What a night.

11:45 p.m. ~ Large Fry wandered into the den, complaining that she had red bumps all over her tummy. Despite the fact that I know she's had the Varicella vaccine, my first thought was chicken pox, because I know that doesn't always fully protect against the illness. And it's only the second day of school. Awesome. She comes over to me and lifts her nightgown. Sure enough, she has red bumps. Hives. "Did you put on any lotion today?" She shook her head. "Anything else?" "Well, I was itchy, and so I put on some lotion." "Large! I asked you if you put on lotion! What lotion did you use?" She thought hard. "Go get the lotion you used." She skipped off and returned a couple minutes later with a bottle: White Citrus lotion by Bath and Body Works. Oooookay. Another one bites the dust; Medium is already allergic to perfumed lotions. I gave her some allergy medicine,took her upstairs, washed her off, and had her change her nightgown,  and got her back into bed. "But I want to sleep in your room." Oh, no. "No, you need to sleep in your own bed. I'm not even in there right now." I turned on her music, turned off her light, and said goodnight.

2 a.m. ~ Middle-of-the-night constitutional. I was awake enough to hear one of the twins get up to do the same thing. Their bedroom door opened...and closed. Thirty seconds later...open, and close. This repeated three more times before I finally peeked down the hall to see what was going on. Medium stood there, and as soon as she saw me, the explanation burst forth. "Mommy, Pa'ani is in ouwr wroom! I make him go out, but he keeps coming in. Fouwr times!" Ahhh. "I'll be right there." I finished up, washed my hands, and walked down the hall to evict the cat. Medium probably hadn't closed the door well enough to make it latch, and the 17-pound beastie had just barged in. I hefted him out, closed the door, turned on their music again, and said goodnight. When I left, I made sure the door latched.

6:45 a.m. ~ "Mommy?" I opened my eyes and peered blearily at Medium. "My nose is bleeding and it won't stop." I grimaced as I rolled out of bed. "Did you stick your finger up your nose?" She nodded. I spent five minutes in the bathroom, stopping the bleeding, and sent her back to bed. Since I was up, I might as well...and before I'm done, she's back. "It's bleeding again." I checked. Nope. Back to bed.

7:50 a.m. ~ Large Fry materializes by my side of the bed. "Mommy? There's blood on the floor of the Mickey Mouse bathroom." Groan. "Can you just wipe it up?" She goes to try, and reports back that it's stuck. "Okay, I'll take care of it." I wait until Hubby's alarm runs through the first snooze cycle, and once again get out of bed. Everything hurts this morning. As I walked down the hall to deal with the blood on the floor, I see Medium and Large coming out of my office...still in their jammies. "What are you doing?! Get dressed!" (If you're curious,  they were hunting Pa'ani, who likes to hide in my office, so they could lavish him with affection.) I grabbed a disinfectant wipe and scrubbed the nickel-sized blood droplet off the floor while noticing something else. "Who went potty but didn't flush?" The most likely culprit came in and flushed. As I'm staggering down the hall to the stairs so I can go pack lunches, Medium hollered, "Mommy, there's blood all over my Pillow Pet, too!" Yeah, I'm not surprised.  "I'll try to wash it today." Oh, look. It rained overnight.  That explains the aches.

8:45 a.m. ~ The Fries are all at school. Hallelujah.