In a bizarre moment of supermom-dom I decided to take both boys on the bus to a shopping centre on Tuesday. The Little Guy had kept me up most of Monday night and by 11:30am my energy was already starting to flag so I thought we needed to shake things up a little.

I had considered taking them on the bus before, but the thought of juggling two kids and a stroller on to a form of transportation that I don't like in the first place was waaaaaay too overwhelming. For some reason I had never considered using my evenflo carrier (which The Little Guy love-love-loves) and just holding The Boy's hand. Long story short, the trip went swimmingly (well, bus-ingly) but that is not the point of this entry.

I was getting The Boy used to the idea of the bus and after some initial confusion (he thought I'd be taking a bus - that is stealing and driving it) we had the following conversation:

The Boy: What will the driver's name be? Will it be Bob?

Mombie: Um, I don't know. The driver might be a woman.

The Boy: Or, it might be (with undisguised glee)... a parakeet!

Sadly, the driver was not a parakeet. But I really had my hopes up for a while.

So The Boy is sick, he's had a fever since Thursday afternoon. It's nothing serious, probably roseola (The Little Guy had it last week) but whenever his meds wear off he gets a little cranky. I'm a little nervous about fevers so I've been keeping a close eye on him during the day, and at night he's been co-sleeping with daddy. Mommy, after all, is a food source for The Little Guy and the middle of the night shuffling required for me to be available for both kids would be a logistical nightmare.

In other news, The Little Guy has learned to sit up and to pull himself up on some things this week.

All of this information is merely background.

Last night, The Man and The Boy were asnooze in the double bed while me and The Little Guy were having a disagreement in single bed in the kids' room. I foolishly felt that 2am was a time to settle back into sleep after nursing. The Little Guy felt that his time would be better used in placing his hand on the bed rail and using his freakish strength to pull himself to a sitting position.

We went back and forth on the issue for a while, with TLG sitting up, and me rearranging him and tucking him in beside me. Frustration was rearing its ugly head and I was beginning to mutter (say it with me) 'Damn Universe! Cut a mom a break, it is 2 freaking AM'.

And then I suddenly developed some perspective. So, it was 2am and I wanted to get to sleep and my baby wanted to have a sitting-up-giggle-fest. But I had nowhere to be in the morning, and The Man would likely take TLG and TB downstairs and let me sleep in the morning.

It's not like I was holding my dehydrated child in my arms hoping that drinking water would come in time. It's not like I was listening to my kid moan through a fever and not able to get him medicine.

It's not like I lost everything in a natural disaster and people in my own country were blaming me for my fate, and large portions of my government were failing me.

It was just a goddamn hour's sleep, it was time for me to get over myself.*

So then I started muttering 'This is frustrating, universe, but thank you for two healthy kids and the means to look after them.' **

Yeah, sometimes I sound like a self-help book. Sue me.

Please donate to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Little kids shouldn't have to pay for slack governments, for a history of poverty, or for being in the wrong place when disaster struck.

*For the record, I'm not one of those people who thinks everyone should be grateful all the time, and that people have no right to complain as long as they have their basic needs met. I just felt a little foolish bemoaning my fate last night while New Orleans moms fight bigger battles.

**You know, despite the self-help taint on statements like this, sometimes they really work. My friend's therapist once suggested combatting anxiety by immersing yourself in the peeling and eating of an orange, taking yourself out of the anxiety loop by mindful completion of a task.

I can sometimes do the same thing when frustrated, if I shift my concentration from the frustration onto something else. When the boys were infants and crying for no reason in the middle of the night, I would sometimes repeat 'I love you, Little Guy (or The Boy)' until I felt better. It is almost impossible to tell my child that I love him while using an angry voice, and the repetition would break my frustration for a little while. Blah blah pollyanna perfectmom.