Warble warble

Taking a timeout from studying for the bar (that shizzle is coming up in six damn days, ya’ll) to warble on for a bit about life.

• I got new shoes. I now have 3 pair of pumps that I wear regularly to work, all of varying ages: (1) a two year old pair of nude lizard-looking Ann Taylor beauties that I just had re-heeled, (2) a delicious pair of red patent Isola pumps that I got in Christmas 2011, and (3) some ferocious black Nine West small-platform babies that I just got in the mail yesterday – and when I say ferocious I mean OUCH THE BLISTERS, and also HAWT. The Nine Wests replaced a pair of black pumps that I bought back in the pointy toe craze – also Nine West, I think. They were cute but sadly unfashionable now (trend-buying = mistake), and so I wasn’t too sad when the leather broke open at the seam and tons of fraying white string things started coming out over the top of my foot. (This is hard to describe, but anyways it couldn’t be fixed and they needed to be tossed.) I got my new lovelies at Nordstrom’s clearance – I did look at Wal Mart and Target, but my knees cannot take cheap heels anymore. So I waited ages for a good clearance price for basic black pumps, and these babies are my reward. I could use maybe 2 more pairs of pumps to put in the work rotation, as well as a couple more suits, but with wardrobe-building after The Poverty, it’s “slow and steady wins the race” around here.
• I couldn’t find my car in the parking garage just now, so I toddled from floor to floor in my painful and ridiculous shoes, pushing the “lock” button on my keys until I heard a car horn beep. This is because . . .
• . . . both boys have a cough and nobody sleeps ever. Last night I put them and myself to bed early – I’m talking 7:30 pm – and we stayed in bed until 6:30 this morning. I figured that by giving myself a total of 11 hours of bedtime, I’d get at least one or two of uninterrupted sleep. I’m not sure if that happened – I know that the husband called me at 8 pm (curse you, Professor!), I got up and walked the pacing dog at 9, Liam woke coughing at 10 and came downstairs to join me in my bed, Jack woke having to pee at 11 and also joined us in the king bed, Virgil woke me pacing just after midnight, Liam wanted medicine and juice at around 2, Jack sat straight up in bed and sleep-talked some nonsense at about 4:30, Virgil barked at 5, Liam demanded milk at 5:30, and in between all of those official wakeups I was probably startled awake by the boys coughing at least ten other times. MISERY. It’s just so awful, it’s like having a newborn again. It leads to me doing dumb stuff like losing my car in the parking garage . . . or forgetting that most of Florida is Eastern time and not Central (and nearly missing a phone conference for that reason). I wish they made cough medicine for children. Children’s Ibuprofen only helps so much, and all three of us could use some sleep. I fear I’m getting the cough now, which is no surprise as Liam is basically attached to me at all times due to Sick-Toddler-Mommy-Attachment-Barnacle Syndrome, and thus coughs on a regular basis into my face and my food and, on occasion, my open mouth.
• Jack’s new thing is he loves playing “Candy World.” He knows that the game is Candyland, but he has informed us that he plans to continue calling it Candy World. Candyland is one of the more heinous games inflicted upon parents of small children. The little play pieces are easily knocked over by giant, fumbly toddler/Liam fingers, leading to preschooler/Jack mind-blowing frustration . . . the boys don’t really do well at following the path and don’t understand the double square cards or the licorice traps that make you lose a turn . . . we have to navigate major meltdowns if anybody advances close to the end and then gets the ice cream cone card, catapulting that person back to the very beginning again. . . It’s not very exciting, it’s not very fun, and requires a lot of refereeing. But oh boy, does Jack love it. (Also, Valuable Lessons on Sportsmanship and Learning to Follow the Rules and Being Good Losers and la-la-la.) As I was drying my hair this morning he asked if we could play a quick game before school. (I had to say no – there is no such thing as “quick” with this game, and we were already late from sleeping in.) Despite my having to say no this morning, in general I’m attempting, as Amalah references in this post, not to be a Selfish Asshole Parent. I am so often totally wiped out after a 10-12 hour day at work that I’ve found myself trying really hard to guide the children to the evening “activity” of cuddling on the couch in front of tv while mommy reads mindless internet nonsense. But this is lazy parenting. It may not be lazy in the context, as I am legitimately depleted of resources – but it’s definitely lazy parenting. So. I guess what I’m saying here is pity me, for I am about to embark on nightly games of Candyland with a 4 yo and a 2 yo all by myself. And since I gave up alcohol for Lent, this pain will not be dulled by glorious delicious sauvignon blanc.
• Giving up alcohol for Lent is going well – it’s been a week, and hasn’t been too hard. I’ve replaced it with sparkling water, which is going just fine. Sadly, I have not magically dropped seventeen pounds due to the reduced caloric intake (really the main purpose of my picking alcohol), but that may yet happen. One week down, five to go.
• Six days til the Florida bar exam. It’s not quite so fraught as the last bar I took – doing anything for the second time is never as frightening. Also, since I have to re-take the MBE, a lot of this is review. (The MBE is the Multi-state Bar Exam, 200 multiple choice questions that are given in virtually every state, the exact same test, kind of like the LSAT or SAT. Most states let you use scores from other jurisdictions where you already took the MBE, because it is, as I mentioned, the EXACT SAME TEST in every state. But not Florida, because Florida sucks.) But I still have to get up to speed on some things, like the slightly whack Florida constitution, and their separate procedural rules for Juvenile Delinquency, Family proceedings, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure, and Judicial Procedure. That’s a lotta rules.
• Argued a motion yesterday. Won. Woot.