Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,46
from my living room, some of them even try to play it then. In their sleep. Or should I say “alleged sleep.” It’s what they’re supposed to be doing, according to the front of the invites we sent out. Come to an End of Soccer Season Sleepover.
Sleepover? Sleepover?
Want to talk oxymoron? I’ll sit and hum quietly to myself while you insert your own moron joke about this new-to-motherhood mom who actually thought when a bunch of eight- and nine-year-old boys showed up at her house with sleeping bags that they intended to crawl in them and catch some Z’s. Yeah, at a sleepover.
No. Nuh-uh. No way. No sleep. No over. At this point it doesn’t feel like it will ever be over.
Other than that…
I’m just sitting here quietly counting my blessings—starting with chocolate and earplugs.
—From Nacho Mama’s House column
“‘Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed.’” Hannah held her finger up and moved it up and down to demonstrate the rhyme for Tessa.
The baby’s head bobbed slightly following along. She sucked her fist.
Teething.
“Let’s look on the bright side, baby girl, at least you picked a night when I hadn’t figured on getting any sleep anyway to cut your first tooth.”
Cries of “Stilton’s turn” and “Go for it, Stilton” rose from the front room sleepover encampment.
“I should go see about that.” Hannah started to push up from the rocker.
“Gross!”
“Ee-uw!”
She fell back down into the seat and set it swaying back and forth again. “Maybe I’ll hold off on that a while.”
She pressed the pad of her thumb to her daughter’s lower lip to steal a peek at her teething progress.
Tessa ground her pink gums together and made a cranky growling sound.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Hannah rubbed her knuckle over the milky white tooth bud just below the swollen surface.
Tessa nestled down deeper into her mother’s arms and let out a shuddering breath.
Hannah kissed her daughter’s temper-fit-dampened red curls and went on with the singsonged tale of monkeys misbehaving. “‘Mama called the doctor and the doctor said—’”
“Hannah, tell those boys to quiet down. I had a long day at work.”
She glared out the door of her daughter’s room, imagining she had some kind of laser vision that would turn the corner and travel along the dark hallway through the keyhole and find her husband lying in the cozy, rumpled bed.
“I love your daddy more than I could ever express, but honestly, Tessa, darling, sometimes he can be such a…a…a man.”
Tessa’s expression soured. She growled again.
“Uh-huh. You tell it like it is, girl.”
“Hannah? Please! Are you going to handle this?”
Deal with it? Tempting. Very tempting to holler back her opinion of him yelling at her to yell at the boys to stop yelling so he could have quiet.
That or she could just resign herself to the inevitable and deal directly with the boys. Either way, voices would get raised with not much chance of reaching the desired result.
She clenched her jaw. She pressed the side of Tessa’s head close, then covered the baby’s delicate exposed ear with one hand.
Tessa drooled down the front of both her and Hannah’s nightgowns.
Deep breath. Time to assert herself. “Let’s show a little consideration, please.”
There. Somebody in this house ought to respond to that.
“Yes, ma’am,” a blend of childish voices chimed back.
Not so much as a peep from Payt.
One shove of her foot set Hannah’s rocking chair in motion again. “He had a long day. Did you hear that, Tessa?”
The baby snuggled close, and Hannah drew in the comforting scent of powder and warm baby’s breath.
“Our day isn’t over yet, is it? Not to mention that we know exactly how long his day was…and why.”
She shut her eyes….
“You’re cool with that, aren’t you, Hannah?” She could picture her husband standing by the front door to his office at precisely twenty-eight minutes past four.
She knew the time practically right down to the last tick of the second hand, because she’d worried that dragging Sam, Tessa and a tub of cleaning supplies into his office, even a few minutes before they locked the doors might embarrass him in front of his patients.
“Um, I suppose—”
“See? She’s cool with it.” Dr. Briggs punched Payt in the arm. Hard.
Payt made a noise—not quite a laugh, not really a cough.
Dr. Briggs barked out a belly laugh. He was taller than Hannah had remembered him. Maybe he’d been sitting those times? But that didn’t explain how she’d missed the jovial expression and soft white wavy hair. He looked like some moon-faced gentle giant straight out of