Wasn’t I just bragging late last night that “my house is a relatively happy house”?

Dude, you totally missed my spaz-out hissy-fit I threw night, right after I clicked “Publish”.

Here’s the thing: I decided to participate in the “Write 31” thingie. In order to officially participate, you had to create a little button-thingie (you like my technical terms? Be careful using them – they’re only for trained professionals). Well, first you had to choose a category (I chose “Family”), then you had to choose a topic (I chose “How to Be a Crappy Mom), and then you had to create the button which was a hyperlink (or something?) and link up to the official Write 31 page.

Make sure you do it by October 5th! the website said.

I’m sure they intended that to read as “Do it on October 1st, but if you have to do it a day or two late, I suppose we can allow it.”

Me being, well, ME, I read that as “whatever you do, don’t do it before October 5th, because that’s just silly.”

So, as yesterday was October 5th, I clicked “Publish” and then went over there to figure out the button-link up-thingie. I mean, it was only 10 pm at night on the absolute-last-day-possible. I had two whole hours to work with. I wasn’t just on-time, I was practically early.

…..

And that’s when I discovered that the Write 31 link-up thingie runs on east coast time…. which is a full 3 hours ahead of me. While it was 10 pm on October 5th in Oregon, it was already 1 am on October 6th on the east coast, and link ups had closed.

Normally I would have given a good-natured groan and simply gone on with my day….. but I’m running on a pretty horrible sleep deficit nowadays. I’ve been staying up late every night to type not only write on my long-abandoned blog, but I’ve been writing actual posts with a theme and a TOPIC.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to stay on topic for five whole days in a row?

So, anyways, when I found out that I’d missed the sign ups, well…. I was just a little bit disappointed.

I handled it very gracefully.

I did not consider throwing the computer to the ground, only to remember it was borrowed, and expensive. I did not settle for placing it gently on the couch beside me before stomping up to my feet and using my “special words”.

I did not ignore The Bean as he tried to figure out what was going on with me.
I did not stomp into the bedroom…. only to stomp back out to the living room to use more of my “special words” in an incoherent nearly unintelligible rant…..

… Only to stomp back into the bedroom with a “Well, FINE. I’m just going to go to sleep. It doesn’t matter anyways. It’s all STUPID. DON’T BOTHER TRYING TO FIX IT. IT’S ALL STUPID. GOOD NIGHT.”

Okay. Maybe I did do a little of that.

But seriously, you have to understand just how tired I’ve been every night as I stay up to finish my post…. my post which has been both ON TOPIC and following my theme.

How tired am I?

Well, after I stomped off to bed last night, I made a decision to chart how many times I was up at night, just so I could share with you.

Now, normally the Kraken is the crappy sleeper and Magpie is much, much better. If I were better about sleep training she would definitely be sleeping through the night at this point. Unfortunately, she’s been having a rough week this last week, so she woke up 6 times last night.

That’s 6 times between 10:30 and 6:30 am.

The Kraken was much better and only woke up twice.

Still – that was 8 separate wake up periods requiring me to detach one tiny little boob leech (yes, we’re co-sleeping – The Kraken between The Bean and I, and Magpie over on an Ikea crib we attached to the side of our bed like a little sidecar), roll over, pull the other baby close, and go back to sleep as they nurse.

Sure, I don’t have to actually get out of bed and walk to a different room, so I’m able to go back to sleep fairly quickly…. but it’s still waking up, and it doesn’t make for a restful night of sleep.

Anyways, now you know why I found my lack of involvement so disappointing, and why I had so few reserves to deal with it.

After spending the day thinking about it though, I have decided it’s actually kind of a good thing. No, I won’t be able to officially participate….. but I’m still planning on doing the exercise, and I feel that by doing it on my own I am now free to choose my own topics. Sure, nobody was going to hunt me down with a pitchfork if I’d strayed while “officially” participating, but still.

So, there’s your warning. If I start posting about pets, horses, books, childhood memories, working at the library, or whatever instead of my kids, you have been forewarned.

Now if you’ll excuse me, sleep (GLORIOUS SLEEP!) is calling me…. at least for an hour or so. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe tonight will be the twins’ first night sleeping through the night?

A girl can hope?