It's just one of those days and I'm definitely not having it.
Actually, it started last night. I hate to admit that I dread attending dinners at friends' or 'soirées', not because I dislike this activity or our friends, but because I never know how I will react. Sometimes, I surprise myself and don't even see the time fly and can stay up until the wee hours of the morning (which is what happened on E's birthday a month ago), but sometimes ten or eleven o'clock roll around and my only thought is getting the hell outta dodge. I recognize that it is clearly and 100 percent due to my own inability to adapt to any situation. If the conversation isn't going in a direction that interests me, I get bored and am completely unable to abstract myself from that boredom. This is where Etienne and I differ. He loves being around people and talking, no matter who the people are or what the conversation is. The only time he gets bored is when there is no conversation and people aren't interacting. I'm also clearly not a night person. This dates back from the junior high and high school slumber parties when I'd be the first person to fall asleep and always end up with my bra and underwear frozen. I have had my all-nighter days, late-night bar hopping, clubbing, crazy nights, but it's always been a challenge for me to stay up past midnight in reality. And, I admit to missing the ringing in of the New Year on more than one occasion. What can I say, I'm no fun.
Anyway, we went to E's cousin's last night for NYEVE with another couple and their 4 kids. Already, besides the 2 drops of champagne I allotted myself, I couldn't drink and I've found that drinking helps in my ability to get through these evenings. I personally didn't find the other couple very interesting and I swear the guy was hitting on me. In fact, when the clock struck midnight, the French do the little kiss on the cheek thing and I swear he tried to kiss me on the mouth! E doesn't believe me and said "You are 8 months pregnant" (thanks- can't a girl still be attractive at 8 months pregnant?), and then defended the guy saying he had had too much to drink. Whatever. Shortly after midnight, I am thinking 'When can we go home?' or I am going to give in and drink another glass of champagne. It's also due to my whole mentality right now- I'm not very open to the outside world and am focused more on my interior cocooning. Yesterday, I think I ignored Etienne and Louise the whole day to try and finish Alice's sweater. Definitely a sign of short-term autism. And, if I could, I'd stay in bed the whole day with a cup of coffee and a good book (of course, under the condition that the house is perfectly clean). Anyway, shortly after midnight, when Etienne got out his Iphone and started playing music and all of the 'adults' were sitting around reminiscing about old top hits, I quickly got very bored because it didn't fit into the whole 'cocooning' plan. I also saw that we were not leaving anytime soon and started mentally preparing myself for a 4 or 5 am departure rather than the 1 or 2 o'clock one I had imagined. Then, I fell asleep on the couch. Finally, around 3 am the other couple headed out, and I swear, the guy tried to kiss me on the mouth again- a second time, you just don't make these things up. E wanted to stay even longer, but I kind of begged to go home. Incidentally, our kids ended up falling asleep around 1 a.m, so I knew that we were all going to be tired as it was today.
We got home around 3:30, to bed around 4 and wake-up call was around 9:30 this morning- way too early in my book. And, I think I must have chosen the wrong side of the bed to wake up on because I've been in a witchy mood since. With the worry of Alice's sweater not being completed on time, I attacked the seaming process as soon as the first drop of coffee was downed (because before that, the world was pretty foggy) The kids were relatively calm, so I thought I could attempt a knitting endeavor in their presence (usually, I NEVER knit when the kids are in my presence and wait until they are asleep or not here). Wrong. About a minute after I sat down, they saw that I was not focused on them and went straight into 'circus' mode. Etienne had his own projects to attend to (in other words, autistically playing Age of Empires) and seeing the tired and groggy state the whole family was in, we decided it would be a movie and PJs day. The movie allowed me to focus enough to get Alice's sweater sewn up and get lunch ready. After lunch, we promptly put the kids to bed with Louise in her room, Gab with me in our room. About an hour into the nap, I am woken up by pounding, like a hammer and am thinking 'What in the world? Who is doing work on a holiday?' But, ignore it and try and drift back off to sleep. The pounding gets more intense and finally, I sit up with a start with the sole intention of going to have a word with the neighbor who is making so much noise. When I come out of the room, I see Etienne, on the balcony, in his boxer shorts, pounding on the sliding glass door and in my foggy state between wakefulness and sleep, I am thinking "Why in the world is he banging on the window waking his whole family up- does he think this is a fun game?" and I was very upset and started getting mad at him. It didn't occur to me, in that brief few seconds, that he was locked out and had been freezing his butt off for at least 15 minutes. He had gone outside to repair a computer. So, shortly after, you can imagine that the kids and I were fully awake. In fact, if anyone in our building had been sleeping then, I'm sure they were awake as well. E told me that people waiting for the bus on the square below our apartment were watching his spectacle and yelling up to him and that I must be the only one in the vicinity who took so long to hear his banging on the window.
The rest of the afternoon has been much like the morning- the kids are still in a very demanding mode and I pretty much would like to stay in my autistic mode for the rest of the day. Sometimes, they can play nicely all day, but today, their own fatigue makes them restless and agitated. Etienne has strewn computers all over the apartment and my nesting efforts to this point have been, well, disrupted by said computer parts mixed in with kids' toys. Theoretically, we should have gone out at least to the park across the street, but the grey and cold weather and my mood made today an official Pyjama day.
Tomorrow, things will be better- once I get my hands on the vaccum and can clean up.
Comments