Hump day

            

            Wednesdays are rough.  On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I have a nanny here all afternoon and evening.  On Fridays, Daddy is home for supper.  But, Wednesdays, they can be very long days.  By the time I get Benjamin down for his nap, Lilah is screaming.  Then I nurse her while Zachary entertains himself.  Often, while I sit with her, I hear him trot into the bathroom, put on his little seat, grab a toy catalog, and sit down on the porcelain throne.  Eventually, I hear too much toilet paper being ripped off, the flush, and then Zach singing “happy Birthday” twice while he washes his hands.

            By the time I eat lunch, empty the boys’ lunch boxes, and close my eyes for fifteen minutes, it’s almost time to get Benjamin up, and Zach and I have only read a few books together.  And then it’s snack time, and Lilah needs to get up so we can go to karate, where somehow I am supposed to entertain the little ones in the tiny waiting area, and then home where I try to feed her whilst the boys pull out every last toy that we own, and finally I give up turn on the Tinkerbell movie and order a pizza for dinner.

            Don’t even ask about bathtime.

            Yesterday was especially rough, as J had taken the morning off so we could meet with Benjamin’s teachers to discuss his, ahem, spiritedness.  We were late because traffic was backed up to our front door.  The 405 was running smoothly, as we could see from the surface streets where we were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, unable to actually access the highway.  And, then traffic was brutal getting back to our neighborhood, where we were scheduled to visit the local elementary school to decide if our little guy is ready for kindergarten next year.  And Lilah thinks her car seat is some sort of Medieval torture device, causing her to scream mercilessly in that thing, so eventually we pulled over so I could nurse her.

            Don’t even ask about traffic getting back to the preschool for the noon pickup.

            And pickup was funky because the parking lot was jammed with cars due to the Chinese New Year party the Synagogue Sisterhood was hosting.  No, I don’t know why.   And more traffic getting home, with Zachary whining about the windows and Benjamin threatening to fall asleep and Lilah screaming some more.

            Some kid had been going the wrong way on the 10 Freeway, it seems, and he had plowed into a cop on his way to work at 5 AM.  They had a spectacular crash that snarled L.A. traffic pretty much all morning.

            It also killed both men.

            When we got home, I was relieved to be out of the car and start getting Benjamin down for his nap.  But, mostly, I was relieved I was not one of those mothers or the officer’s wife.

            And then there was the small plane crash in Santa Monica yesterday that killed two people.  Plus the dude who shot his whole family earlier in the week.  It’s a damned good thing that a woman just had octuplets, because the population of Los Angeles has taken a real hit this week.