We need Quiet Time.

Well, I painted Marley's nails tonight.  She told me that it tickled and felt cold, which is exactly how I remember it.  I don't paint my fingernails, and I keep them short.  I just feel like that's how they're supposed to look.  Long, deep red fingernails are strange to me.  (But I like one or two pedicures a summer: pale blue or bright yellow toenails are fun.  And I am bizarre.)  Anyhow, in less than two minutes, of course Marley's pale, glittery, pink polish was smudged.  Less than an hour after that, she fell asleep on the couch while eating a bowl of yogurt.  The poor thing was exhausted after a long day of preschool, entertaining my mother and two other women with Alzheimer's at an adult social day services center, racing around at lacrosse practice, and some top-notch big sister-ing.

We've all felt exhausted for the past few weeks.  (Except for Rudy, who continues to be delighted by her surroundings almost every waking moment.  I guess, actually, that her frequent naps help with that.)  It's the end of the term and Todd's grading piles of mediocre and lousy research papers.  I'm six weeks into my SAT prep course, three weeks into lacrosse season, and tutoring a small deluge of high school students who suddenly need help before: a. their ACT testing date; b. their SAT testing date, or c. the day their teachers average their grades for the year.  It feels like Todd and I have been handing Toot and Bean jobs back and forth like batons all spring.

I am ready to pass out after some mindless television, and should be witty enough to relate an anecdote tomorrow, but I wanted to post in the meantime because ridiculous things still go on here.  For example, sometimes in the morning when I get to Rudy's room, I find that Bean is in the crib, too, and that she's actually taken Rudy's sleep sack off and then squeezed into it herself.  One morning they were lying side by side, staring up at the mobile together.  Below, you will see Marley in the stretched out sack giving her best "Step off!" face.  Don't mess with that kid.