I still don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up, but I'm less pathetic and catastrophic and miserable today. That's probably a good thing, no?

My children are both asleep. Being young and innocent, they don't realize how lucky they are to be alive right now. At the very least, I was considering shipping them both off to some random address with a false return address. Emily spent the night at her friend Diana's, which I'm sure was a blast for everyone, though you'd never know it by all the whining and griping about Diana's new pirate ship toy and she was greedy and I was the guest and I should have been able to choose what to do but she wanted pirates on it and I wanted horses on it and she wouldn't let me pick what we did..... whatever, Emily. I think we've all established that you're in the running for World's Bossiest Child, and until you receive some sort of monetary compensation for it I'm going to continue to find it exasperating.

The child-rearing books all tell me to view this in a positive light - look at how assertive she is! Look at how smart! How confident! How bright! Sure. *YOU* send her to bed after the 435th power struggle over precisely where on the floor her (really hideously patterned but darn well-made) bean bag can be, and you tell me how positive and upbeat you feel.

Anyway. So, on top of being her normal, strong-willed self, she was overtired and Extra Bossy, because Diana is a quieter soul than Emily, so Emily just got 24 hours of Sheer Bossy Power.

And then there's Jacob, who missed his Mimi so much that when we saw her - we met in a mall for the handoff of prisoners - he took off down this long hallway to give her a huge hug and generally break my heart for the day. He was also tired, because apparently two 45-minute naps in the car does not a 90-minute nap make, so he was just tired enough to be noodgy and clumsy without being tired enough to actually sleep any more.

The two of them spent the evening bonking off each other, bonking each other off floors and walls, bonking themselves off floors and walls, and so on. Lots of boo-boos and time-outs. (Ugh, could I possibly sound like more of a parent??)

But they made it to 7:30 and I did NOT give in to the urge to bonk their little heads off each other until they were both quiet.