up?” and Noah said (articulate two year old that he was!), sniffling and blinking, “I am feeling *very* upset right now.”

So I got Noah a klutz book about these cool Lego contraptions, and a big book of word puzzles/searches/mazes. They seemed like things Gina’s son Ted would like and I thought Ted was a good guide since he too is smart and cool, and roughly the same age as Noah.

Me – I bought Green Darkness by Anya Seton (I can’t remember which of my blog buddies recommended it, but I loved the first line, so that’s pretty much a safe indicator for me : )), and a copy of Washington Square/Daisy Miller which it turns out I already have so that will be returned.

Anne Rivers Siddons has a new book out but I will wait till it comes out in paperback since her last two books were so histrionic and melodramatic as to be virtually unreadable. I really enjoy her early stuff – she reminds me of early Pat Conroy but not quite as violent and masculine - Peachtree Road, King’s Oak, and Fox’s Earth were all well-written, engrossing stories, and The House Next Door thoroughly creeped me out. But over the past few novels, she’s gotten predictable and a wee bit boring. Her characters are caricatures that simply annoy me now, and I generally feel the need to slap some sense into them. So I’ll wait, even though I am sure I will read the new one eventually.

Sophie Kinsella has a new one out as well, that I will get from the library. I was so disappointed in Shopaholic and Sister that I feel no need to throw good money after bad. I only have so much cash to squander on books.

Then on the way home I got a brain, stopped and bought some really nice cold cuts and fresh mozzarella at the little Italian deli, and a couple of cantaloupe and a whole watermelon at the little farm stand next door, and decided I am cooking nothing this weekend. Houseguests or no, is there anything better when it’s hot than a nice drippy tomatoey sandwich and some juicy cold melon? No. There’s not. I do not even know why I asked.

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I hate my cats at the moment. It's ninety-five degrees outside and the damn furry creatures want to brush up against me and sit in my lap. What are they thinking?!?! I have threatened Septimus with the pound several times this week; Emmy is smart enough to go outside and stay out my way. Poor pitiful cats and their evil evil person.