AHHHH.

Have you ever had a night where your four year old is yelling I need another story. You are bathing your baby. You say, "Promise, I will read you one more story after I get the baby bathed, if you don't get out of bed again." Then you hear a commotion in the hall. You take a peak and guess what she is out of bed. "Okay," you say, "No story." Then the wailing begins. She screams and screams and screams, "I need another story." You know you can't give in that will be bad parenting. You compromise. "I will rub your back when I am done getting the baby in her PJ's, if you will stay in your bed." She does. You go back with baby in tote. The baby is a leach so you have to. Then you begin rubbing. The 4 year old stops crying the baby starts. Your baby starts flinging her body about and fussing. Fussing escalates into screaming. "Great," you say, "They traded places." You say to the 4 year old, "Oh, rubbings are done." Apparently, even though her sister was screaming like a crazied lunitic, she enjoys the rubbings so much it doesn't matter. Then the, "More rubbing!" starts. You say, "No!" Then the screaming gets louder. You threaten to shut the door. Screaming persists. You shut the door and hold it closed. The leach is in your left arm and you are holding the door with your right. She is wripping on the knob so strongly your knuckles are turning black and blue. You finally say, "If you get in bed, I will open the door." She gets in bed. You open the door. You walk down the hall. She gets out of bed screaming, "I need more rubbings!" Then you are back to holding the door. This process of door holding, getting in bed, door opening, getting out of bed, continues a few more times. Then you get smart. I am incontrol you say to yourself... right? You go get the bean jar. Minus five beans for naughtness. "No not the beans anything but the beans. Please, mom. Please, no beans." Wow. You have felt like a frantic operator pushing all the buttons you know of, and nothing works. Then the little blue one, the one you forgot about, you push and yeah, you are all back in control. Ahh. Blessed Beans. The baby is screaming the child is screaming but you are back in the drivers seat. Ahhhh. After 15 more minutes of crying this is the result. No wonder most mothers say this is the best time of the day. Some days I concure. (P.S. Do you like MJ's pic. She loves that pink bunny.)