24-7

Friday:
3:30 pm: I return from work to take V. Anette leaves for work.

5 pm: Adinah's best friend Oskar arrives for his sleepover night with us.

6 pm: I serve dinner: spicy chicken curry for me, rice and soy sauce for the kids.

6:45: V. pees in the bath, then melts down. I hoist her into her pajamas, sling her into bed. She chugs her bottle, screams for awhile, then goes down.

7 pm: Oskar and Adinah decide they want to take a bath together. I don't tell them V. peed in the bathwater. (It wasn't a lot.)

8:15: Oskar and Adinah into bed. Rejecting our original plan, Adinah insists on taking the lower bunk, forcing her towheaded guest to take the upper. Oskar says he doesn't mind. Adinah begins to tell him she thought she saw a clutching hand near the edge of the upper bunk the other night. I shush her.

9:45: Oskar wakes up crying out for Adinah, who doesn't stir. I go in, and try to calm him down. He does not understand my terrible German, but he falls asleep again.

11:30: Oskar wakes up wailing and crying "Adinah!" again. I go in, and try to calm him down. Oskar, who has a hearing problem, doesn't understand me, can't hear me, and isn't really awake anyway, though his eyes are open. I try to wake Adinah, and try to get her to talk to him. She can't wake up, and when she does, she begins to cry. Anette comes home, and takes Adinah into our bed, leaving Oskar alone in Adinah's room.

Saturday
12:45 a.m. Oskar wakes up wailing again. I call his dad, who is at a party for the Architecture Center Vienna, and says he'll be right over to pick up Oskar.

1:15: Thomas picks up Oskar. I lay down to sleep on the couch.

3:40 Anette, unable to sleep with both V. and Adinah in our bed, brings our youngest daughter out to me.

4 am--5:30: V. turns like a helicopter in my arms...and even sleeps for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. I do not.

7 am: Anette, Adinah and V. awake, ready to play. I am not.

8:30 am: Anette leaves for work. While running interference between Adinah and V., I do a load of wash, fold clothes, and clean up the kitchen.

9:30 am: Pack the kid into the stroller, and we all head down to my haircutter. Who is too busy. V. falls asleep in the stroller on the way home. I bribe Adinah with Walt Disney Princesses! activity and coloring book.

10:25 am: With V. still asleep in the stroller, I beg Adinah to let me sleep while she pores over Walt Disney Princesses! activity and coloring book. She agrees to my proposal. I snooze for a glorious forty minutes.

11: 45: Etc. etc. etc.