Last night, I shot out of bed from a deep, deep sleep after 2am.  I don’t know if I dreamed it, or if there was some sound outside, but I thought the cat was choking to death.  I literally went from sound asleep to staring over the cat in her chair in the living room convincing myself she was okay.  She was asjusting to the light and just stretched her paws and yawned. She was fine, and I went back to bed.

It was so … weird, though. Just BOOM! AWAKE! OHMYGODTHECAT!  I tripped over my bedside wastebasket, kicked it into the hallway and knocked it over, and waited til morning to pick it up.  I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed again. Just. WEIRD. I’m a sound, sound sleeper — I almost wonder what I heard, or if it was a dream, or what. Anyway.

Went to the SILs for a belated grad party for the Good Niece.  And just, oh my god. It’s so hard. I cannot force myself to laugh at people who think it’s funny to just use random advertising jokes as conversation.

"So, you guys going to Vegas?"
"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, HAHAHAHAHA"
Me:silently biting my tongue.

Or, really? Honestly? The "Can you hear me now?" ‘joke’ is over. It never began for me, but for the general populace? It is O.VER. So please don’t use it in conversation.

The grandnephews and pseudograndniece were there, and that’s its own version of fingernails-digging-into-palms.  Honestly, the only thing that really makes me seethe about Bad Niece’s son is his damn name, which I just choose not to use. The others, though, ferfucksake, feed your kid something other than sugar.  We left and I told Dave that if he gives our kids anything that is the same color as my shirt (a bright turquoise) before they are in middle school, I will leave him. Okay, that’s extreme. But the 3yo, I have never, ever, ever seen her drink anything other than ‘bug juice/koolaid’ or regular Coke. Ever. Never seen water or milk near that child. Drives me batshit.  That, and some cheesecake, and she was good to go and just being an unrestrained 3. It’s not that I expect a 3 year old to behave like a robot, not at ALL. But even her grandmother was saying to my nephew, "would you PAY ATTENTION to her?"  My nephew brings the kids, sits on the couch in his (dirty, usually) jeans and grunts at people, it seems. So frustrating.  The baby crawls over to him, tries to pull up, does that whole "dad, pick me up!" arm/look thing, and he doesn’t even look DOWN. And my MIL is narrating "Oh, pick me up Daddy, pick me up!" and he doesn’t even LOOK. *Shudder*

Frustrating as hell, sooooo frustrating. Oh, and also "dontchoo wanna hear the pitta-patta of little feet?" question, where Dave and I just smile through clenched teeth and say "not really," because THOSE are not the feet I want to hear. Thank GOD we only see them maybe 4x a year, despite the fact that they live in town, but anymore would drive me nuts. And worse than being there without kids will be being there WITH kids, because lord knows, they’ll have lots to say about our parenting. Sigh.

You know, if we get to be parents.