White Lightning Axiom: Redux

It was a rough night for all of us. When we got home, Jacob immediately went upstairs and crawled into bed. He knew he was down for the count, but that was not going to be his permanent disposition for the night. Alexis and I hung out with the hounds for a bit. Alexis seems to enjoy throwing the ball for them. We did that for a bit before I could convince her that we should go upstairs and get ready for bed. She was not entirely interested in the whole bed-time thing so the evening bath was ruled out because of the fading hours of the day. Instead, we got her changed and she hung out in the mile wide water bed for an hour or so till she is sufficiently numb. With this, the short trip to her bed will not be countered with dissension or the typical quarrelsome resistance that bedtime can bring. The Mrs and I thought we had it all covered when we went to bed, but within hours we learned that we had judged the future of our evening with great error. Jake spent most of the night either crying, complaining or dragging the Mrs from bedroom to bedroom in a vain attempt to extract some comfort. But alas, he tortured tot spent his morning hours fading in and out of a fog bank of misery while his helpless progenitor could only look on in growing despondency. Towards the later hours of the morning, his agitation woke Alexis and we had to give up on getting any more rest than what we had already managed.

The Mrs makes multiple phone calls to the clinic in a desperate attempt to get an emergency appointment with all of our calls going right to voice mail. Even past the 0900 hour where they appointments are to begin, we got no resolution. Eventually, we put a call into the answering service and find out the correct procedure to get some attention. We leave a message with the answering service who then sends a fax. After the fax is received, it is up to the pediatrician to call us back and invite us to bring our broken child in. Argh. So, the Mrs rushes down to the clinic after we get our invitation and while waiting to be tended to, Jacob's ear perforates and starts to freely discharge the vile bacteria laden fluid that has been bedeviling him for the last 12 hours of an eternity. When the Mrs hauls him back home, he watches television for a bit. We force him to take some of the prescribed pharmaceuticals for his own good. He is not entirely interested in this but we manage to overcome his parrying promptly due to his weakened state. He quietly watches Disney while drinking some water before nodding off in his seat. Painless, opiate slumber. He barely wakes as the Mrs conveys the little sack of potatoes to his bed. Alexis will have nothing to do with the sleep idea so we go off to play while the Mrs goes out on her weekend foraging duty to the local grocery stores.

While the Mrs is out getting the vittles, Alexis and I go about doing some minor housework. Well, I'm doing the housework and Alexis is doing her best to keep me on my toes. While I am in the laundry room, she is searching the room for items small enough to lift above her head and push into the washing machine basin. After pulling a few paper bags, an empty box and a plastic bottle of fabric softener out, I direct her to go throw some balls at the dogs for a bit. She complies but closes the door to the laundry room before leaving. I'm in the middle of filling the 55 gallon receptacle of tide that we use in the laundry so I don't run off to open the door. She can't get into much trouble in 5 seconds ... can she? Well, as I set down the empty detergent bottle and head off to open the door, I hear the distinctive sound of the door being locked. She locked me in the laundry room! I command her to unlock the door immediately! "No!" Argh! She has always been very contrariant. Fortunately, the utility closet is right there of the laundry room and I had a flat-head screwdriver that I could use to unlock the door since it was the simple internal locking type of door knob. I had the door open in a few seconds and upon opening it, Alexis rushed in and gave me her patented leg hug jujitsu immobilization attack. Well, enough of that business. We retired to the play room and stayed away from exterior locking doors for a bit.

We stay in the play room for a bit. It is nice because I can lay down on the sofa and she is not constantly screaming about the perceived or real transgressions of her brother who is sleeping upstairs. Nope, just daddy and the Undersecretary of the Haupertonain War Ministry doing the regular family thing. You know, plotting the down fall of central Asian regimes and such. After a while of fluttering about, she sits down on the sofa next to where I had tucked my feet under a quilt and starts reading some picture books. That's nice. She gets fairly quiet and snuggles up into the quilt. After a while, my legs start to get numb from the pressure and I look down to see that she has fallen asleep! Argh, I'm trapped! I certainly don't want to wake her but the way she is laying on my legs would require me to spend the next 30-45 minutes slowly trying to slide my pinned appendages from underneath her. The Mrs is still out shopping so my options are severely limited. My feet have already fallen asleep so if I were to just give in and try to go to sleep myself, the discomfort would make it challenging. That, and Jacob could wake at any time and I would end up having 2 pissed little ones on my hands. So I start on the arduous task of extracting myself. About 30 minutes into the process, the Mrs arrives home and helps me out with the last of it. It's all about the timing.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 4:56 PM