SURPRISE...I Cooked.

Waking up to the smell of breakfast used to be a pleasant surprise that would have me stretching and getting out of bed with a big fat smile on my face.  I would put on my robe and slippers and go to the kitchen with that same dopey smile and have coffee and breakfast and ..............and what?  Then I'd go back to my room and get dressed before kissing my parents and heading out the door to high school!

I'm the mom here.  Who the hell is in my kitchen?  My husband makes coffee...for himself.  Unless I'm already up and then he'll make me a cup.  But breakfast?  Hell-to the- No.  Seemingly that is MY job and mine alone.  I have to tell someone "There's a cure for that," when they complain about being hungry.  (I mean NOW that they are all ambulatory and in their teens, of course.)

So when I smelled frying breakfast meats this morning, I got half of my dopey grin on....and then panicked!  I ran out the bedroom door and into the kitchen and found RANDA blocking the kitchen door.  She burped in my face.  "Randa, did you make breakfast for yourself?" I asked.  The rest of the exchange went something like this:

Randa:                 Uh, yeah!
Me:                      Randa, do we have anymore bastarma (Egyptian garlic-cured beef)?
Randa:                 Nope.  It's gone.
Me:                      Randa, you ate a half pound of bastarma by yourself?
Randa:                 (flutters eyes around...in some autistic kids, refusing eye-contact means
                            "I can't hear you" when clearly, they can AND DO understand they're
                            in trouble.)
Me:                      Did you eat?  Do you feel better now?
Randa:                  Uh, yeah.  All better.  Sleepy.  Go to bed now. (She doesn't refer to herself
                             in the first person much.)
Me:                       (looking past her toward the sink) LOOK AT THIS BIG FAT MESS!!
Randa:                   Oops.
Me:                       Randa, did you make cookies? Oh.My.God. There's batter in every mixing
                             bowl.  Did you use all the bakers chocolate?  Did you bake?
Randa:                  (mimicking me and laughing?) ...bakers chocolate?  Did you bake?
Me:                       That's not funny.
Randa:                   That's not funny.
Me:                       You wanna wash the dishes?
Randa:                  You wanna wash the dishes?
Me:                       You are so grounded. Look at this big fat mess!
Randa:                  Yeah, it's big fat mess. Mommy clean up.  Sweet dreams.

And so it begins.  Pre-coffee.                        

Prelude to Sleeping In

Exams week has been whippin' my ass.  I am up by 6:30 a.m. each morning and out the door dragging two half-asleep kids a mile up the main street in order to put the boy on the bus to his school and then drag the girl another mile to her school.  Usually, I just sit and wait for her to finish and then we buy groceries and come home.  (I could go home and wait...but the wait would be long enough to use the bathroom and then put my shoes back on and head back. So why bother?)

It has rained every.single.day.this.week.  I now have a throat infection and little to no sleep is not helping matters.  But the kids are doing okay on their tests.  I think Mohamed has some concerns about his Advanced Algebra/Calculus test from today.  Tomorrow is a day off.  It is 25 January and the one year anniversary of the biggest youth uprising ever in Egypt that eventually succeeded in forcing Mohamed Hosni Mubarak to step down from his 30 year sham of a presidency. (Yay, Egyptians!)  And because we are still living under military rule until elections are complete in June, God willing, we expect that there will be demonstrations tomorrow but whether or not the thug factor pushes these demonstrations into something more, God only knows.

So, Thursday we expect to finish the testing. And then I will be able to sleep in until I wake up on my own.  You know, providing that my kids don't decide to get up at the crack of dawn to start fighting over whose turn it is to play on the computer first and for how long.  I'm so looking forward to NOT getting up before 7 in the morning.  We'll see how it  plays out.

Yeah, my blog posts are getting boring of late....but what do you do?  These exams are sucking the life out of me.  Here's hoping I at least have some weight loss due to the nerve-induced diarrhea.

YEAH.

Not Enough Hours in the Day...and Now I Know Why

It wasn't until today that I ever thought of myself as an overachiever. Maybe on some levels, I've known.  But I don't think I've ever caught a glimpse of how others see me. I'm a Facebooker. (Yeah, who isn't?) I've blogged before about how great this social network is because as a military brat, it is extremely difficult to keep in touch with friends from childhood when sometimes you can't remember what year you lived where.  Anyway, so I have subscribed to several military brat-related pages and caught up with some old friends and made some new ones.

One particular page is full of "regulars" who post daily what they've done and what they're planning to eat and other stuff that usually ends up with all of us nearly "chatting" via bulletin board-type posts.  Today I actually typed up my little laundry list of stuff I did today before 1130 hrs (that's 11:30 a.m. for you civilian types) and I think I managed to exhaust at least 3 people who typed that they were off to take a nap due to my activity.

Honestly, while I am my own biggest fan and LOVE to toot my own horn, I wasn't bragging.  In my own opinion, I managed to waste the day away with ONLY the stuff I got done, while ignoring the ginormous "to-do" list looming over my head.  I took a nap from being so damn tired. I don't get much sleep at night. As much as I blame my kids (who are TOTALLY at fault for about half of my exhaustion), ultimately it's my own damn fault.  If I wasn't such a control freak who pushes herself to complete every single thing on her never-ending list of stuff to do, I WOULD get more sleep at night, I would probably be healthier and I would have less stress in my life.  Of course, if I did that, then I wouldn't be the neurotic, selectively-OCD crazed nut-job that my family and friends have come to know and love.

I'm getting a little better. I quit wiping off the stove and now delegate that responsibility to whichever little smart-mouth gets in trouble during the day.  One step at a time...

2012 Will Bring More Randa Time

Happy New Year.  Yes, it is 2012.  Can you believe that just 12 years ago we were running around like cockroaches, backing up hard-drives, stocking up on bottled water and ramen noodles and dancing around to Prince's 1999?  Yeah, um, I didn't do that either.

Like nearly all the other New Years Eves before this one, we pretty much did nothing. Watched t.v., drank some soda, ate some peanuts, did some dishes, went to bed. Yeah, we're party animals.

But I started the year out right.  I took Randa for a long walk through the souk (open market).  I bought her a Ho-ho and some apple juice and then we bought vegetables and came home.  She thoroughly enjoyed her time out without "the kids."  She doesn't get that much one on one time with me outside the house anymore.  But I'm hoping to change that.  I miss my girl.

She calls herself my "special sauce girl."  I think that's a pretty spot-on description.