The universe is messing with my sanity tonight, just to see how far I can be pushed before I explode into a bazillion little shards of red-faced, gibbering lunacy.

For starters, I'm in that laundry vortex right now, where you wash and wash and wash, and no matter how many loads you do, you still have a hamper that looks just as full as it did before you started. Seriously, are my kids changing clothes as quickly as they can the moment I turn my back on them to face the washer? Are neighbors hurling their laundry through my basement windows, just to see if I'll notice that the dungarees in my hand don't belong to anybody who lives here? (I probably wouldn't; the laundry vortex doesn't lend itself to careful clothing identification.) And the washing machine itself is contributing to the chaos by becoming unbalanced during the spin cycle, no matter how carefully I load the clothes into it; just as I get started on another project, I have to rush down the stairs to put a halt to the BAM-BAM-BAM din and to the halting march of the machine as it attempts to walk over to the sump pump.

And the project I'm trying to do while the washer futilely washes is to clear out Gabe's room to make way for the bunk beds; I'm at the point now where I need to disassemble his toddler bed, and there are no screwdrivers in this house, despite the fact that usually every time I turn around, there's a screwdriver lying somewhere in plain sight, just waiting for Gabe to discover it and use it to chisel his initials into the walls. I guess I did a good job the last time I tried to clear them away, and now I can't find a single one.

Eric said they were in the garage. I opened the garage from inside the house with the remote, went outside and found one, pushed the "close" button on the wall, and stepped into the driveway. The garage door went down a foot or so, stopped, and went back up. I tried again, and the same thing happened. I went in the house, grabbed the remote, and tried to use that to close it; the door closed a foot and went back up. Lather, rinse, repeat. I actually stood in the driveway for five or ten minutes, hitting the button on the remote and making the door rise and fall with varying success before it finally lowered all the way to the ground; I swear, I heard within the creak of the moving metal a little voice saying, "Ha-ha, okay, okay..."

But now the bed is disassembled and ready to be given to the first person who asks for it (I offered it up to a bunch of people), and Eric went out and made room in the garage for the changing table, just in case we're able to convince the furniture people to put it there for us. I don't think it will be in there long - hopefully we'll be able to find a buyer soon - but maybe I'll cover it with plastic so nothing gets damaged by weather.

I'm still feeling tense, though. Isn't that just the way things go? It only takes a few unexpected annoyances to have you all narrow-eyed, staring suspiciously at everything around you and just waiting for the next calamity.

Eric and Sam are both bugging me to let them give me the gifts already that they bought for me last night. With Sam, that's predictable, and I suppose it is for Eric, too. He's a big kid about things like this, and it's charming, but slightly aggravating for a person like me, who loves anticipation and surprise way too much to ever peek at her presents before Christmas morning. "No, guys! Not yet!" It's funny how much more motivated they are to give than they are to even know what they're receiving themselves.

Gabe, of course, is too young to shop for people or to give them gifts, but he seems to be starting to understand that something Really Big is happening. I told him that he's getting a "big boy bed" for Christmas, and he translated that into "bo-bo bed" while we were out shopping for the bedding today. He squealed at the quilts and comforters, and he wound up falling for a transportation-themed quilt, covered with trucks, trains, and airplanes. When I opened it at home, he grabbed it with both hands and demanded, "Put on bed! Put bed!" I don't know what bed he wanted to put it on, considering that he's maybe ever had one nap in the toddler bed we got a while back from Freecycle. He probably wanted it on my bed, actually.

Sam flipped when he saw Gabe's nearly-empty room. "Is it time for the bunk beds?!" he squealed. He'll be beside himself when he gets home from school tomorrow and sees them set up and ready.

Before then:

• Get Sam's comforter to the laundromat to be washed
• Get a tap light for beside his bunk
• Clear out the changing table
• Make sure I have either cash or a blank check or two to pay the furniture delivery folks

Can do.

Well, I'm still tense after sitting here and typing for a while; Sam and Gabe are full of energy, bouncing and chasing little balls all over the place while squealing and...barking? Oh, who knows? Anyway, my shoulders are completely knotted, and I'm barely restraining myself from snapping, so I think I need to go slip into my pajamas, make myself a cup of hot cocoa, and breath deeply for a while.

Poll for December 19th!
How do you take your cocoa?	No, thanks. Plain and simple, just hot chocolate. Gourmet flavored! Mini marshmallows *Big* marshmallows! With cookies! Some other way
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